Jain Digest 2007 11 1

Author(s): Federation of JAINA
Publisher: USA Federation of JAINA

Page 26

JAIN DIGEST⚫ Winter 2007
What is happening: all the colors of the sun will be reaching the brain through the eye. Brain regulates the flow of color prana appropriately to the respective organs.
What to expect: physical diseases will start being cured, tensions decrease and the need for food intake will go down.
3. Continue this for another 3 months until you reach 44 minutes of sun-gazing at a stretch.
What to expect: You should see hunger almost gone. All mechanisms associated with hunger like aroma, cravings, and hunger pangs also disappear.
4. After nine months or when you reach to a 44 minutes level, you should give up sun-gazing since solar science prohibits further gazing for the sake of eye care.
5. Now to recharge your body, you have to start walking on bare feet on bare earth for 45 minutes daily for a total of 6 days. Any convenient time of the day is all right, however it is preferred you walk when the earth is warm and the sunlight is falling on your body. Walking bare feet activates the pineal gland (or the third eye) in the center of the brain.
After one year of recharging, if you are satisfied with your progress you can give up barefoot walking. Few minutes of sun's energy falling on you once in 3-4 days will be enough from then on. But if you want the immune system to strengthen, or memory power or intelligence to increase then keep on the bare foot walking.
Saluting the Contributions of The Jain Educators Jainism probably is one of the oldest religious practices of India and perhaps the world. It is based on the principles and practice of non violence, non possession, and self-control, to help in the spiritual effort to realize and seek the truth. While the principles have remained the same time, location, surrounding culture, and society, and political environment, have had an impact on the ritualistic and other aspects of Jain practices. It is absolutely amazing to see the core philosophy kept intact. Thirthankaras presented their message in a multifaceted way explaining the truth from different angles so that even if the followers get diverted in areas of practice, they will still converge on the core message. Credit also goes to various munis, religious scholars and even the layman followers who have strived to preserve the Jain Heritage under trying or changing conditions.
The early Jain migrants to North America were also faced with a similar challenge of maintaining the Jain Heritage under a different culture and language surrounding. The small community of Jains spread across west had to come up with new initiatives and ideas to preserve and nurture this ancient religious tradition. We salute this committed effort put by various individuals who have made it possible for the Jain tradition and it core values to be practiced
in the west.
One such individual who deserves special mention is Dr. Premchand Gada of Lubbock, Texas. In 1987 Premji came up with the Jain library idea. His family brought two suitcases full of
books from India and a small library was started. Over a span of 3 years he had collected close of 8000 books, which he housed in his medical practice office. To facilitate the checking-out of books, he had also provided a toll free number for people to call and his support staff would mail the book to the caller. This library was subsequently transferred to JAINA and the books are now housed in the library maintained by Jain Society of Southern California. The second project that Premji initiated was to write books in simple English that could be useful to educate children about Jainism. To achieve this goal he had invited two Jain scholars; Malookchand Shah from Ahmedabad and R. K. Jain from New Delhi, who stayed with him for six moths to complete this project. They produced 10 sets of books to be used at different age levels. This project is now taken over by JAINA Education Chairman, Pravin K. Shah of Raleigh, North Carolina.
The third project initiated by Premji, was to start a website that would contain the repository of a large amount of Jain information, from Agamic literature to children's education material, and that too expressed in different languages of the world. The growth of this website-www.jainworld.com is truly phenomenal as appropriately displayed on its from page: "From a small dream 10 years back, Jain World is now a 'Global' movement being participated from 145 nations. The vision, the wisdom and achievements are inviting you." The website, a result of 605 Man Years of work, has a massive information base of 115 GB, with 115,000 web pages, 9,500 images, 700 hours of Audio and Video, 22 languages, and 206 complete books in several languages. It gets 76,000+ hits per day from 145 different countries.
Now, Premji is working on an interesting website for children's education. Further he has a vision of creating a Jain Movement specifically targeted for the Young Jain Families.
Jain Educators of North America
- Compiled by Guest Editorial Team As members of the Jain community we appreciate the contributions towards Education in North America made by monks of different traditions, Jain scholars from all over the world, parents, teachers, volunteers, coordinators, students, generous donors and community leaders. The short list of names included here for their contribution towards JAINA education is by no means exhaustive. We regret and say "Michchhä Mi Dukkadam" to all other contributors whose name we have missed or not been able to include. The list of people is as follows:
Pravin K. Shah (JAINA Education, Chairperson), Kavita Bafana, Rekha Banker, Dilip Bobra, Mukesh Chhajar, Pramodaben Chitrabhanuji, Dipika Dalal, Mukesh Doshi, Dr. Premchand Gada, Dr. Vimal Prakash Jain, Jadavji Kenia, Rajendra Mehta, Hemant Parikh, Alap Shah, Anita Shah, Darshana Shah, Harendra Shah, Kusumben Shah, Lalit Shah, Parinda Shah, Pradip Shah, Shibani Shah, Sudhir Shah, Virendra Shah, Kaminiben Vora., Sam Wallace, and continuous guidance from Gurudev Shri Chitrabhanuji, Muni Panyas Shri Nandighosh Vijayji M.S., Muni Shri Ajaya Sagarji M.S. of Koba, Dr. Sagalmal Jain, Pandit Dhirajlal Mehta, Smt Sundaben Vohra, Dr. Vimal Prakash Jain, Dr. Jitendra Shah, Mahavir Aradhana Kendra Koba - Ahmedabad and Shri Ketan Shah-Computer department.