The Mother says that the cause of accidents is unconsciousness. We call it accident and mean by the word that it is something that is sudden and unexpected in the normal course of things. But we say so because we don’t have the complete data. Hence it is called an accident, something like a completely unpredictable event. But in one sense is it not the truth of every event! Accident, like chance is a conception and language of our human ignorance. It simply means we do not know how things happen and the forces at play behind events and circumstances.
Now let us take this event. The drunken man may have taken a different turn, or the man who was hit may have realised that something is coming in a high speed. We don’t know why the man was so unmindful or was at that moment on that spot. We don’t know what was going on in his life since few days or the nature of his thoughts and feelings that made him quite unmindful. We do not know his secret will, his possible future had he been saved and so many other aspects that may have contributed in some way to the event. It is because we see a part and not the whole hence things surprise and shock us.
However in a general sense accidents are due to a lapse of attention and awareness (unconsciousness or unmindfulness) on both sides. Here the cause of unmindfulness of the driver is obvious as drugs and alcohol. But we do not know why the person who was hit was unmindful or in what state. Such things also raise serious questions about the responsibility of the society at large that promotes high speed cars and alcohol as a smart way of life. But that of course is a different question.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
