Well, it’s been 5 years of JinSwara. Time flies. It will always be a special point of my life that I can never ever forget in this lifetime.

I am not the same person today I was on August 24th, 2017 when we launched JinSwara officially. I have evolved in many ways.

I have learned so many things, interacted with so many amazing souls and made some amazing friends on the journey.

Listing the five things I have learned while being in JinSwara:

1. Nothing is more important than your Swadhyay/ Chintan-Manan.

Not even Prabhavana or JinSwara. If you are stressing yourself and neglecting the main purpose of life (samyaktv, sanyam, samadhi), then you are not doing Prabhavna. Prabhavna starts with you.

2. Be kind to everyone:

JinSwara could not have been where it is if people had not given their precious time. They are all volunteers who are not even getting enough credit. I myself do some volunteer work without even credits sometimes. I can feel the value a volunteer wants from the organization they are working for.

3. Think about long-term projects/impacts:

At first, we used to focus on the present projects like classes(they are important for the current generation but need daily attention), but then we started to think about the times we are no more for JinSwara. We now have a forum that can sustain itself easily in the future without us. We will always work on projects that do not need our daily attention. I started writing in English on Jainism due to this very long-term impact. My old answers on Quora which I wrote 3 years ago are still helpful to people today. 

4. You can learn anything:

Handling JinSwara was not rocket science, but it needed more skills than I already had. The Internet was a boon. I now have some skills like video editing, audio editing, YouTube channel management, social media marketing, photo editing via Canva and so on. 

5. Willingness & time over donations:

We, at JinSwara, decided to remain Advertisement and subscription free forever. We never asked for donations in any event or from anyone. However, we always have sufficient balance to keep running our server or other expenses. If we start Ads or subscriptions, we are taking away the freedom of reading Jinvani without any distractions. We never wanted to do that. Community support is always a greater asset than financial support. Someone giving their time >>>> donating money.

…

Some earlier memories of JinSwara you can revisit with me:

Our first ever concall: https://youtu.be/LHfINMB-yrw

My old Answer on Quora about JinSwara: https://qr.ae/pvbGRt

Last year’s event where we discussed goal of JinSwara along with other digitalization projects:

https://youtu.be/3mlwkoVgOFs?list=PLzi_nN7hhdrA_a07kn5eCmEHIZNTgdy5M

Lastly, our first group photo from the Udaipur Panchkalyanak trip 2017: