On Fakir Lalon Shah Lalongeeti.com

5/20/2018 On Fakir Lalon Shah Lalongeeti.com

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On Fakir Lalon Shah

(Based on an interview by Prof Maria Mies with Farhad Mazhar in Dhaka

on January 28, 2004)
http://www.lalongeeti.com/


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Lalons origin is not known. No one knows where he was born,who his parents were, which religious, ethnic or cultural

communities he belonged to. A farmer found him in the Kaliganga

river, a tributary of Ganga, that flowed through Kushtia, but has

since dried out; he was a fifteen to sixteen year old boy when he

was found, nearly dying from smallpox when Malam, a farmer inCheuria, Kushtia, discovered him early in the morning lying

between the muddy edge of the river and the splash of the water

flow. Malam called his wife Matijan and took Lalon to their house,

treated and took care of him and brought him back to health.

That his life was surviving in between soil and water, in between

elemental realities of material being but as non-being, arouses very

deep symbolic meaning among Lalons followers. Thats the

reason why the symbolic narrative about the origin of Lalon

became integral to Lalons philosophy as well: his birth is both

known and unknown. It is known because he came from water,from Kaliganga river, but he is still unknown since he was

practically dead and what Malam received is a being hanging in

between the river mud and splash of the water. Except this real

story of his birth no one knows where he belonged.

Malam and Matijan had no children. They both felt deep

affection for the boy who was by then affected badly by the deadly

bacterial attack, particularly in the face. Lalon lost an eye to small

pox. The care and love Lalon received from Malam and Matijan

helped him to recover well and for the rest of his life the couple

was his family. Matijan and Malams household became his placeof re-searching, learning and articulating the wisdom of life.

When the wisdom of Lalon started to become obvious he drew

many disciples. But it was Matijan, it seems, who was the first

devotee to grasp Lalon. In recognition of her wisdom, love and

motherly care Lalon did instruct that Matijan be buried next to

him. In fact, and it is important to note, Lalons shrine should benamed as Matijan-Lalon shrineand that was the wish of Lalon;

but this wish remained unfulfilled because of the dominance of

patriarchal culture in the society, despite the fact that to the Lalon

followers it is the shrine where Lalon and Matijan are sleeping sideby side and Malam is also buried along with Lalons other close

disciples.

Lalon died at the age of 116 years. On the first of the Bengali

month Kartik (mid October). The day he was ready to say good

bye to his disciples it was a kind of celebration in songs and joy.

Lalon did not believe there was anything beyond death, but death


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was a personal event, an experience that remained beyond

language. No one could taste death for others. So he was anxious

to develop a cultural encounter with death to destroy its theological

spectre.

It is said that he was singing a song when the time arrived for himto leave. I am going he said to his disciples. It is sungthroughout a whole night. For Lalon, death was not something

fearful, as theologians have made people believe. You have to

prepare happily for death. This is a cultural preparation. Dying is

like a marriage. Something you look forward to. Fear of death

must be overcome. Therefore the white colour signifies the

preparation for death, a cultural thing and not any so-called

spiritual emblem.

He lived a very healthy life, taking care of health very

meticulously and developed a food system which is unique inBengal. It is inspired by the Vaishnavites of Bengal, but unlike

Vaishanavs and Brahmins, Lalon rejected the idea of food

hierarchies or in other words vegetarianism. If one starts making

hierarchies in food system sooner or later it is reproduced as social

hierarchies, into caste systems, or vice versa. His food system was

based on metaphoric avoidance of certain food since food is also a

symbol and element of language. One should avoid meat if animal

in any culture is metaphorically seen as devoid of control of

emotion and biological propensities. He was not an ascetic and not

a vegetarian. Vegetarianism in Bengal was associated with

Brahmanism and Lalon did not believe in the food regime of pureand impure food of the higher castes.To the Lalon followers the proper name Lalon is immortal and

will generate a plethora of meanings if the name is evoked in any

social context and will guide people to journeys to joyful lifestyles,

although, bodily, he disappeared. Lalon appeared as an idea in

flesh and blood and such appearance is known as abirvhab;

accordingly the death or the disappearance is called tirodhan.These terms are full of philosophical implications.

