Date: 1st March – 15th March, 2025
Venue: India and Nepal
Participants: 21
On 28th Feb, 2025 a group of 21 enthusiastic people from the UK, the US and Europe departed from their hometown to go on a Mystic India and Nepal retreat for a spiritual and learning experience. One of the participants was Daniel Ferrell, and this is an account of his experience on the trip.
The Mystic India Experience
Hi, my name is Daniel Ferrell. I’m a 33 year old college student studying communications in California. This is my first time posting a blog and it’s all about my first time traveling to India. Hopefully more trips coming soon and more blogs to follow!
Mystic India/ Nepal 2025 was an ambitious and novel once in a lifetime opportunity. Yoga, meditation, practical spiritual philosophy taught by a former monk and making new friends half a world away in the spiritual capital of the world, wow. All this while enjoying the comfort of retreat style accommodations? As a full time student in California with the urge to escape my dorm room (and my comfort zone) this all looked too good to be true. But my eyes were widening at the chance to see beyond the material illusion so I looked deeper. For me the Mystic India trip offered the opportunity to nurture my spiritual curiosity and find much needed answers on my journey of self-discovery. I decided right then that I would join this community of likeminded people on my search. The next day I signed up for the trip and as I kept checking the itinerary every day in disbelief I got more and more excited. All my boxes were checked: seeing exquisite palaces, visiting beautiful ancient temples and iconic holy sites, exploring breath-taking natural
terrain and celebrating authentic local culture.
Preparing for the trip was easy with the help of our orientation Zoom meeting. Not only were all of our questions expertly answered but it also gave us the opportunity to learn more about each other. We were people from all walks of life with varying interests and experiences all with the shared context of wanting to awaken our spirituality and find clarity on our path to this common goal. We found right away that we could trust in our guide, Radha Govinda (RG for short) every step of the way to answer all our questions and make sure we were all ready for our big adventure. He dispensed free-heartedly with his wisdom making us all feel confident in his leadership capabilities (especially where monkeys are present) and used his sense of humour and exceptional people skills to bring us closer together.
As a first time traveller to India the group functions were an essential part of the trip. The promise of nightly kirtan gatherings and delicious prasadam gave us the boost we needed to venture fearlessly further and further from our comfort zones. Morning yoga sessions helped us set our intentions on having the most positive experience possible day after day. And, my favourite part, easy to understand philosophical discussions which made the foreign spirituality more accessible. Of course my surprise birthday party (with cake) on our first day in India was a real bonus!
The highlight of my experience was the amount of freedom we had to personalize the trip. RG and his sidekick Gaura Narayana were never afraid to go the extra distance to facilitate added field trips, even with our limited amount of time in each new place and our full schedule. Spur of the moment shopping sprees, getting covered in Holi colours, dancing with the locals, even a 23km walk around Govardhan Hill at 4:30am were all encouraged by our trusted India guides. We had plenty of downtime as well to enjoy a massage at the spa and enjoy the award winning pool in Nepal!
Mystic India was the perfect way to make deep connections with new people and places and to learn new things about myself. I am truly grateful that I stumbled into such a unique opportunity and to everyone who shared their wisdom and strength on this adventure. We got to spend a long time on our last day in the Himalayas acknowledging each others transformations and saying goodbye which was a lot harder than anyone expected. We all got more than we ever could have asked for and I would not have thought it was possible that two weeks could make such an impact on my life. I look forward to the next time I can join the Mystic India community on another great adventure!
A big thank you to Bhaktivedanta Manor, Radha Govinda, Gaura Narayan, everyone who came on the trip and all those behind the scenes who helped make it possible.
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