Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in the fullness of Time, even Rolexes rust. Fast cars, foxy clothes, fancy wines and fine jewellery are fun while you can enjoy them, but when you find yourself facing Eternity, you can’t take those goodies along. When push comes to Judgment Day, all such trinkets turn to trash. If you want real, lasting luxury, it’s not your body you should be pampering, but your soul.
There are certainly plenty of people happy to take your money: the Bond Street of spirituality is chock-a-block with shops. Many of them are tour operators, and though their brochures don’t offer one-way tickets to Paradise, they do contain suggestions for stopovers en route. ‘Our tours and retreats …will help you discover and awaken your spiritual self while you are pampered in a relaxing, comfortable environment,’ promises Divine Tours, of Portland, Oregon. The company’s ‘awesome, powerful, spiritual vacations’ are ‘not associated with any particular spiritual path or religious belief’, though one of their offerings does give participants the opportunity to meet the ‘Brotherhood of Ascended Masters of Light’, which sounds pretty particular to me. Their mastery, it is claimed, enables them to teach you how to receive ‘profound meditation experiences and spiritual breakthroughs in the most profound energy vortexes of the USA’, and how to ‘begin to transform your physical body into a light body’. If you find dieting and exercise as difficult as I do, you might be tempted to make a trip to meet the brothers light fantastic; if you have met as many nutters as I have, you might not.
If you’re in search of something a little more mainstream – and you’re Jewish – you might like to book yourself ‘a luxury vacation combined with spiritual and personal renewal …designed to enrich you spiritually, intellectually and physically while at the same time offering a relaxing vacation in a complete comfort’.
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