Living From the Heart
a just Love forest ashram donation-based spiritual practice retreat
Step into 716 acres of wild forest for a transformative weekend of practice and reflection, with an optional 40-day journey to keep your heart awake leading into the new year.
NOVEMBER 21st - 23rd
Hosted by Bala, Nivay & Naga Das
Living from the Heart is the first in a new quarterly series of donation-based retreats inspired by the teachings of Neem Karoli Baba and Ram Dass. Created for seekers longing for satsang, renewal, and refuge in this wild Kali Yuga, these gatherings offer heart-centered practice, inspiration, and community to help keep love at the center of the path.
“If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” Ram Dass
Ram Dass’ famous wink of a reminder couldn’t land at a better moment. As the holidays draw near, most of us will soon step back into the familiar swirl of family dynamics: love, laughter, and button-pushing.
Living from the Heart is your invitation to pause first: to root yourself in presence, compassion, and inner steadiness before the holiday season begins.
Come gather for a weekend of heart-opening practice, then journey on with a 40-day guided container that carries you into the new year grounded, connected, and ready to meet family and friends with more grace (and maybe a little humor).
Why We Created This Retreat
At Just Love Forest Ashram we’re beginning a series of donation-based gatherings for sincere seekers on the path. We want spaces for real practice, honest conversation, and community support.
This Living from the Heart retreat arose from a shared wish to return to the essence of the path: the heart that breaks open again and again as part of the journey, widening our capacity for love, surrender, and service. Life itself is the training ground. Our families, habits, attachments, and the moments that trigger us are not obstacles to practice; they are the practice.
As the year closes, often a season of distraction and emotional charge, we want to gather in the forest to ground, clarify intention, and remember grace. This weekend offers spiritual discussions, breathwork, movement, meditation, satsang, and time in nature, exploring surrender not as an idea but as lived experience.
The retreat is donation-based and application-only, inviting sincerity over consumerism. As part of the weekend, you’ll be guided to design your own 40-day sadhana, a personal practice to carry you through the holiday season with steadiness and heart. You’ll be paired with a spiritual friend, someone on a similar level of dedication, to support and encourage one another as you step into the new year. Together, the group will have the option to join a brief weekly satsang check-in, staying connected and inspired all the way into early January.
This is not about perfection or credentials. It’s about living love, here and now, in community, in nature, and in the ordinary moments that shape us.
About Us
We are three close spiritual friends who spend countless hours together in the forest practicing, laughing, and learning side by side. Living From the Heart grew naturally from that friendship and shared devotion. We approach this gathering in the spirit of “the satsang is the guru,” trusting that truth reveals itself through the circle, not just from the front of the room. While we’re happy to share our experiences and hold space, we see ourselves less as teachers and more as spiritual friends walking this path together.
bala
Is a meditation teacher, forest-therapy guide, and founder-steward of Just Love Forest Ashram in Poetry, GA. Trained in mindfulness with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach and certified by the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, he weaves together devotion, ecology, and lived practice.
After a life-changing awakening in 2017, Bala turned from the tech world toward a life of presence and service. His work now centers on helping others remember what is already whole through nature, community, and the simple courage to live from the heart.
sean Owen (Naga Das)
The founder of All Heart Holistic Group, devoted to guiding others back to love, presence, and connection through breathwork, meditation, movement, and sound healing. Rooted in the lineage of Neem Karoli Baba and shaped by over a decade in behavioral health and recovery, Sean brings both lived experience and trauma-informed training to his work. His mission is simple: to serve with integrity, love, and devotion, creating spaces where healing and transformation can unfold.
Nivay Sahaye
Nivay is a steward of Just Love Forest, where he tends the land as both sanctuary and mirror for the inner journey. His path weaves devotion to Hanuman and Neem Karoli Baba with practices of surrender, honesty, and heart-centered living. Having walked through his own thresholds of heartbreak, family karma, and healing, he holds space not as a teacher but as a fellow traveler, learning from the forest, from sangha, and from the living practice of each moment. His prayer is that community and nature remind us that the heart itself is the true guru.
