How many of you have read this book, ‘Meaning of Life’ by Victor Frankl. He is a survivor of the Concentration Camp and has founded the theory of Logo Therapy based on the Will of Purpose/Meaning vs. Will of Pleasure or Will of Power/Superiority.
Tomorrow is the beginning of Das Lakshan Parva, which means 10 Virtues for 10 days.
My understanding of this festival:
1. I used to visit the temple during these days with my father and sat down in a few lectures randomly. I used to feel good but was not able to connect to my daily life. A few years ago I was searching for a framework from Indian scriptures in relation to where deep knowledge has been made repeatable. I found the answer in Paryushan Parva, where Jains celebrate the 10 Principles of High-Performance Life for 10 days that are committed to learning.
#DesignThinking #HighPerformanceLife #DasLakshanParva
Article: Published on August 23, 2020
My understanding of Das Lakshan Dharam – Design Thinking in action for celebrating a high-performance life
Tomorrow is the beginning of Das Lakshan Parva, which means 10 Virtues for 10 days.
My understanding of this festival:
1. I used to visit the temple during these days with my father and sat down in a few lectures randomly. I used to feel good but was not able to connect to my daily life. A few years ago I was searching for a framework from Indian scriptures in relation to where deep knowledge has been made repeatable. I found the answer in Paryushan Parva, where Jains celebrate the 10 Principles of High-Performance Life for 10 days that are committed to learning.
2. Process Design: There are 3 innovations in this process design
a) Each day is dedicated to understand, reflect and learn about one virtue.
b) Guru (Pandit) has to be from another temple or other cities to provide a different perspective of the virtue.
c) The learning process has 3 sessions – Morning: lecture form, Afternoon: Dialogue form and Evening: Lecture and Clarifications.
3. I relate the 10 virtues to the similar 7 habits of effective leadership
The Process Design and extreme distilling of the knowledge of life in just 10 virtues which can drive ethics, collaboration and continuous learning in a community is the true example of Design Thinking in action for celebrating a High-Performance Life.
Today I enjoyed a slow walk on Boat Club Road. I observed the majestic trees which I did not pay attention to for the last 20 years of walking on the same street. Each tree expresses itself uniquely through its solid trunks, strong branches and their direction, exotic leaves and then beautifully designed flowers. Some of the trees act as large ‘hotels’ for insects and birds. Some trees provide their shoulders to other weaker plant that have weaker trunks. The sleek and weaker creepers are able to climb up to 40 feet and are able to get their food from sun.
I touched 14 trees and tried to feel them. Some trees are over 100 years or 200 years old. They have seen and experienced more history than most of us and kept secrets within themselves.
I experience the power of a slow walk with no pressure on counting steps. I just sat down looking up to see the beauty of each tree. They have grown over 50 feet high. Some are growing upwards and some are growing horizontally to provide shade to humans. They just stand there without any expectation, contributing to humanity year after year.
Truly selfless!
#nature #slowwalk #learningsfromtrees
This morning, I started with a cloudy day and we were enjoying our morning tea with rusks. The weather turned better and it started raining.
I was amazed to observe the cycle of rains resulting in great crops in the field. I admired the cycle of nature – sun’s energy along with water and the natural force of plants, produces so much for humanity.
The thoughts further created a question – What is wealth and how did it get created?
1. All wealth is created by nature.
2. Nature creates wealth through agriculture and minerals. There is no other way to create primary wealth.
3. Trading of this primary wealth by multiple transactions creates secondary wealth.
4. Secondary wealth surplus gets invested into building safety and home conveniences.
5. Secondary wealth surplus invested in education, research and innovation have created multiple technologies resulting in various professions and industries. Each profession and industry then started driving Tertiary wealth.
This means all the wealth in the world gets created by farming and mineral extraction from Mother Nature. The irony is that today a farmer is the most poor of this chain while all wealth is residing in the hands of ‘Value adders’.
I need your help in building on this hypothesis.
#nature #wealth #agriculture
Today is a significant day as we celebrate the National Panchayati Raj Day to commemorate the historic Constitution Act (73rd Amendment) passed in 1992 which came into existence a year later on April 24, 1993. The launch of the e-GramSwaraj portal and app today makes this a doubly important day. The portal shows us the vastness of India’s local governance framework.
We have over 2.66 lakh Gram Panchayats across the length and breadth of our country. This is where ‘the rubber hits the road’ and this is where, as Gandhiji said, India lives. On the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, we at #MissionSamriddhi launched the India Panchayat Forum (IPF) at Gandhi Ashram, Sewagram in Wardha. I felt that the 73rd Amendment that provided a Constitutional status to the Panchayati Raj Institution is yet to realise its full potential.
On this significant day, let us work with them and help them achieve effective local governance, and become examples to the world.
#ruralindia #IndiaPanchayatForum
Article: Published on April 24, 2020
National Panchayati Raj Day
Today is a significant day as we celebrate the National Panchayati Raj Day to commemorate the historic Constitution Act (73rd Amendment) passed in 1992 which came into existence a year later on April 24, 1993. The launch of the e-GramSwaraj portal and app today makes this a doubly important day. The portal shows us the vastness of India’s local governance framework.
