CHECK-IN AND RETREAT SCHEDULE

Once you win the raffle and are confirmed to attend a retreat, please make your travel plans to arrive at the Sacred Grove campus in Graham, TX by 2:30 PM CST on Day 1. If you are arriving at DFW airport, it takes approximately 2.5 hours to drive to Graham. Please plan to allocate time for baggage pick-up and car rental pick up before your travel to Graham, TX.

If this is your first time attending a retreat with us, please also look out for invites to join WhatApp groups to coordinate travel plans, carpool, hotel room sharing with other retreat registrants.

Check-in at Sacred Grove starts at 2:30 PM CST on Day 1, followed by orientation and an introduction to the topic of the retreat by Sri M at 5:45pm CST. Arrival at 2:30pm CST on Day 1 allows us to ensure all attendees (close to 100 per retreat) are checked-in, have had time for refreshments and also familiarize themselves with the Sacred Grove campus prior to program start at 5:45pm CST. It is mandatory that all attendees complete the check-in process prior to joining the retreat. Day 2 and 3 begin with a guided Yoga session with a yoga teacher followed by 2 morning sessions and 2 afternoon sessions led by Sri M.

A detailed program schedule will be emailed to you a few weeks prior to the retreat. This schedule may change slightly as guided by Sri M and any change to the schedule will be promptly communicated by our volunteers. Please keep track of emails from programs@blossomfoundation.com for any announcements.

DURATION OF RETREAT

Each retreat is for three days. The program will begin Day 1 in the afternoon and end Day 3 after dinner. Dinner on Day 3 will be at approximately 7pm. We will provide packed meals for those who have to leave immediately after the retreat ends.

DEPARTURE FROM GRAHAM

We highly recommend that you plan on leaving Graham, the next day morning (Day 4) to give yourselves plenty of time to drive from Graham to Dallas airport (2.5 hours drive), drop off your rental car and make your flight on time. The retreat ends around 7pm on Day 3 and trying to catch a flight that same evening from Dallas could be a bit of a rush.

MEALS

All meals are carefully prepared by our volunteers to provide nourishment to you during the retreat and will be vegetarian. Light refreshment (snacks and tea) will be served on Day 1 upon registration at 2:30pm CST. We serve food starting with dinner on Day 1 (day of registration) up to and including dinner on Day 3 (last day of retreat) at the Sacred Grove dining hall. Fruit, tea, coffee and water will be available throughout the day. Please specify if you have any food allergies or dietary restrictions in the registration form. Our kitchen cooks with tree nuts, soy, milk and wheat. While we take steps to minimize the risk of cross contamination, we cannot guarantee that any of our meals are totally free of peanuts, tree nuts, soy, milk, egg or wheat. We also cannot accommodate requests for any outside food to be cooked or prepared in our kitchen given that we need to be compliant to health codes mandated by the State and local county food inspectors. 

EMAIL CONFIRMATION

After registering for retreat, the confirmation email will be sent to the email address provided during billing. It will not be sent to email addresses of participants.

KRIYA yoga INITIATION AT RETREAT

The retreats will comprise of Kriya Yoga retreats and Upanishad retreats. If Kriya Yoga initiation is your main focus, please ensure you specifically register for the Kriya Yoga retreats. The Upanishad retreats focus on a deeper discourse on the “Upanishads.” The Upanishad retreats do not have kriya yoga initiation. 

FLOW OF THE KRIYA yoga INITIATION RETREAT

The 3-day Kriya Yoga initiation retreats are a critical first step towards truly understanding the essence and practice of Kriya Yoga from a living yogi and spiritual Master, Sri M. Attendees will first-hand understand the fundamentals of Kriya Yoga, the Yogic anatomy and the sequence of key steps one must follow in the practice of Kriya Yoga from Sri M. Following two days of a conceptual understanding of the principles of Kriya Yoga, attendees will be initiated and also get to practice Kriya Yoga with Sri M on Day 3. The Kriya Yoga initiation retreats include plenty of Q&A time with Sri M over the course of 3 days to help you take the right first steps to your Kriya Yoga practice. 

UPANISHADS RETREAT

Sri M selects the upanishad to be discussed during the Upanishad retreat. Attendees interested in the Upanishad retreat are encouraged to come with an open mind and leave it to Sri M to decide which Upanishad.

RETREAT CHANGE POLICY

If you want to change your retreat for another retreat, please first book your desired retreat, and only then request for cancellation of the first retreat. We cannot swap one retreat for another. For example: You have booked spot on retreat # 3, but now you want it to be swapped with retreat # 2. You should first book retreat # 2, and then request for cancellation of retreat # 3.

NAME TRANSFER POLICY

Attendees are not allowed to change the name on the registration once the registration is confirmed. No registration is transferable once confirmed.

CANCELLATION POLICY

Cancellations before and including April 7, 2024 will receive 100% of the retreat fee as refund. Cancellations after midnight on April 7, 2024 will receive NO refund. Please email programs@blossomfoundation.com for cancellations. Refunds can take up to 5 business days.

As we get cancellations, we will give you advanced notice when we open the cancellation slots so you can try to register. Please be on the lookout for an email from programs@blossomfoundation.com giving you ample time to register for slots that open up due to cancellations in the future. Please make sure you are subscribed to our email list at www.blossomfoundation.com.

