{"id":5660,"date":"2010-06-28T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2010-06-27T22:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=5660"},"modified":"2010-06-02T01:28:16","modified_gmt":"2010-06-01T23:28:16","slug":"lalon-shah-%e2%80%93-1890-men-are-vessels-made-for-holy-uses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/06\/lalon-shah-%e2%80%93-1890-men-are-vessels-made-for-holy-uses\/","title":{"rendered":"Lalon Shah (? \u2013 1890) Men are vessels made for holy uses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Bridge of Beauty and Understanding<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Only the bridge of Beauty will be strong enough for crossing from the bank of Darkness to the side of Light <\/em>– Nicholas Roerich<\/p>\n

The United Nations General Assembly in resolution A\/RES.62\/90 has proclaimed the year 2010 as the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures \u201cto promote universal respect for, and observation and protection of, all human rights and fundamental freedoms.\u201d Cultures encompass not only the arts and humanities but also different ways of living together, value systems and traditions.\u00a0 Thus 2010 should provide real opportunities for dialogue among cultures.\u00a0 It is true that to an unprecedented degree people are meeting together in congresses, conferences and universities all over the globe. However, in themselves, such meetings are not dialogue and do not necessarily lead to rapprochement of cultures. There is a need to reach a deeper level.\u00a0 Reaching such deeper levels takes patience, tolerance, the ability to take a longer-range view, and creativity.\u00a0 Thus we are pleased to present the creative efforts of individuals who have helped to create bridges of understanding among cultures.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lalon Shah (? \u2013 1890) Men are vessels made for holy uses<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you keep looking for the Man of the Heart<\/em><\/p>\n

in the forests, in solitude?<\/em><\/p>\n

Turn your attention this time<\/em><\/p>\n

To the grace and beauty within your soul.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>So begins one of the songs of Lalon Shah of Bangladesh probably the greatest of the Baul singers.\u00a0 The message is simple, yet its appeal is universal. His religious experiences were expressed in verse and have been absorbed into a consciousness that embraces both the masses and elites.\u00a0\u00a0 In his songs, he tears down the barriers of caste and creed, the walls that separate man from man.\u00a0 Lalon Shah who died in 1890 composed many thousands of songs, passed down orally from disciple to disciple, only a small number have survived such as his song on the moon, which is a strong Baul symbol:<\/p>\n

\u201cBy great good luck one may see that moon.<\/em><\/p>\n

It has no dark spots.<\/em><\/p>\n

In it lies the golden abode of the Unknowable.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the world of the moon there is no play of day or night.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Who are these Bauls?\u00a0 The Bauls are a class of minstrel, wandering singers of mystic songs with no home but the body. \u00a0They sing of love and friendship in the search for the Creator who dwells within each person, and of the beauty of all created things. The way of the Bauls is that of synthesis. Synthesis goes beyond the feeling of cautious or reluctant toleration.\u00a0 It involves a complete assimilation of the spiritual with the material.<\/p>\n

The Bauls came into prominence as a socio-religious group during the 19th<\/sup> century, and became more widely known as their songs were written down by Rabindranath Tagore Bengal\u2019s great poet and social reformer .Lalon Shah lived in a village on land which belonged to the Tagore family.\u00a0 One of Mahatma Gandhi\u2019s favourite songs \u201cIf there is no one that heeds your call, then go on ahead alone\u201d is a Tagore song with a distinctly Baul melody and rhythm.<\/p>\n

The Bauls today, number around half a million persons, living largely in communal establishments called akharas<\/em>, the largest number in Kushtia, Bangladesh on the frontier of the Indian state of West Bengal.\u00a0 The Bauls live under a spiritual preceptor, the Murshid.\u00a0 Life in the Akharas<\/em> is very simple.\u00a0 The Bauls have no personal possessions other than a single piece of cloth garment, often saffron in color, a reminder of a period when Bengal was largely Buddhist.\u00a0 Today, Bangladesh is largely Muslim and the Bauls are considered by most as Sufis, Muslim mystic preachers who also travel from village to village.<\/p>\n

The Bauls play a two-stringed banjo-type musical instrument, the \u201cdo-tara\u201d.\u00a0 Women Bauls put on a white single-piece dress; they do not use ornaments.\u00a0 The Bauls sing for the unlettered, a school for the poor and the down-trodden.\u00a0 They sing of the primacy of the spirit in a world where many would prefer material wealth and luxury.<\/p>\n

The Bauls also carry on esoteric tantric practices which were developed by the Sahajiyas, early Buddhist mystics of Bengal who considered the sex act as the key ritual in their worship.\u00a0 The Bauls believe that inner enlightenment comes by sexual union with a specially selected and trained woman.\u00a0 The sex act is performed to help both the man and the woman to attain their spiritual destiny.\u00a0 Sexual union is part of the \u201cDeha Tattva\u201d \u2013 the doctrine of the body said to be composed of the four elements: earth, water, air, fire, and its powers as a way of reaching \u201cShain\u201d \u2014the God within. As the Bauls sing:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Shiva and Shakti remain apart,<\/em><\/p>\n

Then reason is useless, all is emptiness and liberation hopeless.
\nPenances and formulae, fasting and pilgrimage,<\/em><\/p>\n

Reading and learning, all are then futile.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you would gain the supreme end, get the different streams to mingle.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Bauls are looked down upon by the more legalistic Muslims of Bangladesh or thought of as only \u201cfolk singers\u201d but their search for the inner man, for the indwelling light has a message for each of us.<\/p>\n

______________________<\/p>\n

Rene Wadlow, Representative to the United Nations, Geneva, Association of World Citizens and\u00a0 member of TRANSCEND.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the year 2010 as the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures. Thus we are pleased to present the creative efforts of individuals who have helped to create bridges of understanding among cultures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-united-nations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}