I really love being at spiritual
retreat centers. Over the last few years, they have been a respite
from day-to-day preoccupations and high-speed pace. More importantly, they have
provided a chance to more honestly look at myself and to consider the
big questions of life. I always seem to leave with new perspective
and refreshed intention. Plus, they seem to somehow always be in the
most beautiful places, offer the most delicious and wholesome food,
and provide opportunities to talk (or at least be in silent presence
with) really interesting people. So back last year when Miral and I
realized that we needed to find something to do for a few months
after our time in South America so that we didn't arrive in Africa
smack in the middle of monsoon season, the idea of volunteering at a
retreat center quickly came to mind. We both agreed that it would
need to be at a center where both a Christian and a Jewish-Buddhist
would feel comfortable and be nourished. Through a bit of a maze of
coincidences and recommendations, we found our way to the website for
Schweibenalp (pronounced “Shv-eye-bin-alp”) Center for Unity. The
Center was described as a spiritual home honoring all of the major
religious traditions. After reading the details, we knew we had found
the kind of place we wanted to be. We have been working as volunteers
here now for almost two months.
True to form, the location of the
Center in the Swiss Alps (just outside of Brienz; not far from
Interlaken) is one of beauty that can't be described in words. The
best you can do is try to find words for the energy you feel at the
place; to me, the feeling in these mountains is “dignified” and
Miral experiences it as “sweet.” Better than words, though, are
images – so check out the photos in our Schweibenalp gallery and
you will see what I mean. (You hopefully know this already, but
photos from our entire trip are presented in galleries in the
right-hand margin of the main page of our website.) You will see why
you can't be here without having your heart stirred.
For me, a connection with this land and
this Center is deepened with an appreciation of its history.
According to the Schweibenalp website, archeologists have found
evidence that Druids were among the earlier human inhabitants of the
land. They experienced power in the stones, trees, and caves of the
area. The peoples of the area were converted to Christianity in the
6th and 7th centuries, and worship of the land
was replaced by a large local monastery. Also, the famous Christian
pilgrimage route, the Way of St. James, passes right through the land
on which Schweibenalp sits. The land became a health resort for
people suffering from tuberculosis at the turn of the 19th
century and then was turned into an orphanage after World War II. By
the late 1970s, though, the land was all but abandoned.
In 1981, Sundar Robert Dreyfus (who
everyone here simply calls “Sundar”) was commissioned by his Hindu
guru, Sri Haidakhan Babaji, to develop an ashram (traditionally, a
spiritual community bound by the teachings of a Hindu master) in
Switzerland. After the land was acquired for that purpose in 1982, a
small community of people came to “live in truth, simplicity, love,
unity, and peace.” They engaged in temple service, voluntary work,
and meditation. They built a place to perform traditional fire puja
ceremonies (a purification ritual practiced within certain esoteric
types of Hinduism and Buddhism) and did so on a daily basis for over
twenty years. From the beginning, services and rituals of various
Western and Eastern religions were also performed at the Center, and
it attracted seekers and believers of many traditions. The mission of
the Center of Unity was to provide a home for a “religion of the
heart” formed by the connection between traditional religions and
other forms of spirituality.
The
Center is currently undergoing major physical changes. There has been
renovation occurring within the main guest house (where we have been
living) through the entirety of our visit, including the addition of
a new dining room, a new reception area, a new bookstore, updating of
bathrooms and windows, and replacing the roof. Other changes, like
adding a flow of glacial water through the property and eventually
building the largest seminar space in Switzerland are planned. The
main guest house used to offer separate meditation/prayer rooms for
each of the major religious traditions – so that all visitors could
practice as they were comfortable – but these have now been moved
and combined into a single, less-central temple. A groundskeeper
workshop is being reformulated into a central prayer/meditation space
that will be specific to no single religious tradition with the
intention that it will feel welcoming to all.
The improvement of the
facilities is part of an effort to
cultivate a more constant flow of weekend
and extended seminars and workshops. The other changes reflect a
rebirth in the spiritual view of the Center of Unity. It is in the
process of shifting its emphasis from spiritual transformation
through traditional religious rituals (like
daily fire puja ceremonies) and toward transformation based on direct
experience of the individual within community (like engaging everyday
tasks and relationships as an opportunity for spiritual growth).
There are about a dozen people now holding
paid positions on the Center staff (kitchen; housekeeping; grounds;
office/reception) and living together full-time, forming a
spiritually intentional community. As they say, “...we are now
exercising ourselves in the art of communal life that includes
members and guests, and using techniques, such as silence,
contemplation, thankfulness, bonding, clearing, creativity of
playing, singing, dancing, the arts, and knowledge teaching, in order
to integrate these practices into our daily routine.” The members
are each working toward presenting seminars about topics of their own
interest, and also planning to teach others what they learn from the
journey of their community. And, so, the intention is that the Center
will continue to be a place for people to “develop their
hearts and minds in order to integrate this development into their
everyday lives.”
