ACTIVITY

                                                                                          
RESOURCE MOBILIZATION

Social change movement involve the ability to organize, to educate and to mobilize people. Money or an individual or an organization alone, can’t bring change. When people join together, they forge a collective power and then social change takes place. The project needs an organization. Steps are being taken to form a Trust / Foundation. The patron(s) of the trust would be the prospective donor(s). The trust will obtain and deploy following resources, to achieve the objective of the project.

REQUIREMENT
  • MATERIAL           : Fiscal and physical capital to fund the movement
  • MORAL                : Solidarity and support to introduce and implement religious reforms
  • ORGANIZATION  : Set up a 'Foundation', build social networks, create a working team of volunteers and staff

PLAN AND POLICY
  • Establish an organizational setup. 
  • Provide collective and coordinated support, to accomplish the aims of the project. 
  • Provide and promote stability and leadership to spearhead the movement. 
  • Remove all obstacles to membership and mass participation.
  • Create self-supported, self-regulated and self-sustainable centers, representing diverse segments of society, in India and abroad.
  • Approach social networks to tap prospective associates as affiliates 
  • Motivate the target group(s) by addressing all relevant issues directly.
  • Promise, honor and uphold commitment to the cause, with a sense of belonging, and by developing sound interpersonal relationships.
  • Engage intellectuals and luminaries to build public opinion in favor of the project
  • Take balanced and farsighted decision-makers, who can weigh the benefits of collective action, and who believe that the objective of the project is worth their time and effort.
  • Emphasize the ‘Impact of Influence’ and the ‘Power to Plead’ the benefits of the plan, without any prejudice.
  • Devise a broad base to deal with strategic re-positioning, considering the ground for protest in a peaceful manner, which is possible in democratic countries and not in theocratic states or in dictatorship regimes, where no attempt should be made to antagonize them.
  • Map proposes transformation from public consensus and interaction with socio-religious groups to lawmakers.  
Initially, the project will acquire the requisite resources and thereafter proceed to mobilize collective efforts to create a psychological revolution, leading to a far-reaching change, in the existing religion oriented mindset of humanity, society, lawmakers and Governments.

TARGET GROUP

In an educated society, if religious beliefs decline, spiritual seeking is intensified. Communication technology has made the world a global village, pushing people into a single global community. Old values of exploitation and competition will soon give way to a ‘collaborative effort’, where ‘co-operation’ will emerge as the most dominant social tool, to shape the future superstructure of one global society. Educated people in the world are not sure, whether they should accept or reject religions. As a result their attitude towards religions is indifferent. They form a large group of people in the world, who are unresponsive to religions. This educated group is the target group of this project. They are the prospects, the promoters and the supporters of the envisioned plan. 

Another group, which is rapidly increasing in numbers, is the aged, the senior citizens of the world. They are the most neglected group in today’s materialistic world, society no longer considers them, as a money making machine. Can we afford to waste experience and wisdom at the cost of wealth creation? The group of the aged, 60 years plus, will constitute, as the ‘think tank’, of this project.

Truth is eternal. Over a period of time, words and their meaning change, for the sake of clarity, revision is necessary, to express, the time tested universal truths, in its contemporary language and perspective. To facilitate this process, the project will promote, a creedless creed, to stay in the mainstream, keeping the spiritual values intact, as ‘Satyadharma’, the timeless trek of truth. The task requires an efficient organizational structure to implement the plan. The working systems employed must create and deploy novel ways for optimization. Competence lies in the skill, to jump into the mainstream fast, connect with the target group promptly and move on, to improve the modalities, step by step, for a smooth transition.

SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES

In order to achieve the objective, the project plans to carry its activities in a sequential manner. The phasing of activities will move consistently, from one stage to the next stage, as under:   

(1) Seed Funding                                                                                         
(2) Research Work                                                                                                                                                 
(3) Publication of Research Papers.                                 
(4) Creating Public Opinion                                                                                     
(5) Lobbying for Reforms                                                                          

Specific campaigns will be undertaken, in accordance with the feedback, obtained through opinion polls, to be conducted by independent agencies, who would analyze the impact of the plan of the project on the people, from time to time. However, lobbying for reforms will be an ongoing process.

THINGS TO DO

The project is not self-supporting. The following support systems need to be in place, to build a self-sustaining entity that can ensure to achieve the objective if the project.

