It has now been 2 and a half months since I came out of my longest silent retreat yet. 

I postponed writing this article because I wasn’t sure of where to start or what to say. How could I possibly convey the depth of my experience in an article?

Fortunately, Hridaya, the meditation centre I did the retreat with, recorded us when we shared with the community just a couple of days after we came out of silence, so I have a rather candid ‘capture’ of what I felt called to share shortly after. You can find the recording here.

A month after coming out of silence I also organised a zoom gathering as many friends were asking about my experience. You can find the recording here.

However, these are just snapshots and a lot more happened and many more insights were revealed during my time in silence, especially during the time of solitude. I still feel the echoes of the journey daily and I now feel inspired and ready to share in writing. Here goes my best attempt to talk about silence, once again.

I divided the article into sections:

• Preparing for silence and solitude
• The days before the retreat
• Structure
• Challenges
• Gifts & Insights
• Echoes
• Gratitude

Preparing for silence and solitude

This was a big part of the retreat that I hadn’t anticipated. The moment I signed up for the retreat it became something that was in my awareness and once I received the confirmation email it became even more present. It would sometimes come up as the thought “I can’t believe I’m going to do this!”, other times it was “I’m so grateful I’m going to do this” and many other thoughts of course. 

I wrote an article about this process which you can find here.

The days before the retreat

Since I live in Guatemala I decided to travel the more economic and environmentally responsible way by getting shuttles and buses rather than 2 short flights. 

My boyfriend came with me to Panajachel, the town across the Lake, from which a shuttle leaves once a week to San Cristobal, Mexico. We stayed in an Airbnb and woke up at 4am to wait for the shuttle that arrived at 5am on the dot. I was surprised to find myself sobbing when we had to say goodbye. I had decided to do this and I knew it meant saying goodbye, at least for a while, but the intensity of the sadness leaving him was overwhelming. 

A couple of hours passed as the sun rose and the landscape changed until we reached the Mexican border. My Mexican passport is expired so I was travelling with my French passport and felt a little nervous when a fellow traveller was refused entry into Mexico because his passport had been partly chewed by a dog. Fortunately the men at the border let me in despite not having a departure flight when I explained that I am French and Mexican in my thickest Mexican accent.  

Long story short, I stayed 2 nights in San Cristobal, took a 12 hour overnight bus and arrived in Mazunte a few days before the retreat was due to start, later than what was recommended by the school. 

A couple of days before the retreat started we were asked to attend a meeting where we’d meet our fellow retreat participants and be given additional information about the retreat. I was excited to meet the others and wondered who they would be. I found out the day before that a dear sister, the only person I knew who had signed up, decided not to participate and I was a little sad though I agreed that it was best not to go ahead if she wasn’t feeling it. 

I arrived early for the meeting and enjoyed seeing the others arrive. I felt intrigued and wanted to have long conversations with each one of them. Ask them what had brought them to sign up and many other things but I didn’t and when the door opened we all found our places quietly in the room. 

We all introduced ourselves briefly and shared our intention with the group. Following some guidelines shared by the coordinators we had to pull a paper from a bowl which said the name of the room we would be staying in for the 39 days of solitude and whether it had electricity, a dry toilet and manual shower heater. I prayed for simplicity and was so grateful to discover that my room didn’t have electricity and had both a dry toilet and the wood heated shower. This is also when we were informed that we’d have the option to sit an additional 10 days back in Mazunte when we came out of solitude should we want to. Hearing that I was so sure that I would have had enough silence after 49 days…

The day before the retreat I called my parents to say my goodbyes and the morning that the retreat started I called my boyfriend briefly before turning my phone off. Seeing his sleepy face on the screen warmed my heart but I tried to hold back the tears as we said goodbye once again, this time for the longest time we’d go without talking since we met 3 years ago.

Structure

To give you an idea of how the retreat took place I will share a little about the chronological order.

The Retreat started with the standard 10 day silent retreat guided by our beloved teacher Sahajananda in the Hridaya Centre in Mazunte, Mexico. During these 10 days most days look like this: 

7-9am Meditation

9am Breakfast

10-1pm Satsang + Hatha Yoga & Meditation

1-4pm break

4-6.30pm Meditation + self practice

7.15-9 sometimes 10pm Satsang + Meditation

This part of the Retreat was blissful. Having missed the 17 days with Sahajananda last summer due to an unexpected last minute flight cancellation I had been longing to sit in his loving presence and be guided by him.