It is interesting to note that the biological act of birth has no

meaning as such to Lalon or Lalons followers, it is the appearanceof the wisdom in the biological forms and our capacity to

transcend the naturally given biological being, the event of

appearing, that we should look for. This event is to be celebrated,

not the birth. So Lalon has no birth date, no one knows when he

was born. But when the proper name Lalon appeared as the

symbol of wisdom, we instantly realise that an event had been born

in time, place and in specific being. This event could never be


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erased by death or time. This event is known in Lalons philosophyas Shahaj Manush, literally means simple appearing of being

but went deeper than the preceding Vaishnava movements known

as Shahajiyas.

Hindus claimed Lalon as their own as did Muslims. Bothcommunities wanted to communalise him, after his name became a

household word. Communalisation of his birth is a possibility he

anticipated in his life time and that is the reason he never revealed

his identity. His followers were humble people and their protests

went unheard because of intense communal claims by two

religious communities. Hindus said he was a Kayastha, adopted by

a Muslim guru, and Muslims said he was a Muslim by birth. Yet

Lalon never revealed his guru. He just continued to live with

Matijan and Malam, who adopted him as their son and later as

their Guru, throughout his life. He was not very widely known

during his life time, although he was noted by many eminentwriters and intellectuals of his time, such as Rabindranath Tagore.

However, Lalon did not search contact with the middle and upper

class. He did not even want to come near Rabindranath Tagore,

because Tagore came from a Zamindar family. When Tagore

invited him, he did not go; both lived around the same time in

Bengal. Another famous man of that time was Ramakrishna.

But Lalon could never become like Ramkrishna, charming the

elites of Kolkata. All his life he lived at the outskirts of Kushtia.

Lalon was against all forms of socio-economic hierarchy, caste,class, and gender and any forms of politics of identity based on

race, nationality, etc. He did not believe in divisions according to

jat (caste), path (hierarchies by which who can accept food and

water from whom), class, patriarchy, religion and nation.

Lalon was not a nationalist, despite the fact the anti-colonial

nationalist movement was fomenting in the subcontinent. It does

not imply that he is not against colonial oppression, of course he

was; he was against all forms of oppression. However, when the

oppressed constitutes an identity as a necessary tool to encounter

the oppressor, the identity overtakes the universality of humanbeings. Perhaps he saw the danger in identity politics decaying into

fetish. It is a hindrance to resolve human conflicts and go beyond

the difference to celebrate the unity of the human beings.

When he was found by Malam and Matijan, Lalon was already a

grown up boy and it is obvious that he knew about his family, his

village and his community. Nevertheless, he never revealed his


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family background or the so called identity. This act of non-disclosure of his origin that Lalon maintained all of his life is

highly political. Living in a society violently divided by caste,

hierarchy and communal division, Lalon knew very well that the

so-called natural origins or birth histories always create social

meaning and produce politics of identities. He was vehementlyopposed to caste, all forms of social and economic hierarchies,

communal identities or all forms of social difference that might

carry slightest potential to breed political division in the society.

No wonder, he wrote many songs against caste, family status and

hierarchy. He adopted the name Lalon, a curious choice itcould be a name belonging to any community and could also be a

name of a woman.

Lalon is brilliant in raising very fundamental issues relating to

woman-man relationships playing on the margin between

biological and the social construction of this relation. The famoussong mayere bhajile hoy tar baper thikana is based on a story

known in rural Bengal. Parvati, one of the great Hindu Mother-

Goddesses, the wife of Mohadeva or Shiva, was once asked by her

husband about the origin of the world. Is it from the masculine orthe feminine principle? Mohadeva asked Parvati. Parvati thought

for a while, but decided consciously not to reply, she went into

silence. Why? Because if she said the world originated from

women, implying her, she will be a sinner for being a bad wife,

since patriarchal rules were dominant. On the other hand, if she

said it is from the masculine principle, implying Shiva, she will

become a liar. So her silence became her words, or her words areconstructed by her silence. Silence is the the feminine punctuationin the masculine discourse and it must be rewritten as a

methodology known in Lalons philosophy as the nigam bichar.It is the task of the sadhus or the saints to read the silence and

break the dominant structure of the existing discourse.

Most importantly, Lalon raised the difficult methodological

question of addressing the biological difference between men and

women and the social meaning they produce in different social

contexts constituting various forms of patriarchal hierarchies

between women and men. The famous song, mayere bhajile hoytar baper thikana is a brilliant example. The meaning of the Father

is revealed only through the naming the name of the Mother and

that is indeed the task of the real wisdom, he claimed. The

philosophical twist of the Bengali word bhajana is almostimpossible to translate into other languages. Mayere bhajile

literally means worshipping mothers but Lalon was meaningcompletely opposite of deifying the women as Devi, but inviting


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intellectual and meditative engagement to reveal the meaning of

being Mother (not motherhood). Mother signifies the origin of all

beings both as the ceaseless process (Prakriti), as well as the

subject of the process. Father or Shiva is not an independent entity

outside Mother, or Parvati, but integral to the notion of Mother. So,

one knows Father only by knowing the Mother.

