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and the monks are called śramaņas. He equated parigraha to bondage and declares it as the main cause for all pains. This includes the full range of feelings from liking to craving. Thus parigraha is not just possession of money and material but the thoughts and feelings that are associated with them resulting in possessiveness.10 For lay people, He talked of setting limits to our worldly possessions and gradually makes these limits tighter. The concepts of charity (dāna) and conservation are the derivatives of aparigraha.
The above principles form the basis for all aspects of O & MI shall now take the above discussions to various aspects of management of an enterprise:
Strategy
Let us start with Jain definition of reality i.e. Persistence with change11. Organization is like empirical soul (combination of soul and matter) and constantly strives to attain liberation. This is the key for the organizations to continuously innovate and revive themselves with new products, processes, people as employees and customers, inputs etc to stay alive i.e. be organic and from liberation its objective is set- as welfare of all players (and not just shareholder value), better utilization of resources, treating all human beings as equal while maintaining the quest to achieve excellence i.e. sustainable growth at individual and organizational levels. This is more so in the last twenty five years when the technology is changing so fast and the product life cycle is reducing significantly.
Thus Jains will support a strategy for development based on an index like Gross National Happiness 'GNH' rather than GNP or GDP for adoption by the organization as a goal for sustenance. Based on the metaphysical concepts above, GNH will include happiness; physical, mental and spiritual health; time-balance; social, community and cultural vitality. education; living standards; good governance; ecological vitality and REALIZATION of full potential of all resources involved. This description is clearly a departure from existing paradigm of exploiting natural resources and maximizing profits or shareholder value.
Another significant feature of Jainism is the spiritual leader or tīrthamkara who establishes and becomes the head of the creed. He does so only when he himself has attained
10 Dasavaikälika Sūtra 6.21
11 'Utpad vyaya dhrauvya yukta sat i.e. reality is endowed with origination, destruction and permanence simultaneously, Tattvärtha Sutra by Umāsvāmi, Sūtra V.30
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STUDY NOTES version 5.0
