Mount Taygetos, Sparta, Greece

(Top L-R) Kyriaki, Helen, Thanos, Venia, Christina, Yonick, Nikoleta, Alex, George
(Bottom L-R) Seraphim, Edith, Ioannis, Vagelis

This year the retreat took place at the same place as the previous one, on Mount Taygetos in a beautiful little village called Anabriti next to Sparta, about 900m above sea level. Thirteen students who had completed the Gnostic Wisdom course attended the retreat over five days. The focus of the retreat was to learn how to use every single moment to gain self-knowledge, and to discover more about ourselves. To do this, we investigated awareness and worked on improving the way we approached our astral practices, with the aim of consistently improving everything we did.

We explored the astral using mantras and visualization techniques. Each day we gradually increased the intensity of the practices and on the last night we did an all-night practice. There were a lot of experiences in the astral and a lot of understanding gained from everyone's efforts.

People shared experiences realizing amazing things about themselves, things that touched everyone, which helped to create a great strength and close bonds between everyone.

The awareness walks in beautiful forests and along the rivers, practices at sunrise, star gazing in the evenings, and the incredible hospitality of the hotel staff (including the amazing homemade cooking) were some of the highlights of this retreat.

Below are some photos from the retreat and comments from the students about their experiences.

Sunny view from the top of the walk

Last day of the retreat
(Top L-R) Yonick, Ioannis, Alex, Nikoleta, Thanos, Vagelis, George, Venia
(Bottom L-R) The Cook, Edith, Kyriaki, Christina, Seraphim, Helen

Student comments

13 people were gathered at the hotel ‘Antamoma' hotel in Taygetos, in order to investigate how it is to leave every moment with wisdom and esoterically. The beauty of the place got an A. The hospitality of the people working at the hotel was perfect.

Regarding the esoteric work, some of us got close to the desired goal concerning astral projection and observation, but the most important thing is that there were a lot of efforts from everyone that aimed to self discovery.

Maybe seeing deep inside yourself is not pleasant, and cause pain and disappointment, but if you don't throw light to the internal darkness you will never manage to achieve peace and balance. It worth trying with other people and within the team discover your inside and yourself. The other people around us can help as a mirror for us to see our weaknesses, fears and insecurities altogether.

I wish that those team efforts will go on and we will help each other through the strength of the team.

Helen

I have participated to two of the retreats of the Gnostic Movement. Both of them were beneficial.

From the first retreat I got a taste of a small but important esoteric experience, when I realized the strength of the team and I was reassured that I have been following the right path.

The second retreat was a surprise. I have been already into entropy in an advanced level. I went to the retreat with the hope of recovering, but what I have experienced is impossible to describe it. But I will give it a try.

The exercises that all of us need, came in order to trouble me, to put me in a corner, to bring into the surface things from the depths of myself. I had to do infinite disintegrations in order to accept not to lie about myself and to look for the truth. With intuition as a tool, my patience and the acceptance of my status, I was guided with wisdom by the instructors. I have searched and cried. I had falls and I got up. I got through pain and I learned. I tried and shared and everything was running smoothly and without force.

I came back more mature, stronger and with clear goals. I will never never leave myself again. Many thanks to the team.

Edith

Even if I came to that retreat with another motive, staying with the team, practicing with the other women and men, under the guidance of the instructors, brought as a result for me to gain a lot of strength and begin to face seriously probably the greatest weakness of me.

Vagelis

It worth for someone to try a retreat with the Gnostics. It is possible that he will have a meaningful and very very profound knowledge about himself, his life and life in general.

Nikoleta

It was a unique experience. The continuous efforts we have put, what we discovered about ourselves, how we overcame the obstacles and at the end the sense of liberation.

Everything around us stops us from that. A new meaning, nothing will be the same again, everything around me speaks to me differently.

Great thanks from the depths of my heart.

Alex

The common efforts of the team during the retreat give you incredible strength. Observation becomes deeper and the chances for understanding are multiplied. The magical scenery that we have visited makes you enjoy more through conscious understanding of the senses and the stimuli. Incredible!

Thanos

This time the destination was the wonderful mount Taygetos. We began as a team of 13 people and nobody came back the same. It is an experience that every one of us owes to themselves. I feel gratefulness that I was given the chance to have such an experience to be at this retreat. At the same time I feel obliged to continue the esoteric path, by walking the path on my own. I wish to always have the strength to try and be conscious and trust deeply the Divine.

Christina

This retreat was different. It was especially creative concerning the exercises that we did during the day and during the night. It helped me to gain the strength and will that I had lost, for the esoteric work. It helped me in a practical way, to spot egos that were obstacles for my development. I was impressed how close the people of the team were together and how this can help if people is trying for the same goals. I wouldn't have changed those six days for anything in my life.

Yonick

This retreat in Taygetos was an unforgettable experience, because even if we didn't know each other, the team was close together and cooperated perfectly with everything we did, the exercises, the excursions to the mountain and to the cave of Dyro. I wish that the retreats that will follow will have the same success.

Kyriaki

When I heard about the retreat at Taygetos, my first thought was that I didn't want to go. I thought that it was something that I didn't really need and that I may loose precious time that I could use better, rather than being with a team of unknown to me people that I didn't believe that this could benefit me.

However, I felt that it was something that I had to do, so the next day after I heard about the retreat, I bought the air ticket to Greece. I have decided to search deep inside me to see what was really this part of myself that didn't want to come to the retreat and was resisting to it.

When we arrived at the place of the retreat this feeling was still there. I felt that I could do more things if I was alone at the safety of my house, rather than with a group of strangers. Until then I had seen that what didn't want to be there were specific egos that were taking place one after the other. Fear, pride, anxiety.

