About Us
Purnam is a part of Auroville, the City of Dawn in the making in South India, near Pondicherry.
While entire Auroville is an international campus for karmayoga covering all aspects of the life of the city in the making for 50,000 people, the specific focus of Purnam is on spiritual education based on the ideals of Auroville and sharing it with the wider world.
Legal Status
Purnam Community is an initiative of the Purnam Centre for Integrality, a unit of the Auroville Foundation.
Auroville Foundation is an institution of Higher Education under Ministry of Education, Government of India under UNESCO category. Its legal framework has been laid out in an act of Indian Parliament in 1988 known as Auroville Foundation Act. This act of the Parliament provides Auroville with a special status to embark upon a bold experiment in education unprecedented in the country as well as the world. This makes Auroville radically different from conventional universities or other institutions of higher education.
Spiritual Foundation
The legal framework of Auroville, the Auroville Foundation Act, has been created to protect Auroville’s spiritual status and the impetus given by its founder The Mother. She was the spiritual collaborator of the Indian sage Sri Aurobindo. The task of giving a concrete form to Sri Aurobindo’s vision was entrusted to the Mother. The creation of a new world, a new humanity, a new society expressing and embodying the new consciousness is the work she has undertaken. By the very nature of things, it is a collective ideal that calls for a collective effort so that it may be realised in the terms of an integral human perfection.
Vision of Purnam
Transformative learning community coaching young spiritual seekers to become karmayogis.
Spiritual education and growth is a lifelong journey and our community is designed for a long-term collective journey each one progressing at their own pace following their own unique soul trails.
The Meaning of Purnam
Purnam is a Sanskrit word that means integral, whole and complete.
When you live with internal conflicts and confusion, you are getting torn and psychologically fragmented. Thus you lose your wholeness. Then, you cannot engage with your life or work wholeheartedly. Eventually this internal fragmentation will manifest as outer friction and conflict with the larger whole of which you are a part. This friction and conflict manifests everywhere – within family and personal relationships, within organisation and teams, within society and Nations and within the larger ecosystems of which you are a part. To restore the outer harmony, first, you must restore your inner wholeness. This is the paradigm shift we at Purnam work with. This is the fundamental idea upon which the Purnam Community is built.
Integrality
All movements of Nature are integral, evolving together as a whole. Every part is a whole in itself and evolves in harmony with the larger whole of which it is a part. Wholeness exists in Nature at all scales. Atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, individuals, families, teams, organisations, societies, Nations, and Earth are the different scales of the same wholeness. All can thrive and evolve harmoniously together when we discover our own wholeness. This wholeness is the key to our individualisation and uniqueness bringing forth diversity in unity.
Purnamada, purnamidam
Purnat purnamudachyate
Purnasya purnamadaya
Purnamevavashisyate
Swadharma & Swabhava
There is an inborn purpose, function and way of being for each part in the larger whole of which it is a part. It is the very truth and foundation of its being, its reason for existence. This inborn truth of being and way of being is its Swadharma and Swabahava, it is the key to its unique individuality and evolution towards its own wholeness. This principle of Swadharma and Swabhava is the same for an individual, organisation, community or a Nation and it is the foundation of one’s culture. When you live according to your Swadharma and Swabhava, you will naturally find your wholeness and evolve harmoniously with the larger whole.
Karmayoga
Swabhava niyatam karma – Gita
Work according to one’s natural way of being is the starting point of accelerating one’s spiritual evolution through work. It is the path of your destined work, your life purpose.
