There are journeys planned on paper, and then there are journeys written by Grace. The Rajkot Residential Retreat with Sri Guru was unmistakably the latter.
For those of us who live in sync with Sri Guru’s path, a spiritual retreat is unlike any other gathering. It is not simply a series of sessions, but an immersion – a rare few days where the noise of ordinary life falls away and the heart is given full permission to turn toward what it has always been seeking. To live in the aura of Sri Guru, to let her presence recalibrate something deep within, to return home not just rested but renewed – this is what a spiritual retreat offers. And so, when the Rajkot Retreat was announced, the response across our fellow Sanghamitras was immediate and wholehearted: gratitude, excitement, and an eager readiness of hearts that already knew something remarkable awaited them.
What they perhaps did not anticipate was that God had already decided to make this retreat a little more interesting than usual.
The timing and venue of the retreat was by no means random. Rajkot, after all, is not merely a city on the map of Gujarat. It is the soil that received Shrimad Rajchandraji’s final breath, the ground still quietly vibrating with the echo of His presence. And April 2026 marks 125 years since His Deh Vilay. To honour this sacred occasion, saints and seekers of several spiritual organisations from across India, including SRM, were invited by Shrimad Rajchandra Gyan Mandir Trust for a four-day grand celebration at Shastri Maidan, Rajkot: the Param Krupaludev Param Prayaan Parva.
The schedule of the retreat had to be altered at the last minute, due to an unforeseen overlap with the daily evening programmes at the Prayaan Parva. For many of us, this news arrived with a subtle pang. Lesser time with Sri Guru? At a retreat? And yet, those of us who have walked with her long enough know this very well – Sri Guru’s apparent withdrawals have a way of deepening the very thing they seem to interrupt. She gladly committed extra hours from her own schedule to ensure not a minute with her dear seekers was lost. In fact, even the hours of her physical absence became an invitation from her presence in our hearts: to turn inward, to tend the inner flame, to discover that longing itself is a form of connection.
The Bhakti team, attuned to the spirit of the moment, chose their opening offering wisely. As hearts settled into the retreat’s first gathering, the hall filled with the words of a well-known composition – “Lagan Tumse Laga Baithe, Jo Hoga Dekha Jaayega..!“ (For we have surrendered it all to You; now whatever comes, we shall meet it together..!). It felt less like melodious verses than a collective resolution. And with that resolution quietly held in our hearts, we welcomed Sri Guru in the retreat.
Right from the first day of the retreat, Sri Guru drew a powerful distinction between the historical aspect of Shrimadji’s life and the eternal aspect of His presence. His extraordinary life history and spiritual legacy certainly deserve to be honoured. But Sri Guru firmly pointed beyond them – to the formless, timeless dimension of Shrimadji’s Yogbal that cannot be commemorated in any procession, but can only be accessed by a heart that is willing to surrender and turn inward.
The central theme for the retreat was based on Raj Granth Vachnamrut 217 – a letter drenched in Divine Love from the first word to the last, written by Shrimadji to His Hriday Sakha, Shri Saubhag Bhai. Drawing from the Vachnamrut’s phrase Param Sneh (Highest Love), Sri Guru made us recall the journey of becoming Love, extending its six foundational stages to 18 simpler and more detailed steps: each of the six stages (Awakening, Curiosity, Prayer, Flow State, Returning, Sacred Union) coupled with their own six forms of Prayaas and Prasad (Self-effort and Grace). One can only imagine the height of our wonder when Sri Guru explained that these 18 steps are as absolute and all-encompassing as the wisdom of all the 18 Puranas! It was a revelation that left us in awe – how the entire expanse of the Puranas, from the first spark of awakening to the final plunge into Sacred Union, could be summed up in just 18 phrases!
Each morning of the retreat began the same way, and yet each morning felt entirely new. The day opened with Dev Vandan, followed by a YogaYog session guided by Anu Prabhu, helping us break the accumulated Tamas, and prepare our body, mind and Prana for a live meditation session with Sri Guru.
Between Sri Guru’s sessions, the days were rich and varied. There was plenty of ‘me-time’ for collective viewing of Sri Guru’s 2019 Satsang on Shrimadji’s Antim Updesh, answering reflective questions based on Vachnamrut 217, interactive sessions, a spirited quiz on Shrimadji’s life and compositions, meditative practices woven around breath and awareness, and more. Each of these were designed with care to keep us engaged, connected, and in Sri Guru’s Smaran during the hours of her absence; so that each time our Sadguru returned from the ceremonial celebrations of the Param Prayaan Parva, she was received by hearts that had been in intense longing all day long. And that longing, when finally met with her presence, transformed each return into something quietly extraordinary.
