FAMILY

MANAGEMENT –
ISSUES AND
CHALLENGES
(SPEECH DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF PUNYA TITHI CELEBRATION OF ACHARYA
MAHAPRAGYA’S FIRST ANNIVERSARY AT LAL KOTHI BIKANER. THE FUNCTION WAS
ORGANISED BY TERAPANTH YUVAK PARISHAD BIKANER. THE TOPIC OF SPEECH WAS
“PARIVAR MAI KAISE RAHAI” THE ORIGINAL SPEECH WAS IN HINDI)

BY :
DR. T.K. JAIN
AFTERSCHOOOL CENTRE FOR
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
AND
 PRINCIPAL, SRI JAIN P.G.
COLLEGE, BIKANER
Address : Parakh niwas,
Sivakamu Veterinary Hospital
Road,
MOBILE : 9414430763
Email: tkjainbkn@yahoo.co.in,
afterschool@in.com
Let us understand first that family is only a means to achieve the higher goals. The higher goal
here is Moksha or Nirvana or Spiritual Enlightenment. Hence, we should remember that we are
here for a bigger goal and family management is just a means to achieve our goals. We should
be courageous enough to speak out against bad practices, which hamper our movement towards
spiritual enlightenment.

I want to ask you a few fundamental questions: = How much time do you spare with your family
for spiritual discourse? How much time do you spare for undertaking Preksha Dhyan together
with the family. How much time do you spare for reading good books like the books written by
Acharya Mahapragya and do you encourage your children to read these books? I think most of
you will not be able to answer in positives, as most of us really lack in family management. We
have never been trained in family management. It is a paradox that we are trained in every
conceivable topic and we have earned so many degrees, but we have never been trained in
family management, which is the most important issue of today.

Many persons are taling about growing debates in families. What's wrong in it? If there are
debates, welcome them. We cant manage our families thorugh autocratic means any longer. We
have to recognize that everyone - from a small child to a grown up elderly person - yes -
everyone can contribute to the issues of family management and everyone has infinite
capabiloities. We must recognize and appreciate everyone who comes forward with some issues.
Even a small child should be encouraged for giving valueable ideas or raising fundamental
questions. We should charge up ourselves and prepare ourselves to pariticipate in debates. The
most important thing is truth and if we are able to remain attached to truth, we are doing justice to
our role in the family. I would like to assert that we should have debates, debates and debates in
family - but no discord. If there will be discord, there will not be any debate. Hence, let us have full
trust, confidence, love, affection with everyone in the family, and let us also debate. Let us
encourage every member to participate in the process of debates in the family.
Families are built on the solid foundations of sacrifices. A few persons sacrifice for the benefit of
others. This is a usual process in every family. However, it should not be a routine matter that
only a few person always compromise or always succumb under pressure. We must encourage
everyone to participate in the development of family and everyone should take up responsibilities.
I have seen some persons complaining that they only make sacrifices in the family. This itself is
not appropriate. No body should get a feeling that he or she alone is sacrifices. Family is a group
of persons, it cant sustain only on the sacrifices of a few persons. We have to establish a
system, where everyone cares for everyone else and everyone sacrifices for everyone else. The
sacrifices will not be burden, when there is an overall environment of love, affection, care and
belongingness.

We must recognize that our role in family just doesn’t give us only responsibilities, it also gives us
powers and capabilities. What power - the power to change others. Being a part of the family, we
should raise our voice against wrongs. The family is the first workplace for us, where we can
experiment with truth and start developing the habit of raising our voice for the cause of truth. We
must remember that truth, spirituality and divinity are more important than our family. We must
not get unduly influenced by the issues relating to family bondage and we must always try to
contribute to the development of our family.

Family can develop individuals and help them in their growth, but it can also divert their mind and
waste their energy. I would like to give you a few examples to clarify my point. Individually none of
you want to waste money or resources. Being Jain, you wish to use resources very carefully and
understand that it is not appropriate to waste anything. But in a family, you waste money and
resources like anything. Take example of marriages, individually each person is committed to eat
before sunset, not to waste food and not to spend money on unnecessary things like fireworks
etc. But what is happening? Jain community is the community which is wasting maximum money
in marriages. Food, firwarks, dance parties, music parties, decoration, so on .. I can keep on
counting - how criminally you waste money, against your own religion, against the guidelines of
your own saints. Is it appropriate? It is just because you don’t have courage to speak out the
truth. You try to save every penny and lead a very cautious life, but when there is a marriage
function in your own home, your hardearned money is wasted away by your own relatives. At that
time you lack in capabilities of arguing and debating.

It is important to set priorities in family. There are issues on which you have to spend more time
and resources and you have to prepare the family for that. For example, be prepared to spend
more resources on issues like education and health-care of the family members. However, what
is actually happening is that we are actually spending more resources where we shouldn’t. We
really need training in family management. We really need saints like Acharya Mahapragya, who
can re-channelise our energies, resources and direction towards spiritualization.

Family is a bundle of roles, responsibilities and happiness. The third element comes only when
we are able to perform the first two (roles and responsibilities) properly. This can be done only if
there is proper communication. We don’t listen to each other. We need to spare some time to be
together. I have seen many families spending some days together in some spiritual place. They
try to learn, and practice spirituality during that time. When I see this, I feel truly elaged. I feel that
this is one instance to prove that people can certainly make heaven on this earth. What is
required is to spare time out of our daily chores and deovte some time towards spiritualization.
The entire family should go to some places of spirituality. They shold together do meditation there
and listen to each other. This is the need of the hour. We are spending our time only in eating,
earning, and sleeping. Are we doning justice to our roles in the family and try to take the family
towards spiritualization? Most of us don’t train our younger ones in meditation / prekshadyan.
How can we justify our position. I have seen many old persons getting dissatisfied with their sons
or daughter in laws. The reasons lies in their own failures in undertaking their own role. Did they
orient their children and daughter in law in sprirituality? When Jain saints ask parents to send
their children to Preksha Dhyan camps, they refuse and they wish that their sons and daughter
should be smart enough for the modern world and should not be spiritual. When their sons and
daughters actually become smart enough, they start cribbing. They must understand that it is
their responsibility to orient their children towards spirituality and if they have themselves oriented
their children towards materialism, why should they curse their children later on.

The solutions to the small problems lies with us, but we are not prepared to accept those
solutions. We are