Register Now! Southeast Regional Leadership Summit

Meghi on November 2007

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The next Leadership will be held on November 17th, 2007 at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.  The registration fee of $40 includes 3 meals, workshops, and conference materials.  To register, please go to http://www.jainleadership.org/register.htm

Over the past three years JAINA’s Long Range Planning Committee, together with other Jain leaders, have developed a vision for the future of Jainism in North America. Dr. Dipak Jain, the Dean of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, invited Jain leaders from across USA and Canada to a historic first summit to discuss the future of Jainism in North America on April 15-17, 2005 at the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago. Led by Dipak Jain and Prem Jain, Former Senior Vice President of CISCO, the conferences introduced concepts of management and organization that can be applied to improving the performance of our leadership and result in greater involvement of our community in solving common challenges facing us.  

The cost will be minimal and includes conference materials, as well as breakfast, lunch, snacks, tea break, and dinner. As there is limited space, please confirm as soon as possible.

The highlights of this conference includes:

- Leadership Training
- Community Concerns and Challenges
- Personal Experiences from Successful Community Members

And workshops such as:

- Universalization of Practices at Jain Centers in USA
- Community Concerns and Challenges
- Youth Issues
- Jain Center Policies

For more information, please contact:

Manoj Jain, Jain Center of Memphis, TN - JAINA LRPC - 901-240-2602
mkjain@aol.com

Day 3

Meghi on September 2007

4 Comments

Jai Jinendra!!

I hope everyone is having a peaceful Paryushan! My name is Meghi Mehta, one of the Co-Chair’s for YJA this year, and I’m from Boston, MA – originally Toronto, Canada !  I guess I can give a flipside perspective of how Paryushan is for me, having grown up in a pretty religious Jain family and atmosphere. I can always recall having spent most of my time at the temple during Paryushan if I wasn’t at school, class, work, or sleeping. Although I may not know, or even remember ALL the sutra’s I learned as a child, I still find myself to be pretty involved in the Jain faith. I try to take these 8 days to live as simple as possible and reflect on my life as Jain.

Coming to a point in my life where I, like so many others, have a gazillion things going and have trouble finding that place of peace, I know for the past 3 days I have been able to turn to the temple to do pratikaman and aarti everyday to find my peace.  I’m able to take at least 48 minutes of the day to reflect on how I have lived my life for the past year and how I can better myself and my way of life for the coming year.  Yesterday, Day 3 of paryushan, was Chaudhus and the pratikaman that’s done is almost as long as Samvatsari. During the daily pratikaman we say “Michhami Dukkadam” (which means I beg your forgiveness), for the daily things we do in life – breathe, walk, eat after sunset, etc.  But, the “atichar” yesterday went beyond that to ask for forgiveness of things beyond our daily lives, such as not fasting, not doing the rituals we’re supposed to, etc. I sort of take my asking for forgiveness as a wake up call to realize the things that I’ve done - knowingly or unknowingly - that may have harmed someone or something. Along the same lines, I take this as a chance to start fresh. 

In starting fresh, aside from re-assessing how I live my life and my relationships with people, I always like to begin the year (until the next paryushan) by giving up something. I thought about it yesterday and I haven’t decided what I will give up this year (or even for a few months?). When I’ve given up things in the past, they’ve always been food related.  I was thinking this year, in the world of materialism that we live in, why not set a limit to the amount of materialistic things I indulge in.  I’m not much of a blogger (this is my FIRST EVER) and I’ve run out of things to say! Hope everyone is having a great paryushan and doing some real soul searching/enlightenment! :) Any thoughts/additions to this blog are more than welcome!