SHORT TERM SUPPORT
To start up the first three stages of activities are                                                  
  • Seed Funding 
  • Research Work 
  • Publication of Research Papers 

LONG TERM SUPPORT 
To fund the next two stages of activities:
  • Public Opinion / Opinion Polls
  • Lobbing for Reforms

SEED FUNDING

Seed Funding aims to establish, operationalize and build a self-sustaining administrative center, with tech-support. The seed fund will be utilized for the following:
  • Office 
  • One Writer / Editor 
  • One Computer Operator 
  • Personal Computers, Printers, Modem and Internet access 
  • Office Stationary
  • Library
A team of selfless social workers, committed to the parameters, standard and criteria of the project will be formed.

RESEARCH WORK

The project will undertake exhaustive ‘Research Work’ to conceptualize and formulate universal spiritual values, named as ‘Satyadharma’. Next the research papers will be published in the form of a Book and thereafter ‘Social Awareness Movement’ will begin. Research work is not done alone. It requires a team and a working group to advocate ideas. Create referral systems and design innovative mechanisms. To prepare, review and analyze the research paper. Then fine-tune the draft, as the final report.

Research is a tedious process. Emphasis will be laid on gathering, all-inclusive information. This would require, a thorough knowledge of the subject, as well, the full information of the projects, point of view, so as to synchronize and deal with the matter, objectively. The work on research will start from a position of neutrality and examine all the aspects and its meaning and merit, scrupulously. The research work will build a concept, investigate, collect information, structure the data and distill it. Organize the scattered data in a sequential manner, simplify complex systems, write down with clarity, state meaningful things, be clear and concise, to make it understandable to the reader. The study will focus on the relevance and significance of religions and the usefulness of spirituality, in the present context, with emphasis on the philosophy of natural life and living. The research team will identify universal truths those, which are common in all religions and use them. 

Research team will evolve its own work culture. Develop various viewpoints, commentaries and Interpretations, add a creative perspective, Prepare a simple and clear script, and ensure that there is no misspellings, poor grammar, repetitions or disconnects in the text. In totality, the research work will aim to refine, revise and extend the existing knowledge and set in, a new phase, for spirituality to evolve

EXISTING INPUTS

Working on this line of inquiry, the presenter has already prepared rough notes. He has tried to define processes to develop a new concept, which is a matter of debate before it can be fine-tuned and implemented by the research team. The presenter feels details are meaningful. He believes that details make the quality of research work bigger and more descriptive. This gives leverage and scope to add more details to the existing compendium. Later on, the research papers will be edited, proof-read and published

PUBLICATION OF RESEARCH PAPER

There is no specific training school that imparts spiritual knowledge. A spiritual seeker doesn’t know where to go and he ends up in a blind alley or finds himself in the hands of a Guru, Swami or Baba, who peddle spirituality, with a commercial motive. Spirituality is the path of self-realization attained through direct experience. It is the awakening of higher consciousness. It is a direct encounter of the spiritual seeker with the inner and outer reality. Universal truths never change, even though they have been expressed in different ways, from time immemorial.

The research papers will be published in a booklet form and distributed to opinion makers, primarily to intellectuals, religious leaders, eminent persons, bureaucrats, business houses, politicians, social workers, representative of civil society, judiciary etc. The booklet will serve as a guide or a road map to dispel wrong precepts and false faiths and show the way to look at things in the right perspective. Generally, sale of books on religions hardly hit the stands. In case it does happen as a freak incident, then the revenue earned from the sale of the book will plough back in the trust account to meet expenditure(s) on other activities of the project.

PUBLIC OPINION

Public opinion helps to assess the collective inference of people on religious beliefs, their views on the relevance of religions and the acceptability of spirituality in lieu of religions, a complex collection of opinions from different people and sum total of their views, to create public opinion and awareness among people, therefore the project will initiate the following activities:
  • Develop a Website 
  • Start a public debate(s) for a consensus  
  • Evaluate and describe major threats and current opportunities 
  • Set up Forums to hold Inter-Religious Meets 
  • Establish center(s) in the major cities of India and at international level to form support groups. 
  • Work with understanding, human dignity and set highest standards to garner countrywide, and worldwide, public opinion, in favor of the cause, espoused by the project.
  • Disapprove false religious beliefs, denounce the fanatics and fundamentalism, and condemn terror of religions, by promoting ‘Satyadharma’, the universal spiritual values.  
  • Wean out all false creeds, faith, beliefs and religious convictions from public life. 
  • Involve ‘Community Participation’, ‘Inter-Religious Meets’, ‘Gathering of intellectual’s’, ‘Eminent persons’ and ‘Elected representatives of the people’ to have their respective point of views.
  • This would enrich and help us to develop the plan of action, consensually.   

