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Brush with Bliss

The headlines have been on a high for the past week, tracking Rahul Mahajan’s tryst (or not) with cocaine and broadening into how easily drugs are available, who the distributors are. On the other side, the link between spiritual experiences and psychotropic substances, which Wikipedia defines as a chemical that’s often used in “recreational drug use and as entheogens for spiritual purposes”, is no secret.

The hippie movement of the 1960s rode on the one hand on free sex and drugs and on the other on deriving spiritual experiences through them. Not too different from rave parties of today, where the young and the curious seek out-of-body thrills as red, blue and white psychedelic lights match the electronic dhak-chik-dhak-chik of drums. Look at their eyes — they seem to be looking everywhere and nowhere, simultaneously. Quite like the eyes of saints.

But just like our generation did not invent sex, this generation has not discovered drugs. In the university, as I pretended to go through the motions of degree procurement, I spent much of my time in the music room, in a Western music band. We would go to competitions to far-out places and try and make a name and collect some winnings. We had long hair, were totally devoted to our music, wanted to cut albums. Some of us smoked.

Two members of our band were so like and unlike one another. The first was often high on grass, the second on music. Once, at IIT-K, the second one was dancing, in trance, to Scorpion’s Rock You Like a Hurricane. The first, watched him, smiling, vicariously enjoying his reverie. Both were dreamy-eyed, glowing, happy, satiated. Their expression was no different from the self-styled gurus chanting wisdom on TV.

The common theme binding the three — the addict, the musician, the guru — is perhaps an aching to get out of the material and into something beyond. What is it that pushes us away from our reality towards perhaps a greater one, as intangible, indefinable as it may be? The sensual mysticism of Hesse, the smoke-wasted genius of Hendrix, the devotional depths of Mansur… Just what are we rejecting, an imperfection? More important, what are we seeking? Is it something we know we’ve forgotten, as Cohen croaked, “I can’t forget but I don’t remember what”? The self, with a capital S, perhaps?

Source : http://financialexpress.com/

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