Ghalib’s Poetry Reveal His Spiritual Radicalism

One of Mirza Asadullah Khan ’s couplet that showcases his 'spiritual radicalism' goes like this: ‘Na tha kuchh toh Khuda tha, kuchh na hota toh Khuda hota/Duboya mujh ko hone ne, na hota main toh kya hota’ -- When nothing existed, Khuda did exist, I'd have been Khuda, had I not existed/ My very existence sabotaged that possibility, my non-existence would have made me Khuda.To the uninitiated, Ghalib was an agnostic, if not an outright atheist. But if you delve deeper, his poetry gives an impression of his profoundly spiritual bent of mind.Ghalib was intrigued by human existence in the vast expanse of the kainaat, universe. Metaphorically speaking, the couplet defines Advait, non-dualism, of the Eastern consciousness, when the Creator and Creation are not separate entities but one. This couplet of Ghalib serves as a template for modern existential philosophy and solipsism.Like Allama Iqbal, Ghalib also claimed to think in Persian. Poets with a Persian backdrop have invariably been influenced by the mystical poetry and ideas of the Sufis. At the same time, it's a known fact that Persian mysticism borrowed heavily from the Upanishads and Vedanta. Ghalib underlined that 'merging philosophy' of Eastern consciousness when he wrote, 'Ishrat-e-qatrah hai dariya mein fana ho jaana/Dard ka had se guzarna hai dava ho jaana' -- the glory of a drop is to merge itself in the vastness of the river/ When pain exceeds itself, it becomes its own remedy.But towards the end of his life, the poet said, 'Khud ko bekhudi se bhi aage le gaya hoon/Khud hi khud mein nihaan ho gaya hoon' -- I've gone beyond the state of self-immersion/I'm lost in myself. This he wrote in a letter to his coeval poet Ibrahim Zauq, who was Emperor Bahadurshah Zafar’s teacher.According to Ralph Russell, author of 'The Oxford India Ghalib: Life, letters and ghazals,' Ghalib represented true spiritualty that is humaneness and deals with humanity. That's why he could say: 'Bas ke dushvaar hai har kaam ka aasaan hona/Aadmi ko bhi mayassar nahin insaan hona' -- It's just difficult for everything to be so easy/Even a human is unable to evolve into a ‘humane being’. What Aldous Huxley thought of spirituality as 'humans practising humanity with humaneness' in the 20th century, Ghalib said the same a century before him.A nominal Muslim, Ghalib's faith had the conviction of spiritual courage and uprightness of a believer: ‘Bandagi mein bhi woh aazaad-o-khudbeen hain ke hum/Ulte phir aayein dar-e-Ka'aba agar waa na hua' -- Even in worship, I'm so free and emancipated that I'll come back if the doors of Ka'aba don't open for me.Lastly, Altaaf Hussain Haali Panipati, Ghalib's shaagird, student, wrote in his biography of Ghalib that the poet had completely repudiated the idea of tasawwuf, Islamic mysticism, as dimaghi futoor, an idiosyncrasy of the mind. In one of his Persian couplets, the poet dared ask Jalaluddin Rumi and Hafiz Shirazi, two stalwarts of Persian mysticism, 'Your brand of spirituality is delusional/Step out of your ivory towers and experience God, if at all God does exist.'December 27 is Ghalib’s birth anniversary