JAIN PRINCIPLES & PRACTISES
- Its application in our working life !!
I used to think that Jainism and similar dharmas are meant only for soul purification
and reaching a higher level of spirituality, hence always stayed away from it. I thought
that I was too young to understand and follow the same. I had many important
priorities in life like building my career, my business and becoming successful and
famous in a materialistic sense. Like most I didn’t see our religion being of much help
in this – in fact saw it as an impediment as it would take away valuable time.
Many youngsters feel the same and think understanding dharam etc is meant for old
age when we have done our bit in the materialistic world and feel the need to add some
positive karmas for a better next life. However when I started reading the basics of
Jainism, I was surprised to see that many of the basic tenets are as useful for our
materialistic world as they are for our spiritual.
When the Jains migrated from India to East Africa at the turn of the twentieth century,
they took very little in their pocket, but their culture helped them not only to flourish
but also to educate and transform a whole new generation. Their influence on the
economic development of that region has been significant.
We normally rely on books written by modern day Management Gurus or books like
Arthashastra of Chanakya, however it’s surprising that there is so much we can apply
from Jain philosophy and practices. I would like to share some of the principles and the
context in which they can be useful in shaping and building our working/business
lives:
· Satya (truthfulness): In business goodwill, credibility and reputation are very
important for long term success. We have living examples of Groups like Tatas, Infosys
and Godrej among others who have succeeded working on this principle and have
survived over years. They apart from being very successful are also highly respected.
· Anekant (tolerance and acceptance of diverse and different views): We all know
that there are perspectives and ways of looking at the same thing. In order to be an
astute and sharp businessman you need to take into account all points of view to take a
balanced and informed decision. People, who are adamant and egoistic and refuse to
listen to others viewpoint, normally don’t go far in life. In today’s context collaborative
and participative type of management is catching up.
This principle is probably the most important and powerful principle for success in life.
An example of this is the success of MBAs in the corporate world, which is due to their
knowledge of various facets of business, which helps them understand problems and
situations from various angles and come out with solutions.
Most of the businesses in new lines like IT, education, e-commerce have succeeded
because of the capability to follow “Anekant” and think out of the box and move away
from traditional lines of business which have low margins and high competition.
· Aparigraha: This concept has multifold meanings. A couple of relevant ones are:
- One of them is to keep limited resources in hand. This is very important intoday’s world, to utilize the available resources productively and not keep idle assets. For example, we should keep limited stocks, cash with us and avoid interest and holding cost.
- Another angle of is having limited desires. History has enough examples of people frittering away their wealth and capital due to undesired habits like drinking, smoking etc. By practicing this, we reduce our useless desires and save money. We also stay healthy in mind and body – an essential to be successful. It may sound surprising, but if we add the money spent by people on liquor, tobacco or gutkha in their lifetime – it would be equal to a fortune.
· Ahinsa (non violence): non – violence is normally attributed to physical violence.
However it starts from the mind and then moves onto words and deeds. It goes beyond
human being and extends to all living beings. When one respects all living beings, its
natural character is filled with humility and simplicity. Such a belief leads to developing
an employee friendly environment and sensitivity for the environment. Today the
importance of preserving the environment has become one of the key factors for
sustainable development. In fact many international customers have made such
measures mandatory for buying. Companies for environment friendly measures are
earning immense amount of money by way of carbon credit and goodwill of customers.
· Ahinsa and Aparigraha (non violence and non possession): These principles have a cause and effect relationship. When one develops greed to possess more and more, he
mentally and physically is tempted to be violent to forcibly attain things. This makes
him adopt unlawful and unethical means, which creates enemies from all segments of
the business environment. This leads to ultimate downfall. An example of this is the
recent downfall of Satyam Computers, which cheated all, and sundry and ultimately
was defeated by the combined forces of the Law, Government, Investors, Employees
and Customers.
· Pratilekhna (introspection): this is a practice followed by monks and nuns to take
check and take care of their belongings twice a day to ensure no creature or insect
latches onto their things. In business world, one needs to take care of his resources and
ensure they are used properly. Resources are very critical for success of any business
and hence they need to be taken care carefully.
· Samyak Faith (Right Faith): faith is knowing the truth and believing in the truth;
believing in yourself and in the context of business believing that you can be a
successful businessman and you deserve all the good things in your life.
· Samyak Gyan (Right Knowledge and Understanding): is crucial to work /
livelihood. Business is always a means and never an end. Profit is not the overriding
aim; quality service, workmanship and discipline are equally important. If understands
the right meaning of work and enjoys it – it converts from being a
burden/responsibility to being an integral part of happiness.
· Samyak Darshan (Rational vision): One who possesses Samyak Darshan will view
things with maturity. He will never be driven solely by feelings. He would make a
balanced judgment. In the absence of this, neither knowledge nor conduct can be
samyak (right or enlightened).