On the 10th day ‘we’, myself and the other 13 participants of the 49 day silent retreat, were asked to pack our things and be ready to leave right after lunch, around 1.30pm. I felt excited and ready for the next part of the journey I had been dreaming about for months at this point.

We got in a van that drove us for 4 hours on probably one of the windiest rides of my life. Following the retreat guidelines we avoided eye contact but I could perceive smiles that matched my own on the lips of my fellow participants. The excitement was palpable as we set off for the mountains of San Jose del Pacifico, where the retreat centre we’d spend the 2nd part of the retreat is located. 

All we knew about our accommodation was the name and the details, but I had a feeling I would love my space, despite having been informed that I had the smallest of all.  And indeed I Loved my tiny home the moment I saw it and even more when I went in.

Structure in Solitude

Since there were no more Satsangs (spiritual lectures) in this part of the retreat, we were encouraged to adapt our schedule, though we could do what we wanted as no one would check on us. 

The advised schedule which I followed closely was:

7 – 9am Meditation

9 – 11am Hatha Yoga

11am Lunch

12pm – 3pm rest

3 – 6pm Meditation

6pm Dinner

7.30-9.30pm Meditation

Challenges

Try Solitude… Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

–Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Way of the Heart

I’m starting with the challenges not because the gifts and insights didn’t outweigh the trials but because it was surprisingly a lot harder than I had anticipated.

Writing this now makes me smile as I realise how naive and perhaps overly optimistic I was before the retreat. Especially since we had been provided with a collection of writings by mystics about solitude, including passages that spoke of how challenging it could be at times.

I had ‘only’ done 1×3, 1×10, 1×17 and most recently a 6 day silent retreat, over a period of 5 years; which may sound like a lot if you haven’t participated in a silent retreat, but to give you an idea, the friend who pulled out last minute told me she had sat 5 silent retreats (including 10 and 17 days) in just 1 year and a half. When she told me that before the retreat I thought, how bold of me to apply for the 49 days having only sat one 17 day retreat… but I reminded myself we are all different and I felt ready, or as ready as one can be. 

Well, I can now say that solitude is a completely different experience to a guided silent retreat. Just for the love of metaphors, it was a bit like going from wearing floaties in a pool where your feet touch the bottom, to being dropped in the middle of the ocean and discovering you no longer have floaties and no-one in sight haha!

The first 3 days of solitude were beautiful. Sahajananda had told us to ease into the new schedule so I didn’t stick to the 7-8 hours of recommended daily meditation but I went for walks in the forest and kept myself busy unpacking, making my altar, moving things around to make myself at home and writing in my journal lots. 

The 1st evening I burst out laughing when I sat in front of the 1st dinner and thought ‘I can’t believe this is a thing! You can go away and dedicate every day to sadhana (spiritual practice), it’s a dream and I get to be part of it!’ At that moment I felt happy, lucky and so grateful and this feeling of gratitude was present throughout most of the retreat even during harder moments.

On the 3rd day of solitude, the 13th day of silence, when I had run out of things to busy myself in the long afternoon break, I had the unexpected visit of a feeling of dread. I was surprised by this because I had been looking forward to this for months and there I was, in this little wooden cabin in the mountains of Mexico, with all day to meditate, to rest, to be and yet… The realisation that I had 37 days left to complete the 49 days weighed on me. Having nothing to distract myself with, the discomfort of my mood was amplified and I walked as far as I could following one of the forest paths. By the evening I felt calm and grateful again and as I sat in front of the fire I laughed at myself for wanting to experience solitude so much and not wanting to experience what it brought once in it. 

The feeling of dread visited every so often. Sometimes I would worry that something might happen to my parents or my brother. Other times I worried that my boyfriend might be in a motorbike accident and I would never see him again, or that he’d fall out of love because the wait was so long. Sometimes a memory seemed to come out of nowhere and I could see how I had behaved in ways I wasn’t proud of. These old memories brought a sense of guilt and remorse that I wished I could just push away. Those were the main sources of suffering and when they came, they sometimes awoke an ache in my stomach that I tried to release by reminding myself that they were only thoughts, with no real substance, ‘just a mental formation’ I would say to myself.    

However, as per my teacher’s guidance, you cannot think thoughts away. I am grateful for these ‘thinking holes’ as the distress they caused lead me to cultivate ‘no mind’, a state of being that I had only had short glimpses of during my past silent retreat experiences.

