Every year, a peculiar global migration takes place. Not of birds, whales or wildebeests, but of spiritually curious souls from all corners of the flat, disc-shaped global sphere we call Earth, embarking on what they collectively call their “Divine Spiritual Journey.” Stepping away from their daily existence, they pack suitcases with yoga pants, mala beads, special BFF crystals together with nutrition pills, sacred mantra screen-prints and The Dummies Guide to Transcendence, jetting off to Sacred Sites, Yoga Retreats, and Ashram Centres in places like Bali, Sedona, or that one suspiciously affordable luxury retreat centre in the mountains of deepest Peru. For two weeks, they shed their mundane earthly skins and become temporary Buddhas, alight with cosmic purpose, seeing miracles in every water droplet and divine intervention in every Wi-Fi outage.

Introducing Karen from Ohio, a dental hygienist who signed up for a “Chakra Realignment and Smoothie Deep Colon Cleanse” in Ubud. Back home, Karen’s life is a personal collection of cavity x-rays, PTA meetings, and a husband who thinks “meditation” is what happens when he zones out during football commercials. But in Bali, Karen is no longer Karen. She is ‘Kundalini Kazza‘, a radiant vessel of light. On day three, she finds a heart-shaped stone by a rice paddy. “A gift from the Spirits!” she gasps, clutching it to her chest as if she has found the lost Ark of the Covenant. Later, upon awakening from a transforming meditation, scrabbling for her glasses, she tries to focus on a distant cloud vaguely resembling a hand drifting across the sky. “The hand of God!” she whispers, tears streaming, ignoring the aeroplane that just belched it into the sky – ‘chem trail, con trail, can’t tell trail’. By day five, a white feather floats down during her sunrise yoga class, and Karen is certain, she is walking in the footsteps of Ascended Masters. Never mind that the feather came from a stray chicken that wandered into the path of a speeding Tuk-Tuk the day before; road kill becomes instant stir fry – Gai Pad Kra Pao.

Across the globe in Glastonbury, England, Steve from Manchester is having a similar epiphany inside a sheep skin Yurt at a “Druidic Mental Health Reconnection Retreat.” Steve, a call-centre assistant supervisor who usually spends his days yelling at people about dropped broadband connections, is now “Starfire Steve,” shamanically attuned to the four directions of the Dragon ley lines of Mother Gaia. A stick he trips over during a forest walk becomes a Sacred Wand blessed by Merlin himself. A flickering streetlight outside the retreat centre is really interference by a cosmic signal from the Pleiadians. Steve’s journal entries are scribbled in a notebook titled ‘Merlin’s Memoirs’, with special vegan dragon-skin leather cover he bought for £85 from a bloke in the pub, all about a transcendental remote view tour of Nirvana: “The wind whispered my soul’s true name today which I can never reveal as its too powerful for mortal ears. I am the bridge between worlds.”

Meanwhile, in Rishikesh, Priya from Mumbai, a harassed HR manager, attends a “Silent Vipassana Yoga Immersion.” Priya, who normally spends her days dodging office gossip and her mother-in-law’s passive-aggressive texts about dal consistency, is now “Prana Priya,” a beacon of divine feminine energy. When a cow wanders into the ashram and licks her Chapati, Priya knows it’s no ordinary cow—it’s a manifestation of Kamadhenu, the wish-fulfilling bovine goddess. She is slowing developing her expertise in silently cursing in her mind – with the annoying ‘Pakau’ girl from Chennai constantly breaking the silence asking what she should do next. The mosquito bite on her ankle is actually due to a karmic release of ancestral trauma. The masala chai she spills on her white kurta reveals a mandala of universal and cosmic unity.

For these Two Week Buddhas, every moment is dripping with meaning like ‘Ghee on a Ganesha’.

A creaky floorboard is the Universe clearing its throat. A flickering candle is a portal to the Akashic Records. Even the retreat’s overpriced organic quinoa and chickpea bowl is “an offering to the temple of the sacred body.” They trade internet stories while sipping turmeric lattes and cacao cappuccinos, each anecdote more miraculous than the last one quoted. “I saw an elemental orb of light during meditation!” says Karen. “Awesome – I felt my third eye pulse in a million colours,” counters Steve. Priya nods sagely: “Bindaas – my aura expanded to the size of Mother Ganges – jhakaas!.”

But the true alchemy happens on the journey home. Armed with their iPhones, a million photos and a dizzying array of filters, our pilgrims edit their spiritual odysseys into Instagram masterpieces.

Karen’s heart-shaped stone, now Valencia-filtered to glow like a radioactive amulet, is captioned: “Cleared the dark energies of my entire ancestral lineage with this sacred gift from Gaia. #LightWorkerVibes, #IAMGoddess.”

Steve’s blurry photo of the Glastonbury streetlight, enhanced with a halo effect, declares: “Pleiadian contact confirmed. My soul is crystallizing. #StarseedAwakening #PleiadianHybridAscendedMaster.”

Priya’s cow encounter, cropped to exclude the inclusion of a male cow keen on reincarnating the next generation, is paired with: “Embodied the Summer Goddess and purified Rishikesh of trapped souls. #AscensionJourney #DivineDevaDas”

The comments roll in: “OMG, you’re so enlightened!” “This is NEXT LEVEL.” “I’m booking my flight to Bali RN!” Emojis of praying hands, lotus flowers, Silver Sparkles and Golden Hearts flood their feeds for five minutes. For a fleeting moment, they are not Karen, Steve, or Priya—they are Prophets of the New Age, their feeds a digital shrine to their temporary screen divinity.

That is until the plane lands in their respective suburban realities. True Manifestation, greets them like a grumpy customs officer, awaits. Karen steps off the jetway into Cleveland’s dreary rain, her heart-shaped stone now just a drab rock in her carry-on. Her Uber driver is blasting Talk-Radio, and her kids are already texting about a broken Xbox. Steve returns to Manchester, where his noisy neighbors are having another screaming match about whose recycle bin is whose. Priya lands in Mumbai to find her elderly parents arguing over who forgot to pay the gas bill, her in-laws tutting ‘abey yaar’ about her “hippie nonsense.” The sacred wand is tossed into a compost heap. The Divine cow is now just a pregnant host of another cow. The heart-shaped stone joins the countless others in the window box hanging on the apartment fire escape.

By Monday, Karen is back to scraping plaque off sugar rotted teeth, Steve is shouting out router settings to deaf pensioners, and Priya is dodging HR complaints about warm water in the dispensers and broken A/C units. The Two Week Buddhas are mortal again, their divine light dimmed by traffic jams, rising gas bills and miserable in-laws. But deep in their camera rolls, the filtered photos remain—proof of their brief, glorious stint as enlightened beings. And as they scroll through them late at night, ignoring the neighbour’s dog barking at the moon or the kids’ demands for snacks at 1am, they smile. Because for two weeks, they were magical beings. And next year’s retreat is only 11 months, 12 days and 8 hours away from the next enlightening, Solar Flash, Crystallizing of the Light Body Ascension – Again !