By Livus Lundkvist
During the AMGK conference in Asheville, a group of us had a meeting where we discussed the idea of how to bring new people, especially youth, to Gurukul. The idea developed to set up the possibility of internships with different levels of commitment and skills to inspire new young people to learn more about spiritual lifestyle and to serve the world in alignment with neohumanistic philosophy. The idea of creating this internship program resulted in more meetings where we created a step by step structure.
The name of the program is SpiritShip, (Universal, Worldcentric, Spirit, Ship as in boat sailing the world and intern(Ship)) whereby people from all over the world will have a chance to gradually learn and involve themselves in spiritual practices and Gurukula. SpiritShip will be the stem and the programs in different countries will be the branches. We created a board of 9 individuals with representation from different countries for the projects and two acaryas. Madhava Mikeal Soderstrom and Liiladeva Livus Lundkvist are the coordinators of the whole Spiritship project and Kevala Monteiro is the coordinator of internal communication. The members of the board are the local coordinators for the country they represent. Robin Manoli from Stockholm has also joined the Spiritship team and will help as the technical developer and designer. Every local coordinator is responsible for setting up their programs and trainings in their own location. That includes advertisement, location, cost, terms and conditions. Every program with details will then be gathered, shared and advertised globally via our collective website (Spiritship.gurukul.edu) and our shared open facebook page, once they are set up.
Overall Structure
1. Open Retreats
Local Coordinators create open introductory retreats for new people, where everyone is welcomed, new people and existing volunteers. Recommendation is 1-3 day weekend programs. The Open retreats will serve as preparation and advertisement for the Spiritual Lifestyle Training and the Internship.
2. Spiritual Life-Style Training
Longer retreats similar to LFT training, which will be organized by the local individuals and related to the needs and possibilities of that locale. Classes and workshops related to Gurukula including education on neohumanism, tantra philosophy and practises as well as more individualized workshops in relation to the specific location and skills. Suggested time is 1-4weeks
3. Internship
After the spiritual lifestyle training one will be ready to work as an intern in a Gurukul project or academic area. The internships can range from a month of service to longer time in various disciplines and other projects. Therefore the different internships will be in need of individual credentials and diplomas, and thereby the levels of mastery required may vary. The local-coordinators will create ads with pictures and information about the different worldwide projects one can choose between on the website, as well as Facebook events, and market them.
4. Apprenticeship
A future possibility is to take responsibility within the organization of Gurukul and related projects.
SpiritShip Upcoming Events and News:
A spiritual lifestyle training of 2 weeks is being planned for Ydrefors during the summer of 2016, with Madhava Mikeal Soderstrom as primary coordinator. Furthermore a web structure and a facebook page will be created over the next few months whereby different coordinators from around the world can share information on events of different levels and stories of the people who have been a part of the programs.
For more information and to participate in SpiritShip, please contact: or .