What Is Meant By Spiritual Travel
Traveling is a great way to find something to take your mind off everyday routines though sometimes you may come away feeling dissatisfied when you return home from your travels which is the main reason to consider the benefits of spiritual travel. Cathedrals and Madonna portraits can only provide a certain level of satisfaction and often you won’t feel spiritually awake and so it pays to consider traveling to be spiritually awake.
Spiritual travel is not just a catch phrase that you hear from the lips of a travel agent because in fact people have from the very earliest times been making pilgrimages. Religious travel is therefore not something that has just become popular. In fact, in the sixteenth century Jesuits from Spain made their way to far away Paraguay and to Brazil as well as to Argentina for the purpose of establishing missions to convert the native peoples of those regions.
In these modern times, traveling for spiritual reasons has become more popular and there are numerous options to choose from that include going to places other than Yucatan, the Vatican and also Egypt. The best way to lift up your spirits is to travel to places where the surroundings are idyllic and a good example is a Buddhist monastery which is mainly found in Asia though some are also located in Europe and in the United States.
For the real Buddhist spiritual travel experience you ought to consider making Bodhgaya (located in Bihar in India). This is the very place where the revered Lord Buddha sat and obtained enlightenment beneath a huge Bodhi tree. Today, this place has seen a huge Mahabodi Temple complex being constructed here and which is inhabited by Buddhist monks from every part of the world.
This place is exceptional as it provides utmost serenity and it is truly very peaceful. You will come across monks from every corner of the world who too sits beneath a gigantic carved statue of Lord Buddha and who read from the Holy Scriptures and indulge in serious contemplation.
Bodhgaya is home of many a Buddhist monastery each of which is maintained by Buddhists from different countries. If you are planning on flying here, there is an airport at Gaya that is about seven miles away from Bodhgaya and which sees a few flights arriving here from the not too distant metropolis of Kolkata.
For those who are planning to travel from the rest of India the closest airport is Patna which is also the capital of Bihar and which is 87 miles from the town of Bodhgaya. You can also choose to travel by train which will mean getting off at Gaya that is close to Bodhgaya and which means traveling at leisure and for considerably less cost.
There are few better places to find spiritual peace than Bodhgaya that has kept itself pure and untouched by the ravages of modern civilization. So, a visit to Bodhgaya will not only be very pleasant and productive; it will also be a very different and unique experience as well.
Howie Holben offers suggestions for spiritual journeys. Spirit Journeys hosts extraordinary spiritual travel tours and they have a spiritual journey for most everyone.