The Hot Trend: Spiritual Leisure
Ever heard of Spirituality in India? I bet 95% of us already know a fair deal about it or would claim to know. If you don’t have an opinion on Spirituality then you probably haven’t lived in India long enough. Indians are globally acknowledged to be “Spiritual”; faith and devotion are visible in every aspect of life here. However we ourselves perceive that spirituality is meant for Sadhus/Saints who are supposed to stay in Himalayas and should not enjoy the “material” life. Till recently there was a concept of compartmentalization – material life and spiritual life as being separate with no overlap. But, there has been a definite shift off late in this regard. With heightened competition professionally and in education, more demanding personal lives and more stressful lifestyles people feel the need for a more rejuvenating and long lasting break with elements of spirituality embedded aka “Spiritual Leisure”.
I remember from the years I had spent abroad; we needed an additional day to recover from the hectic and frantic schedules during a vacation long weekend. A four day weekend would effectively get converted to a 5-6 days with an additional day for recovery. However the evolution of vacationing in the last few years has been quite noticeable not just abroad but also in India - from being an action packed schedule where the idea was to see as many places in one go to a more relaxed and focused vacation. People are now ensuring that their holiday destination is such that the time spent in traveling by road/air is significantly less while the quality time spent on actual leisure is more. Some prime examples of such trips include*:
- Amrtisar - Golden temple pilgrimage can be clubbed with Wagah Border/Jaliawala Bagh
- Tour of Puri temples can be clubbed with a wild-life parks, Sulphur Springs of Bhuwaneshwar
- River Rafting in Rishikesh can be clubbed with Scenic sightseeing in Dehradun, Mussorie and with Ganges dip in Haridwar and Rishikesh
As you would notice that these places are geographically close to each other and cover more than one aspect for a vacationer and that makes it even more tempting - the historical significance of a Wagah border along with the spiritual aspect of Golden Temple OR the scenic beauty of Dehradun/Mussorie with the Ganges dip in Haridwar. Spiritual leisure is here to stay; so don’t be left out, experience it for yourself by planning such a trip for you and your family.
All the best for your upcoming vacation!
Swapnil
* The list is not limited to the places mentioned below. You can get as creative as you want.
Tags: leisure, religious trips, Spirituality, Travel, vacation
January 29th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Swapnil,
Nice article and very true.
Cramming the number of places in a single trip just to click photos and taking videos has become the primary purpose rather deliverable of any holiday plan. Sometime people see the places they visited only in photos and Videos and completely miss the real beauty when they were there.
While real holiday is something that doesn’t give you a tension but relief. Infact majority of people don’t really go on vacation, they just rush toward something. It’s just like grabbing the most in limited time. That’s why they feel tired once the trip is over.
I still remember my trip to Haridwar and Rishikesh with gabs where we have taken only 10-15 photos in 2 days but enjoyed a lot while now, even if we go for one day trip, the count of photos is more than 300+ and the pressure of capturing the scenes is such that you can’t really enjoy.
People need to understand what they are going to achieve in Holiday. Usually they want break from work but eventually end up with additional stress. If they really follow what you referred they can enjoy the holiday. It’s really doesn’t matter which part of geography they are.
You know, holidays are just another way to independence from office work, tension, BAU activities etc hence investment of time, money and efforts in any holiday plan must be properly thought of. Rather than following the crowd we should follow our instinct.
Happy Holiday
January 31st, 2009 at 12:18 am
Very well said. I will definately plan some vacation to places you have mentioned.
February 10th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Real eye opener blog ,actualy highlights the perceptions of the people who goes places with less optins in hand ….
there are so many places where one can club with the visit of spiritual places , agin in will vary from the group , the preception , time & mood at the same time …
Jaipur / udaipur — can be clubbed with Balaji ( renowned place to visit )
Kedarnath / badrinath itself is a Holy spiritual place which can be clubbed Devprayag & Gaumukh & many other which comes in way …
The idea is to go with Plan /schedule & the places to visit ,that will dfntly save your time while visiting & you can use that quality time visiting some more places ….
Secondly one should always grasp the history and knowldge from the places visited which u can actually store /kept in your knowldge database as well when u discuss with somebody or guide …