I decided that I would put all my efforts to disintegrate those egos and at the same time relax and see what I can get from the situation, and so it happened. And then I began to realize how wrong I was. We began gradually to know each other and come to the mood and the goals of the retreat. During that, I haven't participated to the discussion. I believe that you learn more when you listen rather than when you talk, and so I did. I felt fear that if I talked about my personal obstacles I could confuse the others, rather than help them. But what I realized later on was that more or less everyone of us face the same problems and concerns and that with the discussion those came into the surface and we could find solutions that could help all of us.

Even if we didn't have a standard schedule (something that troubled me at the beginning), all the exercises that we did were profound and came in a magical way the moment that we needed them. This was because of the consciousness of the instructors that gave to the team exactly what they needed with the correct rhythm and intensity.

The instructors were really investigating things, and this was a fact that made the exercises active and effective and also helped to extinguish entropy that usually get the team after the first enthusiasm. I have been to the Gnostic Movement for more than 2 year and attend the courses online. I practice on my own and have a communication with people from the gnostic center of Greece. I can say that in those five days I have discovered more things than what I have discovered the last 2 years of my practicing alone, and I am sure that this is due to the team.

I may didn't have the experiences that I wanted to or that I had to, but I definitely leave from this retreat full with thousands of realizations.

George (Cyprus)

We are on our way back home, at the end of a retreat that started five days ago. I remember when I heard about this retreat the first time, it was suggested as a chance to investigate yourself and apply the practices given at the courses.
Back then I was in a state that I wasn't sure if everything that I heard at the lectures were possible. Or even if they were, I wouldn't have been able to do them by myself. Until that time I haven't realized the deeper meaning of the exercises and many times I haven't had the results that I wanted. This brought disappointments a lot of times and I was thinking that those things are not for me.

However I couldn't quit completely. I felt that my life didn't have a real meaning. Whatever I did couldn't feel this emptiness. I was always looking for happiness but I could never find it. I didn't want to continue to leave like this the rest of my life. I needed a goal that could fill this emptiness deeply and truly. I felt that I wanted to give my life another direction, somewhere that I could find answers to what I was looking for. So I saw this retreat as a chance for me. I wanted to give an answer to myself, to see if I really wanted to do all of this and if I could make it to walk this path. Even more, I needed to come in contact with people that think and feel like me and this retreat gave me a chance for this. Of course there was the anxiety if I could stay for days with people that I hardly knew, but fortunately quickly I felt close with the others and stopped worrying. We went to a perfect for the purpose of the retreat place, a quiet and beautiful village at the feet of Taygetos. Everything was ideal for someone to investigate himself. We stayed at the hotel were people took care of us and made us feel like it is our home. Under those beautiful circumstances, the exploration of our internal world began. We did wonderful walks and we were continuously in touch with nature and its wealth, and all of this was adjusted to the esoteric work. All the activities and exercises given by the instructors were inspired in such a way that for me it was like a challenge, as chances to learn about myself. It was impressive the fact to see the rest of the team had the same enthusiasm every day and was willing to do things that many times were new to us, inspired by the moment. The contact with the others helped me see things inside me. I understood that each one of us is a mirror for the other, and you can see the good and the bad side of yourself. There I realized how important the team is. The fact that we were all there with the same purpose, to know ourselves, gave us strength and courage to try and be sincere with myself.

The other part that I had the chance to practice was the astral. In the past, I have tried many times and always faced an obstacle that I thought I couldn't overcome, I was disappointed and had quit trying. Those days, in a place secure and powerful I felt the need to try again. I believed that I am capable to achieve it. There were a lot of astral practices during which I felt that I wanted to know better my obstacles and face them. In that way and without expecting it, I have my first astral experience.

From everything that happened to this retreat, the most important thing that engraved something deep inside me, is that there is a path for those that are looking for something more, something real and profound, and something that deserves all our efforts and dedication since the effort itself can many times make you feel something real inside yourself.

Venia

In this retreat I had an unprecedented experience. Even if it seems strange. I couldn't believe it for myself. I saw the egos that torture me for a long time or I better say that I gained the strength to observe them inside me without going away in fear when I see them. It is for the first time that I wasn't feeling week in front of those egos. It wasn't easy, and to continue that won't be easy.

But this time I have an extra weapon. The curiosity to see how my life will change if those egos were not there little by little through disintegration. Because something has changed, even if my mind was trying to convince me that I can not face it with the disintegration but only with the mind, because the mind had the solution.

Another important thing that I would like say is the following. Some times when my fellow students talked, I was thinking that what they were saying was known to me or was meaningless. However I tried to listen to them, not because that I could hear something important, but because of discipline and because I wanted to try awareness and disintegrate what didn't want inside me to listen to them and because the instructor was listening to them showing particular attention, so I wanted to follow his example even if I was doing it mechanically.

What happened was impressive. Every time and after a short time of listening, I was surprised to see that I learned something in a practical level about the esoteric work, something that I needed to.

Seraphim

I wanted for this retreat to be in a way that it could help all of us, to break the mechanical way of doing things and leave something powerful that could follow us from now on. I prayed, asked desperately for help and guidance so that I could help and get helped. From the first time this retreat worked in a magical way and this was all way up to the end. Things came exactly as they should come. A feeling of infinite love for all the people there, a feeling that fills you up, you see yourself reflect in the others and cry desperately because you need to change, because you see how tragic your life is. I am sure that this retreat has left something indestructible inside each one of us, something that will unite us forever, whatever is the path that each one of us will decide to follow in their lives. I wish the strength of this retreat to be always there inside us and never let it go. The memory of it and the efforts that all of us have put may be the guide in our path from now on. Many thanks to all of you that you simply gave me the chance to be with you and try next to you and many thanks especially to Yonick for his help and his efforts despite the difficulties he faced.

Ioannis