Thursday, January 19, 2017

On "Altered Minds, Dreams, Drugs, Intellect and Spiritualism"

For a long time, it amazes me that how many spiritual experiences described, great poetic and literary works created and many scientific discoveries were made when human mind was not at its normal baseline.

From alcohol, weed, bhang, charas and other mind altering drugs etc. to high fever, seizures, dreams and people with schizophrenia, autism and asperger syndrome have more than normal association with things which altered human history.

As ibne-seena once said: "Sharab aaqil ke liye aqal aur Jahil ke liye jahal hai" (Alcohol is wisdom for wise and idiocy for an idiot).

Ghalib created most of his verses under influences of sharab and said: Ghalib sareere khama nawaye sarosh hai (Ghalib! noise of (my) pen is actually an angel's voice). Similarly, most of Allama Iqbal mystical poetry is created under the influence of alcohol (or some said under a different state of mind describes by his friends as haal)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the said Godfather of modern literature, was famously known to have seizures.

Einstein was a classic example of high IQ Asperger Syndrome.

My most favorite is of creation of sewing machine story (here)

Darwin though traveled, collected specimens from islands across the globe, but was never able to connect the dots of evolution. It was his colleague H.G Wells who one day while sick with high fever questioned himself that why nature wants us to die - and boom - he came up with the answer: "Nature select the fittest and weed out the weakest" (later said to be adaptable to the changed environment).

Probably human mind shows its full potential (Good or bad) while uninhibited or not under the control of self! 

2 comments:

mehnaz said...

Mawalan Rumi said: Sharab e shauq me nosham; ba girde yaar mi gardam
Sukhan mastana megoyam; walay hoshyar me gardam
(I have drunk the wine of desire and strolling around the Beloved
Though I seem drunk; I am quite sober :-)

bsc said...

Mehnaz baitee yes it is just like Rumi
About Alcohol there is an article in Feb. National Geographic worth reading as it traces its history and the relationship of Sharab with cultures of the world and I felt it opens up other areas of "good"of this substance that Quran acknowledges although clearly its bad is greater than good
Frankly I have thought of this relationship with literature for a long time too and probably more can bee written seriously