He did not use the concept nari (woman), but always referred to

mother-father dialectics. If you want to know the father youhave to worship mother an unconditional submission to the

feminine principle is demanded by his philosophy and the lifestyle.

He was familiar with Hindu as well as with Muslim religion and

mythology and used both freely in his talks and songs. Thus, the

Hindu god Krishna played a great role in his songs.

About Lalons philosophical and mystic school

Chaitanya Mohaprabhu or Lord Sri Chaitanya was born atNabadwip, a small village in undivided Bengal and the district it

belonged was known as Nadia. The present district of Kushtiawhere we have Lalons shrine was indeed part of Nadia. Nabadwip

means New Island that rose from the river Ganga. Lalon carried

the philosophical legacies of Nadia. It is not merely a geography,

an administrative district, but the history of a unique formation

where Islam in the Eastern part of India grounded itself,

encountered and mingled with Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism and

other religions and cultural practices and generated great literary,

philosophical and the cultural movement Bengalis are proud of.

Nadia was the center of learning, the great place for Indian Logic,Sankhya and Baisheshik philosophy and a strong oral tradition of

dissemination of knowledge. The theoretical and the philosophical

sophistication of Lalon was not surprising at all, if we remain

aware of the glory of Nadia.

It is said that Lalon belonged to the Nadiaschool of

Vaishnavism retaining all the legacies of Bengals Tantrictradition. It is partly true, but wrong because he is also a break in

the Nadia school. Broadly speaking, there were two paradigms in

Vaishnavism recognised by Lalon followers: the Brindavan school

and the Nadia school. They would argue that after Chaitanya, thegreat spiritual leader of Vaishnavism left Nadia for Brindabon

leaving Nadia in charge of Nityananda, the struggle against caste

and social hierarchies continued. Nityananda is the great Guru of

Bengals tantric, bhakti and socio-political movement of the mostoppressed. He was one of the trinity, in Bengal known as tin

pagol, or three mad men of Bengal, the other was Aidaitacharya.Needless to mention that they infused different elements in the


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Nadia school, but the movement took specific character under the

leadership of Nityananda, followed by his son Birbhadra and a

Muslim woman known as Madhab bibi. This is the reason why all

the spiritual movements of Bengal that grew from the grass root

and articulated the voice of the subalterns, invariably refers to

Nityanada as the Guru of all Gurus of wisdom. Because, theyclaim, it is Nityananda and not Chaitanya, the great logician and

master in linguistic and rhetoric or the great Brahmin scholar

Aidaityacharyaboth coming from the higher caste Brahminfamily, was central to the great philosophical revolution in Bengal

that started with Chaitanyas appearance in Nadia. Even until todayany subaltern socio-spiritual movement articulating in songs,

known in Bengal as bauls or bayatis will first offer his or hersong to Nityananda.

In contrast to Nadia, the Brindabon school appropriated the glory

of Chaitanya to turn his teachings into a canonical shastra(religious discipline) of Vaishanavism. Two types of

transformations took place: (a) oral to the textualthe oraltradition of knowledge production through songs, theatrical

performances and social mobilisation had been turned into

canonical texts; (b) secondly, the religious texts were rendered

lifeless, they were taken away from the popular knowledge

practice and were written in Sanskrit. Brindabon is therefore a

returning back to the caste ridden Hindu tradition to become an

integral part of Hinduism. Chaitanya was uplifted again to the

upper caste, this has always remained the complain of the school

developed after Nityananda in Nadia and culminated in the figurewe now know as Fakir Lalon Shah. The Brindavan school is

popular among middle and upper classes and castes and accepted

to Brahmanism. Nadia rejected Brahmanism all along. And so did

Brindabon and the profound philosophical turns in Nadia has been

systematically ignored and silenced by the educated elite of Bengal

by simply referring them as Lok Sangeet folk songs. Fakir

Lalon and others are simply known as bauls a misused andabusive term by the upper caste and upper class elite implying that

these philosophical utterances rendered in songs should simply be

treated as musical performances by some lowly rural minstrel who

resigned on life and has nothing to do in the real material world.Their musicals are overly sad overtures of some poor fellows that

often break your heart!

