STRESS AND ACCIDENTS: DR. SHRINIWAS KASHALIKAR
Stress if not managed properly leads to defects in regulation, control, coordination, harmony, efficiency inside and outside us.

Stress leads to hundreds of psychological, neurological, endocrine and metabolic disturbances, which are reflected in the behavior also. One of the defective aspects of disturbed behavior is accident proneness. The mismanaged conscious and subconscious stress; directly leads to defective driving behavior and increase in vehicular accidents on road.

But apart from this; when our stress is mismanaged; and when we are in positions of power; it leads to defective policies, rules and regulations related to vehicular production, marketing, conditions of roads, facilities of public and mass transport and maintenance of traffic in general. Accidents and many other related and consequent problems; are created by such defective policies and their implementation.

Strangely; billions of us; the sufferers; who are so much stressed and are unable manage it; fall victim to the diseased model of progress. They can�t even identify and understand the defects in the policies; which are responsible for the increase in the number and severity accidents. The stress seems to have made these sufferers amongst us; so much incapacitated, inactive, indifferent, apathetic, cynical and frustrated; that they refuse to; or are unable to participate rectifying the causes responsible for accidents and their complications. Thus, they indirectly support and promote defective policies and their implementation multiplying accidents.

It is easy to understand how a stressed individual is more prone to commit accident, but how mismanaged stress can lead to wrong and disastrous policies can be clear from the following example of policy about production of vehicles.

Thus the policy of excessive production and marketing (and passively buying and using) of cars and two wheelers (for the affluent few) and suppression the production buses, trams, trains and other modes of public transport, which are urgently required for billions; leads to suffering of billions in many ways, one of which is increase in road accidents.

The brief explanation of how this single policy can increase not only accidents but cause many related and consequent problems; is as follows.

1. Excessive increase in number of vehicles on roads leads to congestion and tremendous and unnecessary load on traffic police

2. Commensurate increase in fuel consumption causing chemical pollution and also in import expenses; leading to increase of fuel prices and subsequent increase in the food prices and unbearable load on the farmers living in villages, where electricity is barely available for few hours. Thus the farmer community which is the heart of society becomes sick and moribund! This alarms real danger!

3. Wear and tear of roads increases. Consequently there is increase in accidents due bad condition of roads as well as increase in the maintenance expenses and disturbance and delay to smooth traffic

4. Excessive increase in noise pollution results due to; blowing of horns; which is especially troublesome; to hospitals, schools, and other places; where silence is essential.

5. Traffic jams adding to further increase in fuel consumption and wastage of time, disastrously affecting the performance and/or productivity of the people of different occupations.

6. Increase in the number of vehicular accidents is largely contributed by simply the huge and increasing number of vehicles on road apart from other factors

7. Increase in vehicular exhaust causing global warming

8. Excess of load on local trains and other means of public transport [where ever available] and consequent accidents, quarrels and mishaps

9. Overall increase in tardiness in the traffic and increase in anxiety and tension, further increasing the quarrels, traffic crimes the number and severity of accidents and difficulty in providing medical aid (and disaster management) due to difficulty in movement of ambulances and fire fighters.

10. The eco-friendly bicycles production and sale suffers due to �imposing and threatening� presence of cars, motorcycles, rickshaws, scooters etc.

11. Excessive production of vehicles; is associated with; unproductive and wasteful work; such as insurance, registration and traffic policing!

12. Increase (due to difficulty in enforcing law and order) riots, thefts etc due to slowing of police movement

13. Excessive production of un-degradable solid waste.

14. The need and construction of excessively wide and cement or asphalt roads at the cost of irreplaceable trees (extremely important for avoiding global warming, pollution, rain and organic manure) and open earth surface (extremely important and vital for absorbing and holding rain water) and unnecessary disruption of the natural habitat of the animals.

