Winter Retreat in Dallas, New Year 2019
The Dallas Margiis welcomed Margiis and Acaryas from all over New York Sector for a Winter Retreat, held at a retreat center in Dallas from the morning of December 30, 2018, to late afternoon on January 1, 2019. The retreat was a grand success with attendance of more than fifty Margiis and nine Dadas and Didis. The preparations had been underway for half a year with weekly meetings of the retreat committee to finalize all details of the retreat.
Everyone enjoyed the blissful vibrations of the Kiirtana and meditation, excellent retreat facilities at the Ascend retreat center in Dallas, and good food and family feeling amongst the participants. The retreat center had a kitchen crew but allowed our Margiis to help with the food preparation so we could enjoy food prepared by our Margiis with love, spiritual ideation, and skill in preparing tasty Indian dishes.
The program was packed with interesting activities. We had daily Akhanda Kiirtana, and on December 31, we had devotional class by Acarya Diiptimanananda Avadhuta, class on the current socio-economic developments by Professor Ravi Batra, and a RAWA workshop by Avadhutika Ananda Kalyanmitra Acarya where the participants split into groups and prepared a dance, singing, and acting performance based on the Prabhata Samgiita devotional songs.
In the class by Ravi Batra, he forecasted that the year 2019 would be a turbulent year in the social and economic fields and that the coming events of the year 2019 would prepare for a great social change where PROUT would be established. He emphasized, that, to prepare for future changes, we would need to make ourselves strong morally and spiritually by ardent spiritual practice, and adherence to the Sixteen Points.
On the evening of December 31, everyone joined the Akhanda Kiirtana into the New Year, followed by meditation, Guru Puja and Baba video. On January 1, 2019 morning after Dharma Cakra, we read the Ananda Vanii in many languages. It was interesting to see how the participants in the retreat come from a different cultural and linguistic background, speaking more than ten languages.
At the end of the seminar, we had Akhanda Kiirtana followed by a closing ceremony and lunch. Everyone expressed their joy in attending the retreat and the Margiis expressed their commitment to Baba’s work and their spiritual practices in the coming year.
