Royal Way Happenings: The Importance of Growing Through Experiences

Royal Way is a community of meditators dedicated to personal spiritual growth through the experience of the divine. Retreats at Royal Way Spiritual Center in Lucerne Valley, California, offer a deeply experiential approach to meditation and spiritual growth. Royal Way events are joyful and uplifting, and at the same time offer experiences of profound silence—a stilling of the mind through meditation—in a beautiful spiritual environment. Attendees report that the Royal Way experience is unique and accessible because the approach is experiential, not mental.

Royal Way was founded by spiritual teacher Michael Menahem Gottlieb, who passed away in 2010. His teachings are at the core of all Royal Way happenings. He wrote: 

“Royal Way was established as an instrument for bringing modern man and woman to the experience of God—not blind faith, not a philosophical knowing, not a theological knowing, but an experiential knowing. 

“The mind cannot know God, even when it wants to. It can think about God. It can talk about God. Only the heart can know God; the heart cannot talk about it. The experience of God is one breath away from the mind.”

Royal Way is a discovery of self that lifts people beyond the mundane and helps them realize their greatest potential. Which is, as Michael Gottlieb put it, “one breath away from the mind.” 

Uniqueness in Every Happening

The Royal Way journey is profoundly personal, and each workshop is focused on personal development. But the happenings at Royal Way Spiritual Center—and at Royal Way West in Los Angeles—are shared with like-minded individuals who are seeking, and open to, their higher selves. A sense of community prevails in an open, welcoming spiritual environment.

Each Royal Way spiritual growth workshop is unique. Some may focus on meditation, the most powerful instrument for spiritual growth, drawing on ancient practices that have guided seekers for thousands of years toward a still mind and an open heart.

In addition to meditation, personal growth workshops at Royal Way Spiritual Center focus on themes that have both spiritual and practical benefits.

Relationships, for example, was the theme of a retreat at Royal Way Spiritual Center. It explored the nature of relationships as a way to experience spiritual growth. Michael Gottlieb taught that the main purpose of a relationship is to help one another grow: 

“The greatest expression and manifestation of real love is the support and help we give to our mate to grow and achieve their greatest potential, to become the best they can be, to propel them to a higher path, to attain the ultimate self-discovery. And in that process, your love for each other grows deeper and higher, because you both become deeper and higher.” 

A recent personal growth workshop at Royal Way West focused on gratitude, a key Royal Way teaching. Michael Gottlieb taught that gratitude is the key to happiness. His teaching goes well beyond counting one’s blessings: “True gratitude,” he wrote, “is a natural flowering of the soul when we connect and flow with ‘that which is.’ Then whatever ‘is’ is beautiful. Good is no longer defined in terms of what I want or what I need or what I think ought to be, should be, could be, or might be, but rather in terms of ‘that which is.’”

Another focused on enoughness—an approach to understanding that not only are we as individuals “enough” exactly as we are, but also that each moment is enough. When we live fully in the here and now, we have no unfulfilled desires. We welcome each moment as it comes. As Michael Gottlieb wrote, “Living means understanding the ‘enoughness’ that exists in each moment, experiencing the totality of creation in each moment . . . that grand gift of life . . . the excitement, the adventure, the richness and positive beauty . . . the pregnant ecstasy in each of life’s moments.”

Romantic love, expression, creativity—all have been “happening” themes. But again, every retreat is different, and every retreat is composed of many different elements. Group discussion and exploration play an important role. Everyone has the opportunity to share and gain insight from the perspective of others, and the environment is open, inclusive, and welcoming. 

Outdoor experiences are common, as Royal Way Spiritual Center is 900 acres of stunning beauty—a spiritual environment that includes orchards, gardens, meditation sites, and the wild desert foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains.

Meditation is always a core theme of Royal Way personal growth workshops: guided meditations, silent time, and opportunities to simply “be.” As Michael Gottlieb taught, “Meditation is purest blissfulness. As you go deeper you come across more and more beautiful spaces, more and more luminous spots. They are your treasure, deeper and deeper silences, which are not only the absence of noise but the presence of a soundless song—musical, alive, and dancing.”  

The Guiding Tenet

Michael Menahem Gottlieb established Royal Way to bring the modern individual to the experience of God. “Not blind faith,” he wrote. “Not a philosophical knowing, not a theological knowing, but an experiential knowing.”