Thus, one wrong policy and its implementation can cause and increase several problems in society; apart from road accidents. Since this is one of the fallouts of mismanaged stress, the holistic solution is Total Stress Management (The core of which is NAMASMARAN); of every one of us.
The immediate solution for the accidents is improvement of public transport system by improving; the production of buses (quantitative and qualitative), bus maintenance, bus frequency, preferential lane for buses, bus service and so on!

More holistic solutions can be worked out and implemented by the experts with holistic perspective; solidly supported and strengthened by public opinion, consensus and movements.

As stated earlier; one of the simplest ways for such stress busting; is beginning our own emancipation; through the practice of NAMASMARAN!

LEADERSHIP AND NAMASMARAN: DR. SHRINIWAS KASHALIKAR
NAMASMARAN helps us understand and determine our priorities accurately.

Further NAMASMARAN empowers us to focus and persist on our priorities and conquer the obstacles (from inside and outside) coming in the way.

Often; we do things according to our whims, fancies, prejudices, past experiences and so on. This lands us and our followers; in deceptive glitter and glamour or grueling debasement and distress. Sometimes we appear successful to others, but the incompleteness and/or sectarian elements in our decisions; prove disastrous later

Through practice of NAMASMARAN we begin to see what can give us maximum happiness and learn to take; moment to moment decisions with increasingly greater accuracy; and live in everlasting ambrosia of ecstasy and stop getting dragged into erratic and degrading deception.

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), Lincoln's Own Stories
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character,
give him power. Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)
Everyone has the obligation to ponder well his own specific traits of character.
He must also regulate them adequately and not wonder whether someone else's
traits might suit him better.
The more definitely his own a man's character is, the better it fits him.
Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)
Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety,
it is impossible for the character to be established.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC), The Confucian Analects
Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915)

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously.
This is how character is built. Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962), My Day
Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both.
And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence.
Elihu Burritt
Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.
Elmer G. Letterman
In attempts to improve your character, know what is in your power
and what is beyond it. Francis Thompson (1859 - 1907)
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 - 1799)
Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep,
the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952), "The German Mind: A Philosophical Diagnosis"
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.
Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened,
ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)
Of all the properties which belong to honorable men,
not one is so highly prized as that of character.
Henry Clay (1777 - 1852)
A man's character is his fate.
Heraclitus (540 BC - 480 BC), On the Universe
People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.
Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962)
The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character.
Isabelle Eberhardt
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
James A. Froude (1818 - 1894)
When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.
Japanese Proverb
Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than
in what they think laughable.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
I take it as a man's duty to restrain himself.
Lois McMaster Bujold, Ethan of Athos, 1986
One can acquire everything in solitude - except character.
Marie Henri Beyle (1783 - 1842)
To succeed is nothing, it's an accident. but to feel no doubts about oneself
is something very different: it is character.
Marie Leneru, Oprah Magazine, May 2004
The character of a man is known from his conversations.
Menander (342 BC - 292 BC)
I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character,
if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.
Nathaniel Emmons
The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841 - 1935)
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
Oscar Levant (1906 - 1972)
Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

The mere smell of coffee may reduce stress and produce antioxidants, researchers say. In fact, "the stress caused by sleep loss via caffeine may be alleviated through smelling the coffee aroma." Learn more about caffeine, antioxidantsand stress management, and check out thestress message board.

Do not merely hope to live, someday, somehow. Open yourself
To the beauty and goodness of this moment, and live this
Day.

Let go of worries and fantasies about what might or might
Not be. Focus the full energy of your spirit on what is real
And what is now, and live this day.

Put your most treasured dreams and values into action right
Now. Here is where you can really do what you've always been
Longing to do.

Now is when you can let yourself feel the way you truly wish
To feel. See that there is nothing standing in the way of
You filling the world with your own special joy.

This is the day that belongs to you. This is the time when
You can do anything, and make a real difference.

A lifetime of experience has perfectly prepared you for
Where you are right now. Live this day, and fulfill the
Possibilities of your own miraculous existence.