ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Which two persons are rare in the world?
One who serves others selflessly without expecting anything in return;
and one who is grateful towards anyone who does one a kindness.
These two persons are rare in the world.

Gotama the Buddha

I am extremely indebted to Shri S. N. Goenkaji who, in spite of his busy schedule, very generously spared his time to give guidance and explained important aspects of Vipassana. He has been a constant source of inspiration and encouragement to me throughout the study.

No words can express my gratitude to the Government of Maharashtra and the Government of India for their kind approval of the project and granting me a two-year study leave as a special case.

I am thankful to Dr. A. P. Singh, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Professor of Psychology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi for granting me permission to use the Occupational Stress Index.

I am deeply grateful to Prof. P. L. Dhar, I.I.T., New Delhi for his invaluable guidance in the initial stages of the project. His research on the effect of Vipassana meditation provided a major impetus for this study.

Many thanks to VRI for giving me office space as well as financial support for the postal stamps, courier charges, stationary and statistical analysis.

I convey my thanks to all those teachers and assistant teachers of Vipassana and Dhamma servers who contributed directly or indirectly with the study at various stages. My special thanks to the staff of VRI and VIA for their help.

I thank Mr. Avinash Jadhav for the exhaustive statistical analysis. His efforts helped in gaining new insights from the findings.

I am grateful to all the respondents who participated in the study and bore with the exhaustive questionnaires patiently. I am very grateful to those respondents who took enough pain to unhesitatingly write their experience notes in detail. All the respondents were a great source of encouragement to me throughout the project work.