Gifts & Insights

As I reflect back on my time in solitude, especially when reading my journal, it is very clear to me that despite some moments of struggle, I felt joy most of the time. 

A day in solitude

I didn’t want to use an alarm so I would be awakened by the 1st rays of sun and the celebratory chirping of the many different species of birds. I would often smile the moment I woke up and I would silently say hello to the colony of mice that seemed to live at night, running around the roof of my little home. Before getting up I would mentally give thanks for my health, for my family and my love, for all the karma yogis who volunteer at Hridaya, for Sahajananda and all the teachers I’ve ever had who helped me discover and deepen my connection to the ineffable, to all the workers at Refugio who chopped wood, cooked and took care of all our needs, to the founder of Refugio, to the fellow participants, to Rachael my sister and founder of Breath Body Earth our Yoga School, All the people who supported me in the weeks and months ahead of the retreat with words of encouragement, the Earth, the trees, the birds and the list would go on.

The morning meditation was generally relatively easeful. The first few days of solitude I found the 2 hours a little long but as the days went on, I found more comfort in my body and more peace in my mind. The 2 hours of Hatha Yoga were pretty much consistently blissful. The sattvic vegan diet helped me feel increasingly aware of the subtle energies flowing in my body and I could feel the different energy centres (chakras) be clearly activated in different postures.

When I wasn’t taken by a worry or memory as mentioned above, I found a lot of joy in being and I would often sit smiling at the sky. I discovered that I found it easiest to cultivate a state of pure awareness when looking at the sky so I did a lot of sky gazing, especially after breakfast. Eventually I would get up to sweep my tiny room and load the shower heater with wood to warm the water for my shower. Shower time was also a joyful moment and I discovered a newfound appreciation for hot water as I tried to use as little wood as possible and most showers were warmish. I would often heat some water to make tea with the hot coals left from the shower and I enjoyed sipping on my tea before taking a nap or journaling or contemplating the mountains. 

The 3 hour afternoon practice was generally the less easeful part of the day but I observed that no matter how distracted my mind was at the beginning, it would eventually get tired and calm down by the time dinner arrived, which I was always so grateful for. 

I also really enjoyed making the fire in the tiny fireplace and I would lay down looking at the flames before preparing for the last meditation of the day. This 2 hour meditation was generally harder than the morning one, especially as I had to pause often to add wood. Once I was able to let go of the idea that opening my eyes and adding wood meant a pause in the meditation I found it easier and was able to complete the 2 hours with more ease.  

Spiritual insights

Suffering is caused by the mind. 

This is something I have been reading and learning about for years but the teaching didn’t make complete sense until during the retreat. I realised that as long as the mind didn’t generate thoughts, or if I was able to truly let them pass without rejecting them or hanging onto them, I was happy. Not a happiness based on things or circumstances as I didn’t have many of the ‘things’ I used to think brought me joy. It was rather a deep sense of contentment, of peace that no thing could give me or take away. 

This insight revealed the next insight.

Sat chit ananda – ‘existence consciousness bliss’ is our true nature.

I have also learned about this definition of God, the all pervading essence of Life in all things, for a few years now and I had experienced this during Bufo and Ayahuasca ceremonies but this bliss still seemed like something that wasn’t always available. During the retreat, I found this truth to be revealed regularly, when I looked at the eagles flying above my head, when I heard the sound of the wind in the pine trees, when I felt the warmth of the soil under the soles of my feet. I knew all these things were not the cause for the bliss but simple reminders that bliss is our essence.

The universe is always listening

At the beginning of my time in solitude I wrote a letter to my boyfriend telling him that at night I could hear the owls and that I hoped to find a feather. I soon found myself looking for an owl feather every time I went for a walk in the woods and I had to talk myself out of doing so.

There were so many magical moments, including regular visits from humming birds, shooting stars and so much more but I will end my narration here.

When we got back to Mazunte on day 50 I was surprised to raise my hand when the coordinators asked who would be joining for the additional 10 days. To my amazement there was nothing I wanted to do more than meditate. I had to speak to get to my AirBnB but I had already broken mauna (noble silence) to share with the group as we were given the opportunity to share as we arrived back from the mountains. It was reassuring to hear everyone’s shares and realise that others had also experienced some difficult moments at times. When I got to my new temporary home, I called my boyfriend and sobbed when I saw his face. I’m not sure I made much sense but he got the point, I had thought of him a lot. I almost laughed when he said he wasn’t expecting my call as he couldn’t remember what day I said I would come out of silence. After sharing a little about both our experiences being away from each other I told him I was doing the extra 10 days and he didn’t seem surprised. We said goodbye once more but this time 10 days felt like a walk in the park. 