Retreat Highlights
Immersive Heart Practice
Breathwork, gentle movement, and somatic explorations to soften, open, and listen deeply to the heart.Honest Satsang & Community Sharing
Real conversation about surrender, attachment, and living from an ever-opening heart, no spiritual “performance,” just truth.Nature as Teacher
Guided forest immersions, solo sit spots, and sacred time with 716 acres of protected land to listen and receive.Fire & Water Ceremony
A powerful evening ritual to release old patterns and invite grace as we prepare for the new year.Heart Mapping & Journaling
Creative reflection to see where the heart has broken and grown, and where it longs to open further.Design Your 40-Day Sadhana
Craft a personal daily practice to carry you through the holiday season, paired with a spiritual friend for mutual support.Optional Weekly Satsang Check-ins
Stay connected beyond the weekend through brief group calls. This is a circle to keep the heart awake into early January.Donation-Based & Intimate
Application-only to create a sincere, resonant group; offered by donation so anyone called can attend.
Weekend schedule
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Friday Arrival and Landing
3:00 – 5:30 pm · Arrive, settle in, tea & forest orientation
6:00 pm · Light vegan dinner
7:00 pm · Opening Circle — introductions & intentions
8:30 pm · Breathwork + gentle movement to release travel tension
9:30 pm · Lantern walk to sleeping spaces & enter evening silence
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living from the heart
7:30 am · Silent forest walk to Bhakti Mountain & sunrise meditation
9:00 am · Nourishing breakfast
10:00 am · Somatic heart practice — breath, movement, and opening the body
11:30 am · Satsang on surrender, samskara & living from an ever-breaking heart
1:00 pm · Vegan lunch & quiet rest / journaling
3:00 pm · Nature immersion: solo wander with prompts on non-reaction & grace
5:00 pm · Small-group sharing: “Whatever arises IS the way”
6:30 pm · Communal dinner
8:00 pm · Fire & water ceremony — releasing old patterns, inviting grace
9:30 pm · Silence
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integration and commitment
7:30 am · Gentle morning movement & breath in the meadow
8:30 am · Breakfast
9:30 am · The Life Is the Practice circle — integrating lessons beyond retreat
11:00 am · Design your personal 40-day sadhana & pair with your spiritual friend
12:30 pm · Lunch
2:00 pm · Closing forest pilgrimage & blessing for the journey ahead
4:00 pm · Departure
Your forest home awaits
We offer you a large, private, beautiful canvas bell tent with your own luxury tempurpedic mattress.
716 acres of pristine protected forest
Our gathering space
A hand-built intentional yurt
Contribution & Commitment
heart offering
We’re offering Living From the Heart in a spirit of trust and devotion.
To help create commitment and sustain this sacred space, we ask each participant to make a base donation before the retreat. This donation reserves your place and signals your sincere intention to join.
If you are unable to contribute financially at this time, you are still welcome, simply email bala@justloveforest.com so we can talk about your circumstance. Without either a base donation or contacting us directly, registration cannot be completed.
We call this model Heart-Offering:
You make a contribution up front, and after the retreat you’ll be invited to adjust your offering - increase or decrease - based on what the weekend meant to you and what your heart feels called to give.
This is an experiment in surrender and trust, aligned with the spirit of Neem Karoli Baba and the vision of Just Love Forest: to keep sacred practice spaces accessible, while inviting participants to support the work in a way that feels true and heartfelt.
We simply ask:
Pause and listen inwardly. Consider what a weekend of deep practice, nature, and community is worth to you, and what you are truly able to give. Let your contribution come from the heart, generous enough to honor the space, but also nourishing rather than depleting for yourself, so that attending this retreat feels supportive and life-giving, not extractive.
Give in a way that lets you fully receive, fully participate, and still feel whole and resourced as you step back into your life and practice.
The day after the retreat, you’ll receive an email inviting you to increase or decrease your offering if your heart feels called to adjust it. Our role in this practice is to hold non-judgment, to welcome your experience fully,, and to receive whatever you choose to give with openness and gratitude. This way you can act from the truth of your own heart, trusting that your experience and your giving are fully honored.
Suggested Offerings
Many people ask what a harmonious exchange looks like for sustaining this space.
To keep Just Love Forest thriving and accessible long-term, a balanced base donation for this retreat is generally:
$125 — self-camping (bring your own tent & gear)
$250 — teepee tent with twin mattress provided
$500 — canvas bell tent with queen mattress provided
Applicable taxes will be added to all options.
These amounts are simply guidance. It’s a way to help you sense what supports the forest and the experience.
You are truly welcome to offer more or less according to your heart, your circumstances, and what will feel nourishing rather than depleting for you.