Spiritual Travel Is Not A New Concept

Traveling for many is a way of unwinding and recharging their batteries but often at the end of one’s travel there is still a feeling of not feeling satisfied which is when it pays to consider spiritual travel as a means of finding fulfillment. Sometimes, all the Gothic cathedrals in the world and all the lovely Madonna portraits are not enough to lift up your spirits and so it pays to consider traveling to a place where you can find spiritual awakening.

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.

Nowadays, there are many places that you can visit if you want some spiritual satisfaction and some of these places are vastly different to the Vatican and to Yucatan and even to Egypt. There are for example numerous monasteries that have been erected by Buddhists which though mainly located in Asia are also found in the US and also in Europe.

To get the true Buddhist spiritual experience you will want to choose Bodhgaya as your destination. This is a place that is part of the Indian state of Bihar and it is here that Lord Buddha sat under a Bodhi tree and finally became enlightened about the meaning of life. This part of the world where Lord Buddha became enlightened has become the home of a giant complex called the Mahabodhi Temple.

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.

The best way to fly into Bodhgaya is to take a flight from Kolkata to Gaya airport. However, if you want to fly in from the rest of India you will need to deplane at Patna airport that is almost a hundred kilometers away from there. A train journey is the more relaxed and cheaper mode of transport and all it requires is to get off at Gaya from where Bodhgaya is not far away.

If you are traveling from other parts of India then there is the main airport at Patna the state capital of Bihar and this airport is about eighty-seven miles distant from Bodhgaya. Of course, if you don’t mind a train journey then it is certainly more convenient to use this mode of transportation that is cheap and which will help you reach Gaya very easily.

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, Howie’s company, puts together amazing spiritual travel events. They specialize in a spiritual journey for gay men.