Atma Vidya Gurukulam

Human beings, eternally, have been striving to achieve peace and happiness. This primary seeking continues even though the world we live in has always been changing and that too drastically in the last century. Peace and happiness will always be elusive as long as one remains an unsatisfied and hence wanting person. A wanting person, who is essentially insecure, perenially keeps running after the objects of the external world trying to gain lasting security and happiness from them. This approach is fundamentally flawed because any object is limited in time and cannot last forever and so can never give lasting satisfaction. Permanent happiness is within and not outside and it needs to be discovered. The pursuit of this discovery is in other words a process of getting to know more about my true nature or real Self. That is, it is a pursuit of Self-knowledge. Once the knowledge is gained, the seeking automatically ceases and one becomes at peace with oneself. This knowledge of the Self and the means to acquire it is what the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita talk about and fortunately has been preserved over millennia to the present day. The main aim of the organization is to preserve this Self-knowledge inherited from our Sages/Seers in a meaningful way that is relevant to contemporary times while at the same time retaining the spirit and essence of the past. This involves a lot of teaching and education. The trust also wishes to help deserving students in rural and urban areas by contributing to their educational needs.

Create a sustainable facility to meaningfully blend the time tested Gurukula system of learning with modern technology to teach Vedanta (Bhagavad Gita, Upanishad, Brahma Sutra), other relevant texts written by acharyas of the Advaita Sampradaya, Sanskrit – starting from the basics and extending all the way to a detailed study of the Panini system, Yoga, meditation, basic Vedic chanting etc. Periodically experts in areas relevant to a mumukshu like Astrology, Ayurveda etc will be invited to share their knowledge. The study of the Paninian system of Sanskrit grammar will be elaborate but essentially only as much required for a serious seeker of Self Knowledge. Gurukulam will have the required infrastructure to address both online and resident students. The online medium, as we have been doing since January 2017, will be used to give an overview and basic understanding of both Atma jnanam and Sanskrit to interested seekers from various parts of India and the rest of the world. Basic Sanskrit classes are already available on YouTube.

The residential setup will cater to the more serious seekers wanting to experience learning in the Gurukulam premises for the short term (one day to 3 months) and long term (6 months to 2 years or more). As has always been the case in the Vedic tradition, there will be no discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, gender, religion, nationality etc. and the sole criterion for making the teaching available will be a sincere commitment to know the truth of oneself. The seekers will belong to all age groups like children, youth and adults and customized programs for those from varying backgrounds like Yoga teachers/students, working professionals and so on will be conducted from time to time depending on requirement/interest.