He explained that teachings are only fully effective when they are accompanied by experience: “I always teach not only on a mental and spiritual level but also on an experiential level. Without the experiential, a teaching is half—it is less than half. Also, I teach only my own experience. The great mystic poet Kabir wrote: ‘If you have not lived through something, it is not true.’ He understood that information that is borrowed is worthless.”

Hence every retreat and workshop at Royal Way Spiritual Center is filled with experiences that touch people in ways that mere words cannot. Royal Way experiences are deep and lasting.

True Knowing Through Experience

The beauty of experiential knowing is that it is a knowing that endures, a knowing that continues beyond the actual personal growth workshop. Words, lectures, books, videos—all may contain wisdom and knowledge, but such knowledge is aimed at the mental level. It can easily be lost or forgotten. For those who are open to it, the experiential knowing gained through Royal Way retreats touches us beyond the mind. The reality of a deep experience is pure energy, Michael Gottlieb taught. “Royal Way means the experience continues,” he wrote.

Retreat Atmosphere for Discovery

Royal Way Spiritual Center is an extraordinary setting for personal growth and spiritual development. The retreat center, also known as RW Ranch, lies in the high Mojave Desert in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains. The heart of the center is a large, plushly carpeted group room where most indoor sessions take place. A commercial-grade kitchen serves fresh, healthy, delicious food, often utilizing bounty from the center’s organic vegetable gardens and fruit orchards.

Accommodations for overnight retreats are in nearby bungalows, hillside buildings, and several comfortably furnished homes. The 900-acre campus spreads outward and comprises the gardens and orchards, a huge lawn, a tai chi field, several gardens, spring-fed ponds and flowing stream, walking paths, and hiking trails that lead to meditation sites and open desert. Royal Way Spiritual Center is a true oasis of tranquility—an idyllic spiritual environment for personal growth and inner work.

Exploring Inner Peace: Key Insights and Wisdom from Royal Way Happenings

The Royal Way approach to exploring inner peace is largely experiential. It begins with a  willingness to drop the mind—essentially to learn by unlearning, because all of us are a product of our upbringing, religion, psychology, and culture. As Royal Way founder Michael Gottlieb wrote:“As we unwind our old tapes and drop our alien systems and processes, we create an emptiness, a space, for something new to happen. A knowing of our own reality begins to blossom. An awareness of our beauty raises our consciousness. A sense of our power blasts our walls of isolation. We are no longer willing to settle for a drab and bland existence in this plastic environment. We begin to create our own world.

“Drop your mind with all of its old attitudes, prejudices, criticisms, doubts, all of your projections. They are old and moldy. Drop all that and allow something new to enter into your heart. And for the first time you will know what life is all about.”

So the Royal Way journey begins with the willingness, the eagerness, the yearning, to drop the old and experience something new. Then Royal Way truly becomes an instrument for spiritual growth. Then the many practices, meditations, and group exercises that make up a Royal Way personal growth workshop can transform one’s life, and the experience of inner peace can become real and lasting.

Another key insight explored at Royal Way happenings is that each of us carries a spark, a seed, of the divine. Royal Way happenings are filled with opportunities to experience that seed, to grow it, and ultimately identify with it. As Michael Gottlieb wrote:

“All humans contain a divine seed, which awaits growth and development. The main function of a human life is to evolve toward, to reach for, to fulfill our greatest potential.”

Meditation is a key to all of these experiences and a key to understanding the importance—and the bliss—of living in the moment, in the here and now. Michael Gottlieb described this in terms of “the ancient Zen teaching to live each moment.” He went on to illuminate the beauty of this teaching:

“When the next moment comes, you will be able to really live it. You will be more efficient in living it if you are intensely living this moment. You will be able to more efficiently live tomorrow if you are intensely living life today. This is the greatest richness in life. There is no other richness.” 

In Conclusion

Royal Way Spiritual Center is an ideal setting for all these experiences: meditation, inner peace, growing the seed of the divine, the bliss of living in the here and now. The spiritual environment of Royal Way and its many personal growth workshops have brought thousands to the experience of the divine. For those just beginning that journey and for those who consider it a life path, Royal Way is a place where the experience of God is just a breath away.

To learn about upcoming Royal Way happenings, you are invited to Get in Touch, and we will be happy to connect with you and discuss our upcoming retreats.