THE BAULS AND THEIR HERETIC TRADITION 77 Sahaja as the ultimate reality resided within this form as our true self or the ultimate nature. So Lalan Fakir, the noted exponent of Baul songs, had composed: Proceed carefully in your spiritual quest, May be, you will find wealth very near; Says Lalan, search your own home, Truth is not very far.13 Traces of the Sahaja cult of the Bauls could be even located in the Vedas under the name Nivartiya, being described as those who conformed to no accepted doctrines, but to whom, having known the truth in its purity, all directions were free. Not bound by prescribed rites or ceremonials, they were ever mobile and in active communion with all by virtue of their wealth of the natural. Certain specific references to the vratyas (which may be translated as the 'heretics1 or 'non-conformists') could be found in Atharva Veda in identical terms: 'The Vratya was active in all directions' (XV, 1.2); "The Vratya is ever mobile' (XV, 1, 1, 1); Atharva Veda was also full of enigmatic verses similar to the sayings of the Bauls: Man is a wondrous temple; when it was made, the gods came and took shelter.14 Let us now take up the Baul concept of 'Man of My Heart' (manor manus) in more details and find out the interplay of the other Sahajiya thoughts and the Sufi philosophy with the Baul perception in this regard. The Baul conception of 'Man of My Heart* brings in the question of its similarity or dissimilarity with the Vaisnava conception of love. The Vaisnava formulation is based on a principle of duality, theological, if not metaphysical. Theologically, the Vaisnavas have conceived a kind of duality between God and the individual (jiva) and this principle of duality invites the question of Saguna Bhakti, which gradually culminates in the conception of passionate love. Metaphysically, however, the relation between God and the individual has often been spoken of as incomprehensible—a relation of dualism in non-dualism. On the contrary, the Baul conception of nirguna bhakii is strictly based on a non-dualistic approach.15 The Bauls have often criticised the Vaisnava followers. 'Had these Vaisnavas the understanding, they would have known better that Chandidas, vidyapati and others were good Vaisnava poets simply because they had had glimpses of Sahaja ideas. But are their followers competent to understand their message? They took the idea of Radha from us, but have dragged her down to the level of their low desires. Devoid of the realisation of the simple, their minds, obsessed