International scenario should be studied first

Promoting spiritual tourism:

Sri Lanka has immense potential to be developed as a destination for spiritual tourism by grabbing a share of the 40 million people who travel out of their homes seeking spiritual uplift each year, says former Sri Lanka Convention Bureau CEO Vipula Wanigasekera in an interview with Sunday Observer Business.

Excerpts

Q - What is spiritual tourism?

A - This is often mistaken for pilgrim tourism. Pilgrim tourism fulfills the need of a traveller or a devotee to see, witness and worship places of religious significance. Travellers to Buddhagaya, Jerusalem, Putrapathi and Mecca fall into this category. Pilgrim tourism calls for the development of such locations and marketing them in the target market.

Spiritual tourism on the other hand, is where travellers visit places and meet people to find inner peace. One may call them spiritual seekers or finders of the true nature of life.

Q - What is the current scenario in spiritual tourism from the point of view of international tourism?

A - The last two UNWTO conferences in Vietnam and Spain established that nearly 40 million people travel out of their homes seeking spiritual revival per year and the numbers keep increasing.

This includes yoga, meditation and taking part in religious discourses and discussions. The reason is obvious. The modern world is producing more stressful and anxious people than successful people with a high level of profit motives. Never before was there high employee turnover and breakaway groups. This is inevitable.

Many find spiritual teachings to be a way of escaping from the fast-paced world and this has resulted in the increase of numbers in spiritual tourism.

Q - Is there any way we could promote spiritual tourism? After all we need a small percentage of the 40 million and among them could well be high spenders.

A - Of course. How much is inner peace worth? People will pay any price provided they get what they are looking for. Sri Lanka could not understand this market because our country engages in heavy ritualistic practices where for instance results are expected in the next life.

The core message of the Buddha is generally submerged by these rituals. I am not referring to traditions. Traditions are vital to preserve Buddhist culture but ritualistic practices have ridiculed Buddhist philosophy with which the followers are expected go back home. Therefore, tourists cannot find a correlation between what is done and the results.

Q - What do you suggest to promote spiritual tourism?

A - First, understanding what the travellers are looking for. Whatever they engage in, should be experiential. Anything that leads to a ritual or a belief, would make them run a mile. Inner peace would also mean absence of stress, anxiety, worries, restlessness and anger. This calls for finding the root causes for these.

Second, study what is happening in the international spiritual arena. After the Second World War, people embraced their religions closely and in the decades that followed, moved to learning the philosophies spelt out by others without leaving their original faith. This is what is happening even now. Modern spirituality is non-controversial as it does not clash with religions. What happens is that one is given the opportunity of analysing one's own experience and the facilitator's task is to get the participants to look at life from a different perspective. It could be through meditation, guided meditation or continuous discourses with retreats.

Q - You embarked on a meditation program for tourists. How successful was it?

A - I had no intention of doing so at the beginning. I only had an idea of launching a book with my thoughts which I collected over several years of research. The research covered Buddhist practices in Sri Lanka to spirituality with an international outlook.

After launching the book, Pointers to Enlightenment with the help of many friends in the travel industry and outside, I was invited by the Siddhalepa Group to conduct sessions during week-ends and there was no looking back since then.

However, this needs to be taken to another level by offering spiritual packages. Travel companies must work on it having understood what has to be offered, where and how. Many organisations have contacted me and they are either speaking of pilgrim tourism or some kind of a rigorous meditative training, both of which are not accepted by spiritual seekers. This is why the international scenario needs to be studied first.

For instance, when Anthony Mooyang ( Mooji) conducts discourses and meditation in Monte Sahaja, hundreds of groups come, sometimes to listen to him only for one hour while others may stay for a couple of days.

Monte Sahaja was not a place known for spirituality nor does Mooji represent any religion while he recognises and acknowledges the work of Jesus Christ and the Buddha.

People will travel from Canada to listen to Jeff Foster in London. Ekhart Tolle spoke to Google staff virtually stunning them with his version of how creativity arises. Followers go wherever Jeff Foster is due to speak.

Today, people are inclined to know why the Buddha said, "Peace cannot come from outside" or why Jesus Christ said, "Lose yourself to find yourself". Their quotes such as "you are the world" and "you are the light of the world" are now interpreted through practical experiences.

Q - How do you conduct your sessions and what is your message?

A - It is a one-hour discourse and guided meditation. I am currently doing this with tourists and it might take a while for Sri Lankans to grasp it as such a discourse can be embraced only if one attends it with an open mind.

It reveals the fallacious ideas of human life, life story and the unrealistic goals they go after. This is different to the masters of motivation and leadership who believe one could create 100 percent motivation or turn everyone into leaders. But that is how the commercial world moves on.

We have lived with these fallacies for centuries and now the world is turning towards modern spirituality which certainly helps people to look at life differently while keeping their faiths. My message is that there is a possibility to see through the reality of life which was not what the human model would accept.

The seeing through may not necessarily reflect a drastic shift in behaviour but there is always a consciousness before thoughts and that is freedom and freedom from suffering. What more does one want in life?