Joseph Campbell once gave a talk in Chicago about the nature of the goddess. After the lecture, several attendees came up to ask him questions. One woman told him about a trip to Greece she was planning in order to find the spirit of the goddess. She showed him her carefully prepared itinerary, in which she had made detailed calculations about the optimum times to visit each attraction.
“Do you think this is sufficient?” she asked. “Do you think I’ll find the spirit of the goddess?”
“Dear Lady,” Mr. Campbell replied. “I sincerely hope that all does not go as planned.”
He later explained his surprising statement, “How will the gods ever find her when she has done everything in her power to make sure that they never will?”
He added, “Unless you leave room for serendipity, how can the divine ever enter in? The beginning of the adventure of finding yourself is to lose your way!”
Serendipity – a happy accident in which you find something better than you were looking for – is a word coined by Horace Walpole. He was referencing the Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip. Serendip was the old Persian name for Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka.
That island nation was the home of Sir Arthur C. Clarke from 1956 until his death in 2008. Clarke said, “Sri Lanka is a small universe; it contains as many variations of culture, scenery, and climate as some countries a dozen times its size.”
About the same size as Ireland, Sri Lanka boasts a recorded history dating back more than 2,500 years to 543 B.C. when it was ruled by Prince Vijaya.
Sri Lanka is the country with the world’s oldest living Buddhist tradition, and 70% of its population are Buddhists. The standing Buddha at Avukana (above) is over 46-feet tall, and is believed to have been carved in the 5th century, B.C.
Other important Buddhist attractions include the Relic of the Tooth of the Buddha shrine in Kandy, and the sacred fig tree grown from a sapling of the Bodhi tree, under which Lord Buddha gained enlightenment.
Spiritual Sri Lanka Tour November 5 – 17, 2023
You will visit all of those attractions and more on our Spiritual Sri Lanka small group tour in November. Also on the itinerary…
- Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara Temple visited by Lord Buddha 2500 years ago
- Dambulla Golden Cave Temple
- Lion Rock Fortress at Sigiriya
- Offer meals as alms to monks at a village temple
- Optional yoga class led by a renowned guru
Get Full Spiritual Sri Lanka Tour Details Here
If you feel a greater attraction to the British Isles, our Scotland and Ireland tours are now sold out, but we still have a few spaces open for Spiritual England.
Credits:
Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers photo courtesy of BillMoyers.com
Joseph Campbell serendipity anecdote from The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred by Phil Cousineau
Kelaniya Temple photo: Jorge Láscar from Australia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons