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Recommended read, especially if you like tales of a life wandering the roads and singing: this article in the Guardian. Excerpt:
Throughout their 500-year history, the Bauls have refused to conform to the social or religious conventions of conservative and caste-conscious Bengali society. Subversive and seductive, they have preserved a series of esoteric spiritual teachings on the use of breath, Tantric sex and mystical devotion. They believe that God is found not in the afterlife, but in the present moment, in the body of the man or woman who seeks the Truth: all that is required is adherence to the path of Love. Mixing elements of Sufism, Tantra, Vaishnavism and Buddhism, they revere the Gods and visit temples, mosques and wayside shrines, but only as a road to enlightenment, never as an end in itself. The goal is to discover the "Man of the Heart" - Moner Manush - the ideal that lives within every man, but that may take a lifetime to discover. [...] "When you first become a Baul, you have to leave your family, and for 12 years you must wander in strange countries where you have no relatives," said Kanai. "There is a saying, 'No Baul should live under the same tree for more than three days.' At first, you feel alone, disorientated. But people are always pleased to see the Bauls - when the villagers see our coloured robes, they shout, 'Look, the madmen are coming! Now we can take the day off and have some fun!' Wherever we go, the people stop what they are doing and come and listen to us. They bring fish from the fish ponds and cook some rice and dal for us, and while they do that we sing and teach them. We try to give back some of the love we receive, to reconcile people, and to offer them peace and solace. We try to help them with their difficulties and to show them the path to ecstasy."
Throughout their 500-year history, the Bauls have refused to conform to the social or religious conventions of conservative and caste-conscious Bengali society. Subversive and seductive, they have preserved a series of esoteric spiritual teachings on the use of breath, Tantric sex and mystical devotion. They believe that God is found not in the afterlife, but in the present moment, in the body of the man or woman who seeks the Truth: all that is required is adherence to the path of Love. Mixing elements of Sufism, Tantra, Vaishnavism and Buddhism, they revere the Gods and visit temples, mosques and wayside shrines, but only as a road to enlightenment, never as an end in itself. The goal is to discover the "Man of the Heart" - Moner Manush - the ideal that lives within every man, but that may take a lifetime to discover. [...] "When you first become a Baul, you have to leave your family, and for 12 years you must wander in strange countries where you have no relatives," said Kanai. "There is a saying, 'No Baul should live under the same tree for more than three days.' At first, you feel alone, disorientated. But people are always pleased to see the Bauls - when the villagers see our coloured robes, they shout, 'Look, the madmen are coming! Now we can take the day off and have some fun!' Wherever we go, the people stop what they are doing and come and listen to us. They bring fish from the fish ponds and cook some rice and dal for us, and while they do that we sing and teach them. We try to give back some of the love we receive, to reconcile people, and to offer them peace and solace. We try to help them with their difficulties and to show them the path to ecstasy."