I am making distinctions because the word 'lineage' is thrown around so much these days. I have heard people one generations into Baul call themselves a Baul Lineage, when in actual fact they are new born babies, who sing folk songs or a few Baul songs from this lineage? "they say my lineage", so we all can call ourselves lineage holders. I don't think that is how it works, and in actual fact, lineage is always based on ancestry. Baul is based on indigenous ancestry or many hundreds to thousands of years of practice. It is not a simple path, although it looks simple, just as the an accomplished Kung Fu Master makes it look easy. This easiness is called Sahaja and it comes from generations after generations of indigenous Baul ancestors. Baul is never base on one poet or a few generations, you can not or should not self-title yourself a Baul, you should not act or pretend to be an indigenous Baul, use their songs, copy there dress, and follow them all over the world pretending you are a Baul. There are actually laws in this now that prevent indigenous theft of their intellectual property.
Pretending to be something you are not waters down the lineage, the reductionism is astounding and now while fake pretendian Baul have now decided they are fundraising to preserve Baul, when Baul has already been preserved over 60 years by Babu Kishan aka Krishendu Das Baul who is an indigenous ancestral Baul.
The new fake pretenbdian Baul actors do not know what they are talking about, they make up fake Baul Guru's and Fake Baul lineages duping people and telling them to come and join us, when Baul does not collect people. These fake Bauls leave out the information, water down the tradition? This is the way with all indigenous wisdom, if nobody says anything, then it is a free for all, as we can see in the Yoga industry, the same is happening to indigenous Baul and has been happening with great intensity since the 1970's when this lineage pioneered Baul throughout Bengal, all over India and globally. Whatever, this lineage did, these pretendian Baul copied and followed, including their dress, songs, dance, instruments, names (Das Baul and Dasi) and followed them around the world, even contacting their own connections and contacts.
Bauls are freedom lovers, but the kind of freedom that is drawing people to the Baul mela's these days is not the kind of freedom Baul was intended for.
However, in the true sense of a lineage I am talking, "thousands of years, before Christianity, before Buddhism, before Islam. Baul was around long before as they follow the path of Dattatreya, Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma and Shakti Sadhana. This one and only lineage of Baul is (Vayu Tula) the path of Krishna'Kali and every Indian philosophy, Upanishads, Tantra, Oral Sanskrit including manuscripts, it is the path of Upanishads, Puranas, and Itihas the Historical epics, Ramayan, and Mahabharat.
Bauls are not illiterate, they are Sahajiya meaning indigenous natural and spontaneous, indigenous mystics called Vaishnava Sahajiya Tantric Bauls of Birbhum, West Bengal, India
They speak oral Sanskrit, Sandhya Bhasha, Braja Bhasha, and vernacular Birbhum Bengali dialect.
The Bauls of the old days are extinct. All we can do is return Baul to the indigenous Baul and stop all the using and abusing of Baul usually for financial jackpots by outsiders who are faking Baul.
Lineage Baul is very rare. Nabani Das Khyapa Baul is the last authentic Baul to live on earth, he passed in 1969.
