Dry Reference

By the help of bhang ascetics pass days without food or drink. The supporting power of bhang has brought many a Hindu family safe through the miseries of famine. To forbid or even seriously to restrict the use of so holy and gracious a herb as the hemp would cause widespread suffering and annoyance and to the large bands of worshipped ascetics deep-seated anger. It would rob the people of a solace in discomfort, of a cure in sickness, of a guardian whose gracious protection saves them from the attacks of evil influences, and whose mighty power makes the devotee of the Victorious, overcoming the demons of hunger and thirst, of panic, fear, of the glamour of Maya or matter, and of madness, able to rest to brood on the Eternal, till the Eternal, possessing his body and soul, frees him from the haunting self and tee shares to the full. Like his Hindu brother Masulman fakir reveres bhang as the lengthener of life, the freer of the bonds of self. Bhang brings union with the Divine Spirit. ‘We drank bhang and the mystery I am He grew plain. So grand a result, so tiny a sin.’