Songs and Sounds of Yoga Diagrams
:Yoga Diagrams and Bāul Songs:
Baul (Bengali: bāul বাউল) refers to an early modern tantric and contemporary global esoteric movement that has its origins in an interconnected society of male, female, and androgynous sadhus (“renunciates”) in what is today Bangladesh and West Bengal, India. Baul songs celebrate the human body as a divine vehicle of realization and are full of wordplays and hidden puns that use religious language to describe its qualities and functions. Such songs are usually grouped in a genre called dehatattva, “principles of the body.”
The most famous Baul was undoubtedly Lalon Fakir (Lālan Phakir, d. 1890), who composed numerous songs that are understood as part of the dehatattva genre. As is customary in Baul songs, Lalon inserted his name in the signature line (bhaṇitā) of the last verse of each of his songs, indicating that each of these songs was also linked to his personal experience of practices that he learned from his guru Dervish Siraj Sai and the broader community of Bauls and sadhus during his lifetime. Even today, in many Baul contexts, it is expected that one would learn the teachings of the body directly from a guru or guru-mother and seek their advice to engage in practicing them. While there are also oral teachings and information written in notebooks, committing such songs to memory was the primary way in which these teachings on the body were communicated between teachers and students and expressed in poetic form to the wider public.
One song by Lalon on this theme can be viewed and listened to here that connects deeply to the yoga diagrams of Sabhapati Swami, especially those on the topic of “Body as Temple.” Even though on the surface this song seems to exclusively use Hindu imagery, a careful analysis of the language used reveals that Islamic symbolism is also used, as in the inclusion of the name "Zahra" (luminous) to refer to the primal Śakti or divine feminine principle.
Zahra the highest diamond jewel
(composed by Lalon Fakir, translated from Bengali by Keith Cantú)
Zahra the highest diamond jewel,
the moon that is millions of miles away.
One less than ten million gods are built inside—
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Narayan, Jai, Jai, Jai!
In the netherworld the moon,
up to the cosmos—
the moon and great Indra rise conjoined.
After the six wheels (ṣaṭcakra) is its primal order:
full of sixteen lunar digits (kalā), split into seven stories.
Above sits the Black Moon (Kālā), the great Lord who sings a song.
The adept who becomes pure can almost see the moon.
Moon and lotus root can be seen conjoined.
Nine hundred thousand cows wander with a cow-herder.
He knows what this moon is— that moon in Vrindavana,
in the divine Radha’s divine lotus!
Lalon’s practice is not just a mere game,
if Dervish Siraj Swami gives refuge.
Original Bengali:
হীরা মানিক জহুরা কোটিময়।
সে চাঁদ লক্ষ যোজন দূরে রয়
ঊনকোটি দেবতা সঙ্গে আছে গাঁথা
ব্রহ্মা বিষ্ণু শিব নারায়ণ জয় জয় জয়।
সে চাঁদ পাতালে উদয় ব্রমন্ডলে
সে চাঁদ মহেন্দ্র যোগে উদয় হয় ।।
ষড়চক্র পরে আছে আদি বিধান তার
ভেদ করিয়া সপ্ততলা পূরণ করে ষোলকলা
তার উপরে বসে কালা মহাপ্রভুর গান গায়।
যে জন শুদ্ধ সাধক হয় ও চাঁদ দেখিতে প্রায়
সে চাঁদ মৃণাল যোগে দেখা দেয় ।।
নবলেক্ষ ধেণু চরায় রাখালে
চাঁদের খবর সেই জানে।
চাঁদ রয়েছে বৃন্দাবনে শ্রীরাধার শ্রীকমলে,
লালনের ফকিরি করা নাই ফিকিরি
দরবেশ সিরাজ যদি ছায়া দেয়।।