5 Days 4 Nights
India
Overview
Overview
The Vale of Kashmir has long been celebrated by poets and painters as a stunningly beautiful terrain – a miniature heaven on earth. What is often overlooked is that in addition to its natural beauty, the valley hosts a culture that has been shaped by one of the subtlest philosophies known to mankind – the teachings of Sufism, the inner heart of Islam. This wisdom honours appreciation of nature and the artistic impulse as paths to ultimate truth, and celebrates music, poetry and the arts as ways to experience and celebrate the Divine. It thus represents the fusion of spiritual and material, seeing creativity and empathy as means of refining the soul.
Qayaam Gah - ‘The Abode of Peace’ – was created with the aim celebrating this legacy to offer a retreat for the sensitive traveller. A chance to immerse themselves in a subtle ambiance that permeates the shrines, forests and mountains of the valley.
Kashmir has always been a place where the teachings of Islam and Hinduism have transcended their differences and found a common accord. Among the many saints and philosophers who have lived or visited Kashmir, are Adi Shankara the renowned Hindu Vedanta theologian of the 8th century, and the great Sufi saint Nund Rishi, the 15th-century mystic, poet and preacher known by his honorary title “Alamdar-e-Kashmir” who was among the founders of the Rishi Sufi tradition of the region that influenced many spiritual teachers and saints, including the 19th Sufi mystic Shamas Faqir.
As a place where the veil normally obscuring the ‘Real’ is very thin, the valley has been a constant theme of great poets, such as the 14th century Lal Ded (‘Mother Lal’), also known as Lalleshwari and creator of the mystic ‘vatsun’ school of poetry. Her fifteenth-century successor, Habba Khatoon ‘The Nightingale of Kashmir’, was the wife the last Emperor of Kashmir.
Located in the midst of this rich cultural past, a visit to Qayaam Gah will offer not just the pleasant distractions of a normal holiday but an opportunity to connect to a living source that nourishes the body, mind and soul.
