Celebrating 2622th Birth Anniversary of Mahavir

Why do we call Mahavir a Spiritual Saint as a ‘Courageous Soldier’? His search or research for 12 years in jungles of Vihar now Bihar is to find true happiness outside materialistic pleasures. His search was for finding ‘The True Truth’. He discovered that the journey of true truth starts from inside self. That internal journey of understanding self requires extreme courage and bravery and that must be reason for naming him ‘Mahavir’.

The inner journey of self has been simplified by him in 3 simple words besides 357 sutras written in Tatvarthsutra. Ahimsa, Anekantvaad and Aprigrah are those 3 simple words which enables one to start this inward journey.

As explained in last year post

  • A1. Ahimsa – no hurt to anyone even at Thinking level before speaking or Action. This is starting point of collaboration.
  • A2. Anekantwad – acceptance of multiple views and respect them. This is starting point of creativity.
  • A3. Aprigrah – Non-attachment to specific offering or object but just commited to purpose. The purity of purpose removes all the fears and provide extreme courage to take on any initiatives.
  • These 3 principles are foundational signposts for inner journey to begin supported by Satya (Principle centric), Sanyam (Perseverance), Tap (deep research) and Tyaag(Letting go or letting go ego).
  • My mind was connecting Inspirational Institutional Leadership with above seven teachings of Mahavir – Collaboration, Creativity, Purpose, Principle centric, Perseverance, Research and letting go ego.
  • Just a point of reflection and connecting self leadership of spirituality and self Leadership of human centric contribution.
May 1, 2024

The True Sustainability Example : The Life Around Ganges For 3000 Years

Today it’s a most beautiful Sunday of my life on Ganges. It’s a cloudy day. There were rains in night. I am on ‘cruise on Ganges’ moving south and east towards Kolkata. There is vast expanse of mesmerising Ganga or Hooghly river. Both sides of River have history of last 3000 years of Civilisation.

I am experiencing a very diffferent feeling. The knowledge creation, knowledge Abstraction and knowledge application for better Humanity has happened here thru these waters. From Budha to Mahaveer or the sages and authors of Vedas / Upanishads all flown thru these waters or banks of these Ganges. Varanasi to Pataliputra to VarDhaman nagar have witnesssed the growth and decline of Humanity.

During last 6 hundred years, the banks of Ganges have seen the Portuguese coming for trading in early 1500s, followed by British, followed by Dutch, followed by French and then followed by Danish. Five European cultures and their knowledge also helped this region to grow.

The banks of Ganga learnt the design of 46 alphabets of Devanagari script which made the documentation of knowledge possible. It helped in developing sophisticated algorithms of constructing words and sentences, which we called Sanskrit Language. It was to document the ‘Sanskriti’ (संस्कृति) thru out the human development process. It saw the understanding of Farming and clothing. It saw the innovation of Converting a roadside plant with fibre like fruit to convert into threads. Then it started wiring threads into weaving which then forms the basis of Clothing. These clothing then started innovating with colours, prints and embroidery. The 700 Threads per inch became finest form of artistry and many such innovations have come around Ganga and continuing.

April 5, 2024

Non Violent Economy Diwali Greetings

Non Violent Economy

Trust you all are having a nice and joyful festive season!

Recently, Manju and I attended the Non-Violent Economy Network (NVEN) event at Madurai. I was very intrigued by the narrative of Non-Violent Economy. How come the Economy which provides livelihood to us all becomes violent?The movement is led by Global leaders from many countries who are relooking at the economy from a sustainable lens.

The Sustainability of Human Existence is now anchored around Climate, Water, Energy Systems, Chemical free Agriculture practices, Forests and Consumption.The word Economy is for 138 Crs people of India and 750 Crs Global people not for a select few. In India alone, there are more than 90 cr people living in Rural India spread across 6 lakh villages.

The lowest structure of local governance is the elected Panchayat System consisting of 2.5 lakh Panchayats, governed by 11 to 17 members each. Now the question is what is their role in our Urban Economy?How do we calculate the contribution of each village in the traditional economy?Are we in a hurry to produce higher and higher by applying toxic chemical fertilisers and compromising on Sustainability in Non Violent way?

I interpreted ‘Nonviolence’ as non-violence at Thought, Speech and Action Levels by an individual or community. Non-Violence for sustainability is to respect Nature, Climate, Water, Forest and Agriculture. It is also about Fair Trade& profit and about right consumption.

In the last 6 yrs, I am enjoying working with self motivated Development Accelerators (called NGO’s) through Mission Samriddhi who are completely committed to Sustainability without even knowing the word ESG or Non-Violence. I got humbled when the Tribal community of Shiratoki, a small village of Yavatmal, Maharashtra came together to participate in Collective Farming by pooling their 150 acres of the land. We got the opportunity to apply Design Thinking to solve problems of Fragmented land holding, Water, Natural farming and single crop dependency along with 10 other compassionate experts. We call this experiment HOCO farming (Holistic and Collective Farming). I must thank each one of the experts who are putting their substantial time in designing this non-violent economic experiment.

When Manju & I were thinking about a Diwali gift this year, we felt we need to participate in this movement in a very small way by sharing products from Non-Violent economy to our friends and families. We picked up a few products from rural non-violent startups. The Handbag is sourced from YellowBag Foundation which helps women gain financial independence, Millet based sweets and savouries are from The Timbaktu Collective, a non-profit organisation that works towards the sustainable development of marginalised people across 285 villages in the drought-prone and ecologically challenged in Andhra Pradesh

This Diwali, we were happy to be part of the Non-Violent economy movement.

Wishing you a Happy Diwali.

October 1, 2022