We have over 2.66 lakh Gram Panchayats across the length and breadth of our country. This is where ‘the rubber hits the road’ and this is where, as Gandhiji said, India lives. On the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, we at #MissionSamriddhi launched the India Panchayat Forum (IPF) at Gandhi Ashram, Sewagram in Wardha. I felt that the 73rd Amendment that provided a Constitutional status to the Panchayati Raj Institution is yet to realise its full potential.
The need for the India Panchayat Forum stems from this gap and is envisioned to promote the Gandhian vision of Panchayat Raj. This upholds the constitutional values, social justice and the highest standards of governance with a special focus on Antyodaya.
In our federal structure, our Gram Panchayats are the unsung heroes. Devolution of power to local government continues to be a contentious issue, but the launch of this portal ensures transparency, and thereby a level playing field. Each Panchayat has different challenges, and most do come up with innovative solutions.
On this significant day, let us work with them and help them achieve effective local governance, and become examples to the world.
And people stayed home
and read books and listened
and rested and exercised
and made art and played
and learned new ways of being
and stopped
and listened deeper
someone meditated
someone prayed
someone danced
someone met their shadow
and people began to think differently
and people healed
and in the absence of people who lived in ignorant ways,
dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
even the earth began to heal
and when the danger ended
and people found each other
grieved for the dead people
and they made new choices
and dreamed of new visions
and created new ways of life
and healed the earth completely
just as they were healed themselves.
Kathleen O’Meara, pen name Grace Ramsay, was an Irish-French Catholic writer and biographer during the late Victorian era.
This poem appeared in her second novel ‘Iza’s Story’, which was about the struggle of Polish patriots against Russian, Austrian and German occupation. The book compares the Polish-Russian situation to the Irish-British situation and praises the revolt of a small nation against a great neighbour.
1. Must think about perpetuity… Many a times, we don’t think from that perspective.
2. Any initiative should be self-propelled by the community, perhaps after an initial catalysing effort.
3. For it to be self-propelled, the initiative should have an overarching purity of purpose that is inclusive.
4. So, it is very essential to identify those forces that propel the initiative. There are 3 forces that drive human beings: a. Economic returns b. Social contribution/Recognition c. Spiritual/Compassion.
5. This ‘purity of purpose’ is what is of a higher nature because it addresses a greater problem that affects the majority.
6. Finally, such a perpetual initiative and self-propelling are embraced by all because its impact strikingly touches everyone – beneficiary and contributor alike.
Our purpose gets clearer and more relevant every day.
Just three years ago, armed with compassion and a massive transformative purpose, Mission Samriddhi set out to learn and understand the patterns, gaps and opportunities for holistic community development in rural India.
That was Mission Samriddhi 1.0. We are happy to say that we are now ready for Mission Samriddhi 2.0 where we are looking to scale.
Welcome to Mission Samriddhi’s Summit 8 on ‘Design for Scale’
#ruralindia #indiapanchayatforum #clusterdevelopment
Article: Published on January 29, 2020
Our purpose gets clearer and more relevant every day.
Just three years ago, armed with compassion and a massive transformative purpose, Mission Samriddhi set out to learn and understand the patterns, gaps and opportunities for holistic community development in rural India.
That was Mission Samriddhi 1.0. We are happy to say that we are now ready for Mission Samriddhi 2.0 where we are looking to scale.
Welcome to Mission Samriddhi’s Summit 8 on ‘Design for Scale’ with 4 distinctive sessions.
Some of the experts who will be part of these sessions are stalwarts in rural transformation in the region.
Shri. Sunil Kumar, IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Panchayat Raj, Government of India
Shri S. M. Vijayanand, IAS, Former Chief Secretary, Govt of Kerala, Chairman Sixth State Finance Commission, Kerala
Dr W. R. Reddy, IAS, Director General, National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj
Mr. Siddharth Tripathi, IFS, Commissioner, MGNREGA, Government of Jharkhand
Mr. Bala Murugan D., IAS, CEO of BRLPS Jeevika, Government of Bihar
Mr. Tausif Ahmed Quraishi, Senior Manager, Ultra-poor Graduation Programme, BRAC, Bangladesh
We look forward to each of the sessions with positivity in the hope that we will build a more prosperous India together!
Today, we met Noble Laureate Mohd Yunus, the father of Micro Finance and Self Help groups. He started this initiative in 1976 just after Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. Started Grameen Bank formally in 1983 and the rest is history.
He believes in creating social business vs charity. He says charity has one life cycle while social business has unlimited. Now this concept is very active in Germany, France, Africa and Japan. Many German corporations have joint ventures with Grameen Bank for social businesses.
He has published a new book – “A World of Three Zeros: Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, Zero Carbon.” We were lucky to get this copy after spending over an hour with him.
Life is the means by which a man develops himself and expresses himself through his creative faculty.
Life in other words is like a great canvas on which man, the artist with his peculiar brand of paint of many values, and the firm strokes of free will, brings into existence his indelible work of art, which either helps enhance human progress or retards it.
If he uses a large mixture of self-centred values, which are like water colours, they fade away with age. On other hand, if he uses mainly altruistic values or objective values, which are like earth paints used at Ajanta that have retained their freshness through the centuries. That’s the process of creating economy of permanence. – J C Kumarappa
Hello, my name is Arun Jain. I am a design thinker living in Chennai, India. This is my blog, where I post my thoughts, technology trends and tips about the fintech world and many more.