12 Paths

In 2025, we launched our first program, titled "The Urban Retreat," designed for individuals seeking spiritual enlightenment, rejuvenation, and a sense of community amidst the demands of contemporary life. Our approach at Twelve Paths draws upon both ancient and modern spiritual wisdom to inspire individuals toward wholeness and to live a more centered life. As we say at Twelve Paths, "Build a life that can hold you!" 

Twelve Paths now offers several new programs, grounded in our four foundational principles of love, inclusivity, community, and spirituality. Offerings now include: The Urban Retreat; One-on-one Spiritual Guidance; a program we're simply calling "Bring Rick to You," and a 12 Paths Sangha opportunity.

For over four decades, Rick Eberhardt, Jr., MA Ed, the founder of Twelve Paths, has dedicated his professional and personal life to serving as a spiritual guide, retreat leader, minister, social worker, and stay-at-home dad. He created Twelve Paths, inspired by the universal wisdom teachings that informed his own spiritual growth and understanding. 

Twelve Paths teaches the essence of Being that exists deep within each of us is fundamental to the calling inherent in all human beings. If this is true and real—which is for each of us to discover—then our longing for meaning and wholeness in our own lives must draw inspiration from that deep, personal, and yet infinite sense of "Being." 

After 15 years of working as a teacher, minister, retreat leader, and spiritual guide, I created The Urban Retreat to offer busy individuals a nourishing, year-long container for deep spiritual growth.  Typical retreat experiences require seekers to set aside a weekend or perhaps an entire week to travel somewhere far away from the noise and hustle of city life.  The Urban Retreat became my vision for offering something more accessible.  

My own spiritual journey instilled in me the value of maintaining life-long practices like: daily meditation, journaling, and an open-hearted pursuit of deeper undersanding.  My life experiences and study opened my heart to the wisdom found across diverse spiritual traditions.  I came to recognize the sacred common ground underlying humanity's great wisdom teachings, and I dreamed of creating a program that would draw inspiration from these wellspriings for modern seekers to cultivate greater self-awareness, inner-peace, and authentic connection.

As a result of the success of our first program, The Urban Retreat, I was led to expand my work to include a communal sangha space for those who completed the retreat and were looking for more in-depth and on-going practice with like-minded people.  One of our Twelve Paths foundational principles is that spiritual growth is both individual and communal, which made creating a space for spiritual community, or what Buddhist's call "sangha," a natural off-shoot of the retreat program.

Our Bring Rick to You program organically grew from my first participants on The Urban Retreat.  One first participant encouraged me to expand my work to include custom programs for organizations, businesses, and individual groups.  Another retreat participant, who happened to be the founder of a travel business, called ExplorerX, which crafts meaniningful travel expierences that are designed to "change the was we see the world," invited me to partner with him on a spritual awakening travel program.  

In developing Twelve Paths I realize even more now that true spiritual transformation is not an exclusive experience for only seekers steeped in a particular tradition.  It is something that happens naturally through a combination of intentional, on-going spiritual practice; tapping into our innate creative expression; and sharing our own unique pieces of life-wisdom with others in communal relationship.  My approach blends ancient wisdom with modern spiritual insight to help participants access their inner light and become awakened to the original goodness at the core of our inner-most Being.