After seven weeks on retreat, I’m ready to re-engage with the world. Usually I have mixed feelings leaving retreat, wanting to stay. But this time it’s different.
I had expected to feel spacey re-entering the world, but there’s none of that. My teacher’s instruction to balance concentration and insight practice proved remarkably effective. Earlier in the retreat I had leaned toward concentration, but in the last week there was a clear, deliberate return to balance. During the final days I turned to Dhammapada memorization. Verses that once resisted memory suddenly became sticky; by the end, fifty were committed to memory.
The body in transition
Before traveling back to the U.S., I spoke to my pineal gland — a very cool trick from my Hindu teacher — asking it to work with me through the time change: a little more melatonin at 3 a.m., please. There was almost no jet lag returning to the U.K. The effectiveness of this still amazes me.
Next came tending to the body: an appointment with the spinal surgeon to investigate back pain, another with a knee specialist to understand the knee stiffness that worsened over the long retreat. After MRIs, X-rays, and follow-ups, I’m relieved, if disappointed, to learn the back will be fine if I refrain from yoga. And concerned to hear that sitting cross-legged has been damaging my knees.
The message is clear: stop it. Stop the yoga. Stop the floor-sitting. My heart sinks with each clear instruction. Apart from the back injury, my body thrived on yoga; the floor-sitting nourished kriya practice. Yes, I can sit on a chair, but it’s just not the same. This is dukkha — getting what I don’t want. My task is to accept it, work with it, and not drown in the dukkha.
Reconnection and feedback
It’s also a time for reconnection with friends, sanghas, and language classes after a five-month absence. With the clarity of recent practice, it’s easy to see which ones truly support the path and which ones no longer do. I don’t return to all of them. It’s a kind of pruning, an intentional letting-go in service of what is actively growing in nourishing ways.
In preparation for co-teaching a long retreat in June, I begin a nine-week course that covers the same material. It’s with a close-knit group of long-time friends and students — the line has blurred over the years. They’re wonderfully supportive and fully engaged. Teaching becomes a joy, and they comment that they can see that.
What surprises me most is how often people say they’re inspired by what I’m doing. One friend said he was proud of me, a phrase no-one has ever spoken to me before. It’s as touching as it is unexpected. In these moments I stop, like a deer trying to tune into an unexpected sound, trying to feel into it, to understand it. I can’t. Not yet.
When embarking upon this journey, it felt internal. I never imagined it would impact anyone else, beyond perhaps prompting concern over the apparent craziness of giving up one’s home. Yet the message keeps coming. Clear and consistent. There’s something significant to understand here.
Pulled across the ocean
My heart feels light knowing I’ll soon see my Hindu teacher again, this time at his center in Texas, for a ten-day Bhagavad Gītā retreat. I’d been vaguely interested in visiting that center, but thought it would be years before it happened. When the Gītā retreat was announced, though, there was a clear leap of the heart and an inner knowing: This is for me. This is worth traveling for.
It’s more than a little surprising, since for years I’ve limited flying out of concern for the climate. And now I find myself crossing the world, following this teacher. It’s a conscious choice, trusting that the benefit to spiritual growth makes it worthwhile. After years of feeling stuck, things are suddenly in flow. It feels right to go with that flow and nourish what’s opening, even as a small inner voice says, I can’t believe I’m buying another plane ticket.
Still, I cannot but go, to soak in the teachings and reconnect with the satsanghis. My heart and mind are light and bright as I board the plane to Dallas. The travel seems incidental; what’s truly moving is inward, the heart’s connections and thirst for spiritual growth pulling me across the ocean again.
29 April 2025 — Edinburgh, Scotland
Stops since the last entry: Barre, MA → Zurich → Dunfermline → East Kilbride → Faringdon → Cupar → Edinburgh