I have felt all of these changes in
vision and in physical manifestation strongly in the form of a
somewhat chaotic and sometimes contradictory energy. In addition to
the usual commotion and goal-orientation of a construction site, it
seems that there is an ongoing process of clarifying the vision,
finding the right practical ways of working toward it, and finding
the right balance between being being open to new possibilities
without losing all semblance of a form. For example, there is no
single communal vocabulary in this fledgling enlightened society,
like the ones people often rigidly adhere to when they are in a
community based on a single religion or set of teachings. This I
love. But it creates challenges in communication and perceived
intentions. Still, these challenges seem to me to be much more like
life in the diverse real world than when communities are bound
tightly by a single shared way. This new Center is very much a work
in early progress – with all of the groundlessness and, also,
creative energy, that goes along with that. I think it is an
incredibly interesting and inspiring experiment, and I really hope to
find a way to track its development after we move on.
Within all of this transition and
groundlessness, the Center has provided me with great opportunity for
spiritual contemplation, personal exploration, and the development of
a strong connection to the land and its community. Our lives as
volunteers here are pretty straighforward and provide a lot of space.
Along with anywhere from two to four other volunteers, we each work
five days each week for seven hours each day in tasks like
housekeeping, kitchen help, and tending the grounds. The work is not
too easy as to be overly boring and not too hard as to be overly
taxing; it is the kind of work that is perfect for trying to maintain
mindfulness during the day. And the work is pretty easily left behind
at the end of the day, which makes for a pretty stress-less
existence. It has also been a great experience in doing this work, to
return to the role of a novice and the freshness of a Beginner's Mind
that goes along with that.
True to its renewed mission, the level
of ritual or formal spiritual practice at the Center is limited. Each
morning there is a gathering of the community for a brief
contemplative activity they call “bonding.” It could be a
meditation practice, a movement practice, a song, a poem, a playful
game; just some way to begin the day with a reminder that we are
living in community and to focus our intentions for the day. The only
other rituals are a weekly evening gathering to sing together and,
one or two times each week, a traditional Hindu fire puja is still
performed by Sundar for anyone wishing to attend. Different religious
holidays, special events, and impromptu gatherings also happen (I
plan to share some of these in my next post!!). We also have a weekly
Volunteers Meeting, which provides time to discuss deeper aspects of
our experience in the community. (The full-time staff also
participate in many weekly meetings like this, but we are not a part
of those meetings.)We have sometimes been invited to participate in
some of the rituals held by groups holding workshops at the Center.
And the spaciousness of daily life here has allowed me time to
maintain my personal ritual of formal meditation practice each
morning.
There is no emphasis on
silence at this Center. But the fact that I do not speak German (well,
except for the handful of Yiddish words I grew up with that are great
to hear being used in a living language! Who knew people really say
“shmutz,” and “schlep” and “shvitz?”) has left me on the periphery of many of the day-to-day conversations. With a mind that
is not as stirred up as usual by typical social issues and pressures,
I have had a two-month experience that is a bit like attending
retreats that enforce silence. In other words, it has given me the
chance to better notice and more deeply experience what is happening
each day. There is simply nothing like pausing from cutting firewood
and looking out to the mountains surrounding this Center on a sunny
day when my mind is slow enough to be no place but there. When I am
in situations like this, I also see more clearly the unique struggles
of everyone around me and, even more so, myself. So much impatience,
anger, sadness, self-protection. But then I also see so much
undeniable beauty being constantly expressed by people – mostly in
simple little acts, like making a homemade recipe of herbal tea for
someone with a cough. It's such a strange paradox to be confronted
with so much that needs to be improved while also feeling how
precious and stunning this life already is.
The language barrier has certainly
sometimes caused communication challenges and the discomfort of
feeling excluded. Still, most of the people here do speak at least
some English and some are completely fluent. They have, to a person,
been so generous and gracious in offering translations at meetings
and extending themselves to talk in English with us. So, I have felt
like a full participant in the communal work that is happening here
and I feel really thankful for that. We have especially gotten close
with our co-volunteers. And beyond any words, there has been
communication and a connection forged at a heart level. Anyone who
has sat a silent retreat knows the bond that can happen with people
you've never even spoken to. So it is not surprising to me that
despite the language challenges, I feel really connected to some of
the incredibly sweet and beautiful people we have lived with these
last two months.
Which reminds me. There is another
ritual I forgot to mention. As each person leaves Schweibenalp, from
guests to volunteers to staff, the community gathers together, each
person facing directly the person who is leaving and looking directly
into their eyes, and they sing, three times, a beautiful Irish
blessing:
May the road rise with you
May the wind be always at your back
May the rain fall always on your
fields
And till we meet again
May God hold you
In the hollow of His/Her hands.
Whether sung to people who have been at
the Center for only a few days or for a few weeks, each time it feels
like an acknowledgment that for the time that person was at
Schweibenalp, they were a valued member of the community and that
their unique presence will be truly missed. The words have felt like
a perfect expression of what was in my heart as some people
have left. And in just a few days, Miral and I will be the ones standing
in front of this community, looking into the eyes of each of these
people who we have lived with these two months, feeling the
intensity of all of the daily struggles and all of the moments of
beauty, and then we will carry with us this experience as we leave
for Uganda, and the new struggles and new beauty we will find there.
