The Rasa of Baul, Krishna Sahaja
There is a magic, a beauty in Baul, I can not explain it, it is the magic of the lineage of Jai Nitai. I have become a mad women now, I understand what is wrong with me. I am trying to be normal but when my beloved KD Babu (Krishnendu) sings I forget everything, I enter another world and can not function in this world of the mind.
I have listened to teachers over 40 years, I have been to every western kirtan although beautiful it is not where the Baul lives, It is not the same as the mad men and women of the mystical heart, How do I explain, perhaps you can understand the soil is different in India, The energy is different when you travel to sacred sites, The air is full of shakti, well it is the same with Baul, they are from the soil of Bengal. I have wandered India and this Baul has captured me Baul has made me a mad women.
I could not understand the reaction Babu gets in India when he sings. I thought these people are mad, the women touch me and thank me. I thought what is going on? Are these Mad women too?I have mantra-ed, studied and read the scriptures in a western sense, Baul has taken me beyond into the madness of the heart.
I can use words like ananda, bliss, ecstatic, exhalted, blah blah blah, but that does not even cover it. Words will never explain what a Baul is, The Bauls are the men and women of the heart, the masters of the heart of bhakti yoga, that is what they do, you can listen to them on "Youtube" or on a CD, this can not compare to the magic love spell when you hear when near. They are an ocean of Bhakti, not your regular singers or dancers,Their's is the dance of love, magical mystical mystery of Love. They are the lineage of Jai Nitai and thousand of years before.
Baul is a current of love that sweeps you off your feet and out your mind, it fills the air from thousands of years of the history of Love. Baul singing if I could bottle it I would be the genie of love. It is rare and that is why in some ways I perfer to keep it to myself. I can write about Baul but that is just mere words full of the mind.
I am a mad women, oh my God what will I do??
I hear Babu start the drone of the ektara or Gopi Chand,
oh no there he goes again, how will my mind survive another day of this, after all I have a western mind, I have work to do, I have a sanity to maintain, then it happens my mind is gone for another day as he starts to sing, I am a lost hopeless a servant of the heart, another day of not knowing time of space. Oh God I am a madwomen of the heart. There is no logic to this place.
Tears steaming down my face not knowing what to do, I have nothing to hold onto, there is no ground under this, I am grateful beyond the depth of my being. What did I do to deserve this, now I know after a lifetime of karma good and bad there is also Grace.
This is the biggest Grace to be a madwomen of the Heart, at least it is just a glimpse but it is something, it is pure Gold never to be worn..the gold glow of the heart.. a heart of Gold,
Even Ramakrishna wanted to be born a Baul in his next life..To be born a Baul is the greatest gift that God can give to any Bhakti wanna be....I am sorry I prefer to keep him to myself..
I have become a mad women of the heart...
When I read what some scholars have written about Baul, I think they just don't get it. It is not about anything you write, man or women it is about the heart!
I prefer to keep him to myself.
by Trishula Das
2008
