One of the accommodation options offered by Dharma Mountain during retreats is camping. For many who have experienced it, camping has become an important part of the retreats in Norway. The camp has its own infrastructure setup, ready to receive the campers and meet their every need. It is a beautiful and comfortable way to be immersed in nature and in the retreat experience. The camp is nestled in the forest, close to the main house.
While some campers are veterans of camp life, others have experienced it for the first time during this Summer Retreat. We asked some of them about their experience.
Nasheema
Simplicity and connection
For me, living here is fun, this chaos. It’s nice to see people here in the same dance, flowing together. I like to be here from the beginning – preparing, seeing things happen and build, taking care, decorating. When I see – in the middle of the forest, everything is organized. Everything is here to support for us to dance together during the retreat. It becomes our home during this time together. I have contact with many people I don’t often see outside this space. Being here brings a feeling of sangha, of everybody being on the same quest. We mirror each other, we get to know each other, we feel each other more. It’s a feeling of union, of family.
I like it very much because it takes me out of my comfort zone. I like the simpler life that I have here, which boils down to a mattress in a tent, a box of food and a shelf of clothes. There is less worry with the routine of daily life than when I’m at home in Brasil. Everything gets more reduced: the things I have to do, the things I have. There are less opportunities to be distracted from what I am doing here, I become much more immersed in the retreat.
The contact with nature is really nice for me. It’s cozy to sleep, being “hugged” by nature. At night I always go to sleep listening to the sound of the river, or when it rains I hear the rain falling very close, almost on my head in the tent. I feel so exposed, in the middle of nature, and at the same time warm, protected, cozy. I feel it is a support for me to sleep on the ground, in the middle of the trees. This contact invites me to a more natural space inside of me; I feel more loose, more natural, more raw, more naked.
Eshana
Our Ashram
From the beginning, I fell in love with being in the camping. It was an important part of my honeymoon of becoming a sannyasin. In wonder with the space, the beauty, the functionality, with the opportunity we have as a sangha to be in this place. Since I was a kid I read things about ashram, about living in a commune – like around Osho – and now I am seeing this experience alive. Being in the camping is very close to everything I understood about being a sannyasin, living together. I think it is a precious opportunity to get to know each other as a group, and to manage this inside ourselves.
I feel the longing to give in an ever more relaxed way, to prepare myself in a softer way to deal with the difficulties we will have as human beings living together.
It helps me a lot to exercise my awareness, I feel Baba working so strongly on us. It’s like the love I have for the sangha helps me to be aware of my small attitudes in order to contribute to the harmony and beauty of the place. I feel a great longing for this to spread and that we have more and more capacity to receive friends in this way.
In a deeper way, on levels that I don’t even know how, it is worked on me. I feel it helps me to be more natural. To function according to what life is giving, not only with what I’m planning. To just surrender to the rain, to the heat, the cold, and function from a more natural space. It’s as if I had come prepared to face the challenges of nature and had been simply embraced by it.
I feel how every enhancement here, to make our life more comfortable has Baba’s touch and love in it; how he takes care of us on all levels. Enormous gratitude to Babaji for knowing deeply of our longing to be here, of the arrangements we have to make in our lives to be here and for taking care of that. But also giving us this responsibility of taking care of ourselves in such a magical way. It is magical! In a few months, from the extreme cold, this becomes our ashram again. All of this is together – inside and out. Now listening to the friends saying goodbye, in this phase of leaving, and then soon being here again. It is very cozy and natural for me to be here, I feel as if it is my home – and it is. It’s like I leave here only to earn enough to come back.
Prem Agni
A Liberating Experience
It was a very enriching experience for me, being my first time in Norway after so many years with Baba. I feel that staying in the camping opened something for me. I’m going through a time of going beyond many ideas, and to live there during this retreat was liberating. It brought me a welcoming feeling. It was very good to share the space with the friends, it brought me lightness, joy. In many moments I felt what Baba says about being alone, each one in your own path, but also being together, having the same focus. I’m used to living alone and I have a tendency to isolate myself, so it brought me a very cozy sensation. A liberation from the ideas of what is for me and what isn’t, of what I can or cannot do. I feel how rich it is for me to share with other sannyasins. Before arriving I thought it would be more challenging than it actually was. Even the cold, which I had an idea about. I wasn’t cold. It was liberating, that’s the biggest word for me.
I felt that it’s very good to stay inside Dharma Mountain, because in Brazil I go home, I work and there is stuff: cat, household things. So to be inside, without leaking this energy by going out, is very different, I felt immersed. It was very special and important. It contributed a lot for me and for the progress of my retreat. To sleep in the tent listening to the river, the silence… And since it is a place with abundant nature, it was very touching. From the moment I arrived there was a lot of emotion, it was very easy for me to be there and to feel really part of nature. There’s something very strong there, I don’t know if it is the mountains, I guess it’s a combination of things. It seems to me that since Baba is a man of the mountains, they have a very strong energy.
It was a very beautiful experience. It was the first time I was going to Dharma Mountain and I had a recognition of something very deep – that it wasn’t the first time I was here. It was as if I knew the place, as if I recognised it somewhere inside me. Almost every day I was very much in wonder, having waves of joy, being invaded by joy, by consciousness, something much bigger than me. I’m very grateful for everything; for this retreat, for having experienced it with everybody. I love you all.