WORKSHOPS / SEMINARS
  • Proposal for organizing workshop / seminars will be self contained
  • Choose a appropriate topic or a theme of the workshop/seminar 
  • indicate the impact the proposed seminar/ workshop is expected to make
  • Subjects /contents proposed for discussion
  • Level of participants and their number
  • Duration of the program
  • Cost estimates details
  • Publication of the seminar / workshop papers and proceedings

OPINION POLLS
  • The opinion polls will represent the view of the people. These polls will be conducted by independent agencies, by a questionnaire, and face to face interactions, with the people, and then conclude on generalities. 
  • Besides, the pollsters will muster people to come together on a common platform, and freely discuss, and identify the societal problems, and through that discussion, influence political action. 

METHODS TO REVIEW PUBLIC OPINION
  • Informal Methodologies will include communication with Intellectuals, Media, and the Public.
  • Formal methodologies on the other hand will involve methods for consensus; Public Opinion through Telephone Surveys, Questionnaires, Focus Groups and Content Analysis.
  • The project will use these tools to express public opinion as Government decision makers would like to see it, substantiating the proposals point of view. 
  • The project will find ways and means to be in touch with a large number of people and create communicative competence to convey them, what impacts the people most, and what people can do to benefit in dealing with religious problems. People, usually tend to look for big solutions, forgetting how little things can make a difference, with the propagation of a simplistic world view.
  • To make a public awareness campaign successful, a sustained effort has to be put in, like interactive meets etc. which would be planned in accordance with the results of public opinion polls, as and when the occasion arises. 

LOBBYING FOR REFORMS

Eminent persons, nationally or internationally renowned, will be engaged to lobby and influence the decisions of the law makers, the leaders of the state, and public officials to promote a religionless society, and encourage a new spiritual order in the world. The lobbyists of the project will discreetly persuade with utmost sincerity and involve the Government of a democratic State to bring a peaceful change through legislation. This project will appeal, to the Government of each nation in the world, to take suitable steps in this direction. Religious Reforms are required and the course of action will not be smooth. Nothing is lightly won, nothing won is ever lost.

METHODS TO LOBBY
  • Lobbying is not done alone, involvement of organizations or individuals who support the cause is essential.
  • Letter writing is the simplest way to lobby but is not always the most effective way to do it. 
  • Submissions are usually made to Committee(s) or Chairpersons of committees in Government, it is important to structure them in such a way to get the relevant points of the proposal put across, convincingly to them. 
  • Most decision-makers have staff that deal with documents. So doing research and preparing briefing(s) and program(s) is necessary to interface with decision makers and present the case well 
  • Media attention or publicity is a very powerful architect of public opinion, with electronic / print media publicity, the cause is served better. 
  • Petitions are a way to show popular support. Use petition to get as many signatures as possible from people. 

LOBBYING AT GLOBAL LEVEL
  • To deal with the inter-governmental, governance processes, requires expertise.
  • Organize workshop(s) on ‘Advocacy and Lobbying’ at the International Level, make use of best and most effective ways, of engaging in advocacy as a network. Draw a plan of action in agreement, reached through deliberations, in groups and conferences.
  • Those involved in the international workshops will include NGO's, companies, industry associations, professional groups, government missions, UN and other inter-governmental staff, who are competent to influence the agendas of international agencies and meetings

SEEK ~ PUBLIC SUPPORT FROM ALL SECTIONS OF SOCIETY
  • Inculcate a sense of ‘Belonging of the people’ and instill ‘Community Ownership’ of the project, in the possession of all the sections of the society.
  • Carry out meaningful activities concerning ‘Interfaith Community Mobilization,’ ‘Social Simulation’ and ‘Community Facilitation’ to ensure that all members of the religious community, society and the people participate in decisions considering the proposed project.
  • Ensure active participation of the group of people as a whole in the identification, assessment and implementation of the project, which would be a precondition for a collective concurrence.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT
  • To initiate religious reforms, the presenter wants to introduce an untested idea ‘A world without religions’. 
  • To translate this untried idea into reality, we need to create a social system, capable to eradicate the problems created by religions in the world, and ensure a lasting beneficial impact on the people, society, nations and the world, through public awareness, and social acceptability, without using any means that can create social disorder.
  • To develop a line of thought, refine and formulate the proposed idea into a workable plan. The project needs suggestions, support and involvement of the people from all walks of life, color, race, and all nationalities, which means an all inclusive participation of the world. 
  • In this way, by the cooperation and contribution of the people, from all parts of the world, we can facilitate religious reforms and social transformation and not otherwise 
  • The support, acceptance and tolerability of people is very important and decisive to materialize the proposed idea.
  • Please join us, become a member, and participate in this movement.                                                             
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FEBRUARY 21, 2013