I left my parents and Rachael voice notes to tell them that I would sit the extra 10 days and set my phone on aeroplane mode. 

The last 10 days back at Hridaya with Sahaja, some of the participants of the 49 days, as well as the participants of the 17 days who’s retreat we were joining, was really profound. After 39 days of silence and solitude listening to Sahajananda was so precious. I drank his words and stayed longer in almost all meditations. Sitting with others felt so special too. I cried tears of joy looking at the sea and in meditation multiple times. 

Coming out of silence

Having already sat in silence multiple times I wasn’t surprised to find that I didn’t particularly feel like talking when we officially broke mauna with a beautiful Om. However, after listening to a few participants’ heartwarming shares I decided to share a little about my own journey. The difference between my share on the 50th day with our closer group and the one on the 59th day was clear, in the latter I had already had time to integrate some of the lessons of solitude. Many in my group spoke of purification and indeed, though there were difficult moments up in the mountains I came back so much lighter, present and highly aware of God in everyone and everything.

When I got home I called my boyfriend and we spoke very briefly but I went to sleep feeling so much Love and gratitude and very excited to call my parents and my best friend the following day.

My first call was to my parents and my brother and it was heart breaking. I was surprised to see my parents looking sad so I asked what was going on and my dad told me that my dear aunt, my mother’s younger sister had taken her own life while I was in silence. I sobbed and we sat in silence for a little while. One of my deepest fears was that someone I loved might die while I was away. I knew that I couldn’t have done anything and that she had been suffering for decades and found myself comforting my mum. I felt like my time in silence gave me newfound strength and compassion, what I had gone in to cultivate. After a while I shared about my journey, all the joy and blessings and some of the harder moments. We spoke for 2 hours and I followed with another long call to my best friend and then to my boyfriend so I ended up speaking for most of the day and it felt nice.

Echoes

To keep this section brief, I’ll simply say that I feel like this journey changed something in me, or better said, it brought light to my limited self and revealed the true Self. Still now, 2 and a half months after the retreat, I feel present and therefore joyful and grateful more than ever before.

So all in all it was a beautiful and humbling experience that revealed to me the inherent joy that lies within us all And the ways in which my mind can cause suffering to myself and others. 

I have continued to practice 1 hour of meditation daily since the retreat and I am already planning a long silent retreat next year. It is so clear to me that this path is supportive to help me cultivate Love for All of creation and that is my deepest longing, to bring only light and love to those around me so they can bring love and light to those around them and so on and so forth, making the world a place where there is more Love and Compassion. 

Gratitude

I don’t think words could ever express how grateful I am to Sahajananda for dedicating his life to this path and for guiding me on mine. I am also immensely grateful for all the karma yogis at Hridaya, such inspiring souls. 

I am also so so grateful to my partner for encouraging me to follow my path even when it means being a part for long periods of time and to my parents though I know it’s also hard for them to accept not having contact with me And to my dearest Rachael who was open to taking care of things while I was in silence and for supporting me always. 

I won’t list all the people I am grateful for here but I cannot miss Jojo, Leandro and Phoebe the karma yogis who were involved in making the retreat possible in different ways and were all a great source of inspiration for me. 

Finally I am grateful to God, the essence of existence, for the experience of human life and everything it entails, Thank You. 

A Blessing of Solitude

May you recognize in your life the presence, power, and light of your soul. May you realize that you are never alone; that your soul in its brightness and belonging connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe. May you have respect for your own individuality and difference. May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique, that you have a special destiny here that behind the facade of your life there is something beautiful, good and eternal happening. May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.

–John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

If you are interested in participating in a silent retreat I cannot recommend Hridaya enough.

I will also be offering a 6 day silent retreat in Bocas del Toro, Panama in April 2025. Please keep an eye out on our website or sign up for our newsletter for when I will confirm dates and details.

Thank you for reading and for your interest in silence. Blessings to you and to All beings everywhere.

Please note that most of the photos in this article have been found on google when searching for ‘Refugio Terraza de la Tierra’, as I handed my phone in on the 1st day of the retreat. Thanks in advance to the photographers.

Melissa