1. Meaning
of
Conceptual
Stress
Dr.
Shriniwas
Kashalikar

2. Conceptual stress is not a separate entity. It is
a part of over all process of stress. We can also
call it intellectual chaos or stress, born out of
various other causes, which may be physical,
instinctual, emotional etc.
In modern life where the pace of change of life
has become very fast, we are unable to
understand the rapidly emerging new issues in
life. Our conceptual framework gets shattered
and we become helpless and miserable. This
state of helplessness and misery and consequent
deleterious effects on individual and social life,
constitute conceptual stress and it has acquired
menacing dimensions!
Morality, ethics, customs, traditions,
conventions etc. i.e. guidelines of past in every
sphere of life are being proved to a large extent;
inadequate and also irrelevant.

3. To give a simple example, cancer phobia
[excessive and unfounded fear of cancer] is
nothing but a case of conceptual stress. Cancer
phobia many times results from inappropriate
views, feelings and actions [conceptual
deficiency] about the phenomenon of cancer, its
nature, its symptoms such as pain and its
outcome.
What are the symptoms of cancer phobia?
A patient of cancer phobia may suspect that
he/she has cancer, whenever he/she gets pain. If
he/she gets repeated pain, in a particular organ
then he/she starts suspecting cancer of that
particular part! This leads to morbid fear,
anxiety, worry, and sense of helplessness.
Conceptual stress involves defective or
deficient perception, deficient ideas,
inaccurate thoughts, disproportionate

4. emotions, unreasonable instincts and
unnatural physical needs, which are
associated with abnormal electrophysiological
interactions between various neurons in the
brain. The secretion of different
neurotransmitters, secretion of hormones
and metabolic activities are abnormal and
involve deleterious effects on personal and
social health.
Conceptual stress is minimal or absent if you
are totally ignorant and adjusted to a self
centered, petty, indifferent, reflexive, passive,
and stereotyped life style like a lower animal.
Conceptual stress is maximum; when your
perspective assumes global dimension, your
feelings reach out to the miseries of the millions
and your thinking reaches out to the mysteries
of millennia! Your conceptual stress magnifies
when your heart starts bleeding for suffering in

5. even the remotest part of the world and even to
the suffering of animals!
Your conceptual stress worsens when you
actually start searching for solutions as you
come across conflicting opinions.
This stress gets further multiplied when you
start coming close to the solutions and begin to
encounter difficulty in expressing them.
This becomes more disturbing when you see
every one turning away from you and your
solutions being proved ineffective, though not
inaccurate! Since you are not proved wrong,
you do not find valid reason also; to abandon
your views and mission! You land in an
agonizing question, “Why you are ineffective if
you are accurate?”

6. At this point the very foundation of your
existence begins to shake and your existence
almost gets uprooted!
Then gradually if and when you begin to see
increasing matching, agreement, or harmony
between your life and the universe [which in
most cases would constitute changes in the
direction of global welfare] your conceptual
stress begins to get relieved simultaneously
as that of the others!
It is true that we manage to ignore some
questions, and rightly so e.g. mathematical
problems need not as a routine, bother a
biologist. Similarly, problems in one’s
educational career are best dealt with in the
text-books and guides of those subjects and
or solved by the expert teachers in that
particular field!

7. But there are issues which are a]
unavoidable, b] are faced by most of us, c]
affect our personal and family lives
immensely and d] affect the well being of the
society immensely.
These issues produce CONCEPTUAL OR
INTELLECTUAL STRESS in almost every
one!
One of the most practical and super-solutions
provided by the seers and sages; is
NAMASMARAN i.e. remembering your true
self. One can give it a trial if one wishes and get
the empowerment to get intellectual clarity and
clues to act appropriately and satisfactorily and
overcome conceptual stress.
SHRINIWAS KASHALIKAR