The evening of 5th April was a Samagam that none present are likely to forget.
Returning a bit early from the day’s proceedings at Shastri Maidan, Sri Guru arrived unexpectedly at the Satsang Hall to an applause that echoed the full weight of our longing. Receiving Sri Guru’s signal, the Bhakti Team began with the much-adored ‘Hari Smaran’ chants. And something changed instantly. The air became different. Hearts that had been quietly waiting all day found themselves suddenly, completely, open. And then, at a certain point toward the end of the chanting, Sri Guru made a quiet gesture. She asked the Bhakti Team to let the words go. To carry only the melody forward.
Even though Sri Guru’s arrival was unplanned, what followed was certainly pre-planned by the Divine, as even the best of human-planned events would do well to deliver even a fraction of the experience. There wasn’t a need for much words, as a heavenly silence descended to do all the talking. The experience is difficult to describe in a report, because a report deals in events, but this was something else entirely. The melody without words became a current. The current became a pull. The pull became something that had no name but could be felt near and around the Anahat. Longing, love, peace, dissolution – all of it present simultaneously, and yet none of it demanding attention. Just the melody, just the silence, just the presence.
The next afternoon, Sri Guru offered something even rarer – a direct and mystical revelation of the inner mechanics of what had happened the day before. She traced the arc: how a chant begins with words, then moves into thought, then descends into the heart as Vedan. And then, finally, the words dissolve, the melody dissolves, and what remains is a silence that does not feel like the end of something but like the beginning of an entirely different kind of listening. A silence that, far from being empty, intensifies the longing, deepens the connection, and draws the heart into a quality of union that no external circumstance can manufacture!
To speak of it is almost to diminish it. And yet, there it was, offered openly, in the middle of an April afternoon in Rajkot, to a hall full of seekers sitting very still with grateful eyes, some with tears rolling down their faces.
On the opening day of the Param Prayaan Parva, Sri Guru delivered the inaugural address, centered on a single, radiant phrase of Shrimadji: “Satpurushon Ka Yogbal Jagat Ka Kalyan Kare!” (May the Grace of Enlightened Beings uplift the world!) Her eyes sparkled like they only can when someone speaks about the one they truly love. Beautiful metaphors dripped from her words like nectar from a flower, comparing a Satpurush to an empty flute playing the Divine melody, and their Yogbal to a lamp that illuminates anything that comes in front of it. She spoke of what it truly means to celebrate a Param Prayaan Parva – not just a worldly departure, but a mystical transition from the visible to the ever-present, from the mortal to the immortal, into a realm where dissolution becomes expansion.
In the subsequent days, Sri Guru, along with the SRM bees pulled by her radiance, attended multiple events organised by the broader Shrimad community. This included devotional presentations of Shrimadji’s life and His exalted state by Shree Raj Saubhag Ashram Sayla and Shrimad Rajchandra Mission Dharampur.
On the third day, the community gathered for the grand Shobhayatra and Sthapana celebrations which began from the Shastri Maidan in Rajkot. The atmosphere was suffused with joyous devotion, as Sri Guru joined the saints from across the Shrimad community to honor His Presence through a ceremonial Pratishtha at the renowned Samadhi Mandir.
Amidst the pomp and glare of the celebrations, Sri Guru’s message stayed consistent: History can record a life. But only Yogbal can transmit its essence across generations through a living Sadguru. With this, Sri Guru elevated the entire perspective of Shrimadji’s Param Prayaan Parva, from a commemoration of His life events, into a celebration where His Yogbal can be felt intensely.
The Rajkot Retreat with Sri Guru has changed us, in ways that genuine experience always changes a person. Something has shifted within, and it has left a mark.
It did not escape us that the name of this city carries its own quiet poetry. Indeed, Rajkot has always been more than a geographic location for everyone connected with Param Krupalu Dev. Coming here in the 125th year of His Prayaan with a Living Master firmly reinforced within us that Yogbal does not diminish. It deepens across time. Just like every atom in existence still carries within it the memory of the Big Bang, our hearts still carry the reverberation of Shrimadji’s presence in the same way. His Yogbal did not end in Rajkot in April 1901. Like the echoes of the Big Bang, it continues to expand across time – awakened and amplified through a Pratyaksh Sadguru’s luminous path and numinous presence.
“सत्पुरुषों का योगबल जगत का कल्याण करे!”
We have send code on +91 9876543210. Change Number
We have send code on +91 9876543210. Change Number
Already have an account? Log In
