Virtue 3 – Uttam Aarjava (Straight Forwardness) – Driving Integrity and Simplicity
What I think, what I say and what I do are aligned.
#leadership #inspiration #daslakshanparva #jainism #learning

10th September 2021 is the beginning of a Jain festival called Das Lakshan Parva – a festival that marks 10 Virtues over a period of 10 days.
I used to visit the temple during these 10 days with my father and listen to a few lectures at the temple. The lectures would make me feel good but I could not draw any connection between them and 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 10 principles of a high-performance life over 10 days when they are completely committed to learning.
In this series of audio podcasts, I will try to cover the 10 virtues similar to habits of effective leadership on a daily basis for the next 10 days.
Here is the first podcast about Das Lakshan Parva – https://lnkd.in/gWh7Xykk
#leadership #inspiration #personaldevelopment #learning #designthinking
This year, the Nobel Prize for Physics and the Noble Prize for Chemistry are on two ends of the spectrum. The Physics Nobel Prize was given to the discovery of the Black Hole and for Chemistry it was given for the Genome Editing Technology CRISPR.
It’s the infinite power of the human mind to go and discover something which is 26,000 light years away from us. Each light year means 9 trillion km i.e. 26,000 X 9 X 1000,000,000,000 km away. Black hole means where the force of gravity is so strong that it pulls light as well.
It’s the power of the human mind that can also go into the minutest to minutest size of chromosomes and then sequence 3 billion base pairs. They measure this in a unit called nanometers which is 1 divided by 1000,000,000.
In Design Thinking, there are 2 competencies that are important which help in ‘Connecting the dot’ i.e. Perspective which is about seeing from a distance and the second is about Expertise, which is about going into micro details. Today, I am amazed to see the infinite capacity of the human mind to traverse from 26000 lights years to nanometers to solve the complex nature of the universe.
innovation #nobel #chemistry #designthinking #physics

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.
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.

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!

छत ने कहा – ऊंचा सोंचो
पंखे ने कहा – दिमाग ठंडा रक्खो
घड़ी ने कहा – समय की कदर करो
कैलेंडर ने कहा – वक्त के साथ चलो
पर्स ने कहा – भविष्य के लिए बचाओ
शीशे ने कहा – अपने आप को देखो
दीवार ने कहा – दूसरों का बोझ बांटो
खिड़की ने कहा – अपने देखने का दायरा बढ़ाओ
फर्श ने कहा – जमीन से जुड़ कर रहो
The above thoughts are not mine, thus I didn’t translate it. I just contextualised it to Design Thinking.
The English translation
Roof said – Think high
The fan said – Keep your mind cool
The clock said – Appreciate the value of time
The calendar said – Adapt with time
Purse said – Save for the future
Mirror said – Reflect on yourself
Wall said – Distribute the burden of others
Window said – Increase your vision
Door said – Leave negativity outside
Floor said – Stay connected to the ground.
#Designthinking #life #principles

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.