Having said this, we must also say it categorically that Lalon was

not a mystic, in the sense of, lets say, Jalaluddin Rumi as a mystic.

He is strongly grounded in the philosophical traditions of Bengal

and one can easily make sense of him. To produce meanings of


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Lalons poetico-philosophical statements, that could also be sung,one must have some basic readings in Chaitanya teachings, an

understanding of the difference between the Shakta and

Vaishanava bhakti movements, Navya Naya (or Bengals logical

systems), Shankhya philosophy and good command over Islamic

philosophy and others.

It is very difficult to talk about Tantra because of its vulgar

representation and understanding in the west: a sexual art of

maximizing pleasure, which is completely opposite what Lalon

would mean by it. In this exotic subcontinent there have beenutterly perverse Tantric traditions that attracted the tourists and the

Orientalists, of course. The consumer capitalist society has also

discovered in Tantra a spiritual or new age justification to

practice all kinds of sexual perversion and packaged them as

commodities to sell in the market. Nevertheless, Tantra is a generic

term and there are many Tantras. So, responding to the enquiry IsLalon a Tantric? the reply should depend what you mean by

Tantra or Tantric? Yes Lalon is a Tantric but he is also not a

Tantric as we understand Tantra. He was bitterly critical of Tantra

as well, as named his practices as Karan literally meaningpractice.

To make our point intelligible, Lalon was a materialist, that is

what Tantra meant to him, and he is situated within the tradition of

Nityananda. It means that there is no truth outside the material

body and separation of the human body from its capacity to think

is simply wrong or absurd. He would definitely reject the position

of Descarte and the whole of western epistemological andontological tradition for its false premise I think therefore I am.He would argue that the body is given to us before we even start

thinking; the obsession to be certain of the existence or certainty of

the truth of a statement will have to be assessed by the desire

behind such impulse. There is no truth as such, we become true

through the use of our body in a self determined way in the

material-historical worldthis is the meaning of his Tantra forLalon. He will also reject western materialism that began with

weird and mystical conception of matter in order to reconstitutebody and consciousness by that category remaining eternally

forgetful that all these categories are products of his or her thinkingbodies.

The body is the universe and the universe is the body it is

the first axiomatic principle of Tantra. One can easily notice that

there nothing about sex or sexuality in this basic premise. So

body is not an individual entity but a continuum, the challenge isto taste the universe in and through the body as a material being,


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both as a means as well as the being of all knowing.

To do it well one should remain healthy, must remain conscious

about body and follow how the body behaves under different

conditions and how it is related to our faculties, etc. Body has

sexual impulses known in Bangla as Kam, it is natural. However,

the body of the human being also has the capacity to transformkam into prem that is love, love for others. In human bodiesKam and Prem is mixed together like poison and nectar. It is the

task of the wise person to extract the nectar from the poison. One

cannot taste love without the material impulse of the body, but love

transcends the bodyand it happens only in the case of humanbodiesand that is his point.

Lalon was not a Sufi at all. Sufi traditions do not have the same

ontological or epistemological premise as Lalon, more so, since

Lalon was never theological. Sufis, being a spiritual movement

originated within Islam, can not but accept the existence of Allahbefore any other being. In love of Allah Sufis desire to be reunited

with the Being of all beings. In contrast Lalon will never assume a

Being outside the given body of human beings. Allah is right

here in the human shape to know and taste himself, Lalonwould argue.

Allah Ke bujhe tomar opar Lile

Tumi Apni Allah dako Allah bole

O Allah who could decipher your endless play

You are the Allah but calling for Allah yourself

Allah is what human beings experiences in their thinking

bodies and calling out for that being in their language andtheologies.

He is misunderstood as Sufi because his songs are replete with

Arabic words and Islamic metaphors. However, careful readings

reveal that he not only criticised and distanced himself from Sufis,

but offered a quite original interpretation of the meaning of

prophethood and the spiritual mission of Islamto rediscover

Allah in the human body. He never deviated from the Nadia

School, but encountered and absorbed the great Sufi traditions as

well as Islamic philosophy resolving the questions raised by those

traditions within his system of thought.