· Samyak Charitra (Right conduct): this is conduct based on understanding. This
guides everyone from atom and galaxy – perfect balance between power and
perfection. One who has achieved Samyak Charitra would not behave irrationally or
unjustly or ethically wrong. This earns him respect and trust from everyone around
and this is the cornerstone for networking and getting support from everyone in
achieving one’s goal.
· Sanwar (limiting deeds/karma): this means limiting activities that look nice but
actually are detrimental to the long term upliftment of the soul. This is an important
lesson in working life, where we are tempted towards things for short term gains,
which lead to long term losses. A leading example of this is the insider trading case,
which bought the downfall of reputed people like Rajat Gupta in USA.
· Punya – Paap (good – sinful deeds): it is common knowledge that good deeds/karma
brings punya and bad deeds bring sin to the soul. In the context of business, good work
leads to profits and inferior work leads to losses. Hence its important to weed out bad
influences/actions/work from businesses and encourage good practices and systems –
the influence will be positive and lead to success and happiness like accretion of punya
does to our lives.
· Karam (Deeds): is most important: this principal is of paramount importance. We
have seen many people give up in life saying that its God’s wish or destiny. However
Jainism teaches us that our destiny and future is based on our own deeds and we are
the architects of our own lives. This gives strength to fight in difficult times and come
out victorious in all situations. It helps one to be positive and optimistic, and remove
negativity and pessimism.
· Nirjara (erosion of karma): this means removal/finishing the karmas attached to
one’s soul. In business, it’s similarly important that we remove all bad, harmful and
unwanted segments of organization so that it shines like a soul does after Nirjara.
· Pratikraman/ Khamat Khamna (Asking for forgiveness): this is an exercise for
saying sorry and asking for forgiveness for our sinful & incorrect activities. This is an
enabler for moving ahead and leaving behind shackles of negativity and egoism. It also
helps to relieve the burden of guilt and build relations rather than break them – which
is very important in business. An organization must also similarly have a system of
periodic examination of its activities and weed out all unproductive/wrong processes.
· Meditation: practice of this leads to improvement in analytical skills, reasoning and
memory power which is very very important for being successful in life. It further
helps in stress management. The power of clear thought and ability to focus is essential
for success in business.
· Jeewan Vigyan (health & life study): A stable, strong and healthy body is very critical
to work hard in life. A weak body can never focus on work and give its best to it. If we
just remember our own productivity when we have even a simple cold, we will
understand the importance of this.
· Saiyam (self discipline): a man should be a master of his senses, self control is very
important. This is a key ingredient of a successful working life and keeps one away
from excesses, which deviates one from his objectives and goals of life.
· Tapasya (Fasting/abstaining from things): this people attribute normally with not
eating. However if we look deeper, the real learning from this is self control and
discipline that comes when we restrain from doing things, which we want and desire.
This enables attainment of the previous point. It also gives the courage to sacrifice
without any selfish motive.
· Ek guru, ek sangh (one leader and one group): it has been professed that there
should be one leader to a group. This is important to have a clear line of understanding,
avoid confusion in sub-ordinates/employees as to their duties & responsibility.
Multiple leaders, creates dangers of people working within the same organization at
cross purposes and negating all the efforts made to progress. The people should have
complete faith in their leader to ensure full commitment and sincere efforts.
· Proper organization & distribution of work: even Lord Mahivira organized his
monks and nuns in a very systematic fashion. Different monks and nuns held different
posts with different responsibilities. The sect was run like any good king would run his
State. The same is clearly visible in any successful religious order (including our Jain
Terapanth sect). It teaches us how to organize and manage our business entity to
ensure the final goals and objectives are met.
· Equality of people and gender: it is strongly propagated that by birth all are equal
and women are equal to men. Lord Mahavira treated all equally and encouraged
respect for others. In today’s world where education, intellect and determination
knows no boundaries, it is very important to treat all equally to get the best out of
people related – directly as employees and indirectly as vendors/customers. Today
where women and so called backward classes are playing important roles in all walks
of life – those who don’t respect them are losing an important link to succeed. No one
wants to deal or work with people who don’t respect and treat everyone fairly.
I sincerely hope that this small effort to understand and adopt the principles of Jainism
will lead to a better, successful and honest conduct of one’s working /business life. This is
a small step to bring out the power of religion and its principles/practices in the
materialistic world in which most of us live. This would slowly but steadily create
equilibrium between our spiritual and materialistic segments of life. Hope this would acts
as an enabler to initiate more views, more thoughts and more applications of our
wonderful religion in our lives.
As I conclude, I would like to emphasise that if we look around we can find multiple
examples of successes of people who have followed the above points. They are not
necessarily Jains by birth/religion, but are people who are knowingly or unknowingly
following the principles of Jainism. This isn’t just an academic effort; it has come out of a
combined understanding of theory and practice. However, this is just a beginning not the
end of this subject – the deeper we dwell on this, the more substance we shall find.
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