I have been meditating every single day for the past three years.  I would say that out of everything in my life that is important, meditation is the one thing that I could not do without.  I could survive without my family or my house, but I could not survive without employing the meditation techniques that I have learned.  They let me reach a state of deep relaxation and recharge myself everyday.  When I went on a meditation retreat, however, I was not expecting it to change my life.  I figured that I knew everything about meditation already.

The meditation retreat, however, did change my life.  Every day, I get up early to meditate in the morning.  It is relatively quiet, even in the city where I live.  I felt that I did not need a meditation retreat to inspire calm.  I create a calm space in my own house.  But if you've never been on meditation retreats before, you have no way to know what a difference it makes.  The meditation retreat took place in a beautiful, scenic outdoor location at the very beginning of fall.  The leaves were changing colors, the air was crisp but not too cold, and everything about the site was peaceful and quiet.  Best of all, there was nothing to do but meditate all day.  All of the daily obligations that one usually runs into were gone.  It seems like I advanced three years in my meditation practice in only a couple of days.

Honestly, in the future, I do not think that I'll go on a meditation retreat with an organized group.  Although I liked the feeling of fellowship that the yoga meditation retreat provided, for me the key element to successful meditation is solitude.  Simply put, you can get more solitude when you are by yourself.  For many people, meditation retreats with others are inspiring and helpful because they provide them with the impetus to advance and deepen their meditation practice.  For me however, such support is completely unnecessary.  I have everything that I need to meditate inside me.  I do recommend that if you are going on your first meditation retreat, you go with a group.  It makes things so much easier.  Food is taken care of, lodging is taken care of, and there are people to help you if you run into any troubles.  Sometimes it is nice to have a teacher to ask for advice when doing your meditation practice.  But other times, it is better to be alone.