Nevertheless Sufis were his close allies. He never undermined

the spiritual strength of Islam and one is simply astonished to note

how the converging and often conflicting trends are being resolved

and absorbed by him. He wrote plenty of songs for Mohammed

and similarly plenty for Chaitanya and Nityananda. His songs

interpret the philosophical meaning of Chaitnaya over and above

the appearance of a historical figure. These are known as songs


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deciphering Gourtattya. Similarly, he interpreted in Nabitattyathe meaning of the arrival of the last prophet, explained the

significance of the prophethood of Muhammed, the messenger of

Islam. Through these songs he brilliantly positioned himself as the

great philosopher explaining the idea of the wise and the

wisdom and the necessity in every epoch of the arrival of a Guruthe wisest of the wisewho in flesh and blood must re-interpret all texts and utterances that went before her or him to

remind the human beings their mission of becoming true through

their socio-historical role to emancipation.

It is profoundly important to understand Lalon within the Nadia

tradition or as the apex of the philosophical schools within NadiaParimandal (circle of Nadia) and not as Sufi tradition, despite the

fact that Sufis are allies to Nadia, otherwise one could completely

miss the contribution of Lalon to philosophical discourse. Let me

try to make this point clearer.Lets go back to Chaitanya. Chaitanya did not want to become a

Brahmacharya (a celibate). He was married. He accepted celibacy

only after he decided to become a Sanyashi (determination to give

up all worldly affairs). He is one of the famous Indian logicians.

But in the day to day rhetoric with his wife his intelligent

philosophical mind concluded that the neither Logic nor rhetoric is

the way to truth; in the same degree intellectualism is not the ideal

human practice to become true.

Chaitnayas philosophy is based on the love story of Krishna and

Radha. Chaitanya started to claim that when Krishna as a man

made love with Radha he tasted the body as a masculine being.But how did Radhathe femininetaste Krishna? How did Radhafeel the body? Taste here is used in a very literal and sensuous

way but at the same time in a highly philosophical sense. The

actual Bangla word is ashwadon. In the western philosophy taste

as faculty of knowledge has hardly any role and pathetically

undermined in the hierarchy of senses.

But Chaitanya, biologically is a man. Is it possible for the man to

taste the body as a woman does? Chaitanya claimed yes it is

possible and thus he made the first philosophical revolution in the

history of Tantra. To Tantra or to the pre-chaitanya Tantric

tradition body is material in the sense of materialism in the westernsense. Chaitanya said, when you do not see your lover and

physically feel the lossthe feeling, the imagination of the lossof the lover, the imaginary pain of the heart are at the same time

the pains of the body. What Chaitanya was arriving at is the role of

imagination in human history.

Imagination is real, and human beings can transcend the body by


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imagining himself as woman. Femininity can not be locked in the

biology. Chaitanya transformed his bodily desires as the desire of

Radha for Krishna. But neither Radha nor Krishna are real beings.

Desiring the imaginary as the object of sensuous love opened up a

new philosophical horizon is the great philosophical revolution in

Bengal. Chaitanyas practice is both a practice of the body as wellas the imagination. He used to be called Gour or Gora meaningfair. He was very handsome and very attractive. The legend goes

that through his practice he incarnated both Krishna and Radha in

his body. Philosophically it implies that imagination can take

material form and human history can not be explained without

taking account of the human dreams and imaginations, including

revolutionary or radical departures.

Lalon accepted Chaitanya but with a reservation. He realised that

Chaitanya brought the desire for the imaginary non-being of love-

object at the center of human objective and this unfolded the

immense possibility of the human body. However, in his songshe argued, Chaitanya must also be understood in epistemological

terms and not simply as a metaphor, e.g. incarnation of Krishna.

So he metaphorically raised the first brilliant question. If

Chaitanya is the incarnation of

Krishna, why is he not black? Why is he fair? In BanglaKrishna means black. Well because Chaitanya is both Krishna and

Radha in one body, he is both male and female. If so, why did

Krishna re-incarnate again in Bengal? The reply from Lalon is that

he had three incomplete tasks. What were these tasks? One could

decipher the tasks from the activities of Chaitanya.1. To destroy the dominance of male or masculine principle and

erase the gender divide, biology should not be the determinant of

our desire for the good life or should not be the hindrance for

emancipatory imaginations.

2. To develop the will to transcend worldly affairs, to cultivate

authentic human desires; implying to do away with the ego and the

private property.

3. To transform the personal love into universal love for all and

to be a self conscious slave to the community (all non-Brahmanical desires).

I am interpreting his famous song, moner katha bolbo kare amimoner katha bolbo kare / mon jane ar jane maram mojechi mon

diye jare'

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