Elahi Almin go Allah, Sovereign of the world divine,
You drown and raise at will—grant someone safe harbour,
Place Your hand of mercy, thus to You I call in prayer.
Who came to Medina in the name of the Messenger, brother?
Why has He no shadow, though in human form He appears?
He whose body casts no shade—
The three worlds are but His reflection.
To grasp this truth,
One must indeed strive for its essence.
When the great mystic Fakir Lalon Shah, with his cherished ektara in hand and body swaying to the rhythm of ecstasy, sang praises of Allah and His Messenger in this manner, the Sahajiya Muslims felt divine serenity in giving him a place in their hearts.
Anadir adi Shrikrishnanidhi—
Did He ever play among the cowherds?
In the form of Brahman He sits immovable,
His sportive play but an emanation of His essence.
Truly, say the Vedas and Agamas—
He is the Perfect Brahman, Sat-Chit-Ananda,
Without birth or death beyond this world—
Then how could He be the simple Nandalal?
When Lalon thus sang of Krishna, he became the beloved of the Vaishnav devotees as well.
And when he declared—
While life remains, recognise the gem that is the Murshid;
Such a precious birth shall never be again.
My Murshid is the treasure of all virtues,
My Murshid the boat to cross this worldly sea;
Upon His feet rests my only faith.
—he himself became the spiritual guide for those who sought the path of simplicity through devotion.
So, who truly was our Lalon Fakir of Kushtia? What was his caste or creed? He himself gave the most transparent answer:
All people ask—what is Lalon’s caste in this world?
Lalon says—what shape has caste? I have never seen it.
Circumcision makes one a Muslim—
But what of women, what law for them?
I know the Brahmin by his sacred thread—
But how shall I know the Brahmini?
In the end, Lalon found himself in the Ultimate Knowledge—the Supreme Truth. The mystic poet uttered his final and highest doctrine:
Worship man, and you shall become the Golden Man;
Without knowing man, O mad one,
You will lose the very root of your being...
Such a human birth will never be again—
Recognise the human gem while life yet lasts.
In a 2004 BBC Bangla survey of the twenty greatest Bengalis of all time, the saint-poet Lalon Fakir was honoured at number twelve.
Lalon Fakir was at once a spiritual Baul saint, a humanist, a social reformer and a philosopher. Within his songs lies the essence of a rare and universal humanism.
Known variously as Lalon Fakir, Lalon Shah, or Lalon Sai, he lives on even 135 years after his death—through the songs that breathe his vision. He left behind no written manuscripts, yet his verses spread orally across the villages of Bengal, carried by mystics and devotees in the tide of sadhusang.
According to scholars, Lalon lost his father in childhood. On a pilgrimage, he was struck by smallpox; his companions, thinking him dead, set him adrift upon the river after performing funeral rites. A Muslim woman rescued the unconscious youth, nursed him back to health, though one of his eyes remained blind.
When Lalon returned home, his community refused to accept him for having taken food and shelter in a Muslim household. Heartbroken, he renounced family and society forever.
That rejection turned his mind away from the rigidities of caste, scripture, and custom—it was his spiritual rebirth. After receiving initiation from his Baul guru, Siraj Sai, Lalon established an akhra at Cheuriya in Kushtia, where his true life as a saint began.
His doctrine was simple yet profound: “What is within the vessel is also within the universe.”
Lalon’s philosophy—rooted in Vaishnava and Buddhist Sahajiya thought mingled with Sufism—preached devotion to the human guru and a body-centred spirituality. This syncretic universalism crowned him as the Baul Samrat, the Emperor of the Bauls.
In his songs he sang:
Only by diving deep will you find the gem—
Float, and you shall never obtain it.
In the sea of the heart I have seen
A wondrous workshop divine.
Or again—
Who abides within this humble house?
All my life I could not see Him even once.
Lalon believed that within every human being dwells the Man of the Heart—the Moner Manush—found only through inner realisation. That ineffable being, whom he also called the Unknown Bird (Achin Pakhi), resides within the body itself.
When shall the union be—
With my Man of the Heart?
Inside the cage the Unknown Bird
Comes and goes unseen;
Could I but catch it, I would bind it
With chains of the mind.
According to Lalon scholar Dr Abul Ahsan Chowdhury, Lalon sought to create an indivisible human fellowship. In his time, he emerged as a rebel mystic—against society, dogma, and illusion. Fundamentally, he was a humanist inspired by non-sectarian ideals, rejecting all divisions of religion, caste, lineage, or gender.
As he himself declared:
When shall such a human society be born,
Where Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian—
All distinctions cease to be?
During his lifetime, the only known sketch of Lalon Fakir was drawn by Jyotirindranath Tagore, elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore. On 5 May 1889—about a year before Lalon’s death—Jyotirindranath sketched him aboard his boat on the Padma River. The original drawing is preserved in the Indian Museum. The scene was vividly recreated in Gautam Ghosh’s film Moner Manush.
Jyotirindranath, who inspired the artistic flowering of Rabindranath himself, had sketched many luminaries of that age before photography became common. Nearly 1,800 of his drawings survive today. At the initiative of Rabindranath and Rothenstein, a collection of these sketches was published in 1914, including that of Lalon Fakir.
The life-philosophy of this apostle of equality and harmony runs parallel to the ideals of human liberation expressed by both Rabindranath Tagore and our national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam. His simple words and gentle rhythm trace a luminous path that dispels the darkness of superstition and dogma, replacing them with harmony and love.
And the chief architect and lighthouse of that love is our saint-poet Lalon Fakir—who, though he called himself a humble mendicant, was in truth a sovereign of spiritual wisdom.
Calling for universal attention toward this prophet of unity, Rabindranath Tagore once said:
“In this India, the fakirs alone have preserved the true spirit of oneness.”
Lalon Fakir remains the finest exemplar of that spirit.
As thinker Dr Ahmad Sharif observed:
“In the boundless expanse of humanity free of all discrimination, Lalon meditated atop the high tower of equality and love. With the world’s greatest saints and philosophers, he raised his voice for the message of compassion and human fraternity.”
The final message of this beacon of humanism, Fakir Lalon Shah, can be summed up in these immortal lines:
One who reaches the shore of the stream of Man
Finds the priceless gem with ease;
That river is wondrous beyond words—
Its waters, touched once, bring you to the touch of God.
And thus, singing his truth—
“Speak the truth, O my mind, and walk the righteous path”—
we bow in deep reverence to the memory of this egalitarian jewel among men, Fakir Lalon Shah.
Author: Journalist
Kartik 1, 1432 | 17 October 2025
References:
• Songs of Lalon Shah – Abu Rushd
• Baul Tattva – Ahmad Sharif
• Lalon Sai: Prosongo O Onushongo – Dr Abul Ahsan Chowdhury
• BBC Bangla
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