| |
with their opponents who say that drugs have no meaning, no utility. On the other hand, I agree with the opponents of the hippies because the glimpse is not the state. And I disagree with the hippies because of their mistaking the glimpse for the state. If they think that by forced chemical effect, their souls have been transformed, they are falling into a serious error. The drunkard has always been under such a misconception. I am against such a mistaken view, but it seems to me that psychedelic drugs can play a valuable role for the coming humanity.
The next thing about the hippies is that they are against revolution but favour revolt. However, it is rather ironical that though the hippies dropped out of the established society, yet they themselves have also given birth to a pattern. If you have a haircut and then go to a hippie camp, they would look at you as furiously as our society does at a person with long hair. If you say in the hippie society that you would like to have a daily bath, you invite their wrath in the same manner as a person staying with a Brahmin may expect on saying that he does not wish to have a bath on any day. This sort of revolt is reactionary in character. The hippie does not believe in having a bath.
The MUNIS (jaina saints) treading the path of Mahavir should feel very happy because they also do not take a bath. Dirt is taken as a sort of a blanket by the hippie because he says, "I am as I am. If my sweat has a foul smell, I will not use perfume to have an aura of fragrance about me. Let the seat smell as it smells." That sweat has a bad odour is quite right, but such a reaction to it by the hippie is rather dangerous. The foul smell emanating from perspiration can be eliminated by the use of any perfume and to thrust bad odour on another person is an unauthorized trespass of his liberty. If the foul smell of my sweat is inoffensive to me, I am quite free to be with it, but if another person is around to make him inhale the bad odour amounts to violence upon him or encroachment upon his personal freedom.
I have heard of an incident. Once Gandhiji was staying as a guest with Rabindranath Tagore. Both were about
|
|
|