NO WAITLIST POLICY

We do not have a waitlist policy for our retreats.

ACCOMMODATION

All registered participants are highly encouraged to book accommodation at any of the hotels in Graham, listed below, as soon as you are confirmed to attend.  Please note that the Graham area has a limited number of hotels and these tend to get 100% booked very quickly.

Hotel Accommodation Info:  We have negotiated discounted rates for accommodations at the following hotels in Graham, TX for the retreats.  Please make the reservations directly with the hotel using the links below.  We recommend that you do not use third party websites to book the hotel rooms as it becomes easier for the hotels to track the guests of our retreats and serve them properly.  Please note that we will also start a retreat specific WhatsApp group to help facilitate conversations with other volunteers  to arrange for roommates, sharing rental cars, organizing a ride, etc.

Hotels with negotiated rates are::

Other accommodation options include Airbnb/VRBO and camping in the nearby area

The next two closest cities to Graham with hotel accommodation are Mineral Wells (approximately 45 min from Graham) and Wichita Falls (approximately 1 hour from Graham). 

Attendees in the past have also shared rooms based on their preference. A link to join a WhatsApp group will be shared with you post registration where you may coordinate room sharing with other attendees or volunteers for the same retreat. Please note there is currently no accommodation available at Sacred Grove hence securing your hotel stay as soon as you are registered to attend is extremely important. 

CAMPING AND RV FACILITIES

We do not have camping or RV facilities at this time, but there is a neighboring facility that you can contact. 

Paradise RV park

522 Race Track Rd, Graham, TX 76450

940 441 7275

VISITOR POLICY

To ensure safety of our attendees and volunteers during retreats, we will only allow registered attendees and volunteers to the Sacred Grove grounds. We will not be able to allow anyone else, including friends and family members. Please note that this includes children under 10 years age. Since children under age 10 will not be allowed on the property during the retreats, we request you to make appropriate arrangements for child care during your participation. 

Minimum age for a participant is 10 years. Children 10 and above who are registered as participant may come to Sacred Grove during the retreat program.

If you have family traveling with you, and especially if you have young children with you, kindly let us know by contacting the registration team as soon as possible.  Though really young family members cannot accompany you during the retreat, we will be able to provide them and others in your family not attending but accompanying you, with lunch and dinner.  They would however have to remain outside the campus at all other times and you have to make arrangements for their travel to and from campus during meal times. 

1-1 TIME WITH SRI M

All participants will get the opportunity to individually offer their respects to Sri M and receive his blessings at the end of each retreat. We will not be able to accommodate 1-1 sessions due to the volume of participants and time constraints. 

LOCATION & HOW TO GET THERE

For the address and information on how to reach the Sacred Grove Campus, please click here. On this page you will find links on how to find the campus from either side of the highway. Please click on these links for a more detailed illustration of landmarks and turn off points.

https://www.blossomfoundation.com/directions-sacred-grove

NEAREST AIRPORT AND CAR RENTAL

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and Dallas/Love Field (DAL) are the nearest airports. They are both about 2 hours away by road from Graham. Attendees are expected to book their own car rentals at the airport to travel from the airport to Graham or carpool with other attendees from the airport to Graham.  

TRANSPORTATION TO/FROM GRAHAM AND SACRED GROVE

Attendees are expected to make their own travel arrangements to Graham. The town Graham where the accommodations are located is about a 20-min drive from the Sacred Grove campus. There are no public transport options and participants will have to arrange a car to commute from the airport, and to travel between the Sacred Grove campus and their accommodation.

We will set up a WhatsApp group in early March so you can connect with other attendees from your retreat to carpool, share a room etc. 

SEATING DURING THE RETREATS

Meditation cushions, floor chairs (e.g., back-jacks) and standard chairs will be available for use. If you prefer to bring your own seat, you are welcome to do so.

YOGA MAT FOR THE YOGA CLASS

Yoga mats will be provided for the morning yoga class. Feel free to bring your own mats if that’s your preference. 

VOLUNTEERING

Our programs are run by volunteers and we welcome your help. We are in need of full-time volunteers for each retreat; hence we request you to sign up for a retreat you are not already attending. There will be opportunities to volunteer in the kitchen and dining hall (meal prep, getting dining patio ready, setting up the meal service and washing dishes), managing registration, helping keep traffic flowing smoothly in and out of the property, parking duties, getting the meditation hall ready for the programs and clean up after, keeping Grotto areas clean and other activities.

Please see details about volunteer registrations at www.blossomfoundation.com/volunettering.

Kindly note that due to limited budget we are requesting all volunteers to manage their own accommodation and transportation costs. We are working on providing free accommodation to volunteers who are helping with multiple retreats at the Salt Creek Lodge (more details to come on that). We will send out further information shortly regarding accommodation options for volunteers and accommodation sharing and carpooling options.

Full-time volunteers who are not participants in the retreat, will have free access to the Sacred Grove campus during the retreat and may use the facilities such as Sri Guru Babaji’s room and Mary’s Grotto. Volunteers will be provided meals free of cost. 

TAX DEDUCTION

Retreat payments are not tax-deductible as you will be attending the retreat for the payment you are making and availing the services at Sacred Grove. 

CONTACT

For other queries, please send an email to programs@blossomfoundation.com. 

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