বাংলা 
English 
Him I have not seen with my eyes
in what manner shall I worship Him?
Without counting the sand below
you grasp the sky in the dark.
Catching a snake in a dark room
where there is no snake - such conviction.
Lalon, likewise bereft of wit
near to madness.
In Lalon's philosophy Allah is attained by knowing the prophet; apart from the prophet the distinction of God is impossible. But the prophet - to whom shall I say it - that meaning must be known from the root of creation. So, in visible form, in the present, in Ahad, Lalon wishes to see that deathless ever-living prophet, that saviour of the world abiding through the four ages. And the notable truth is that Lalon received this from the Quran.
Called Hayatul Mursalin
I see it written in the Quran.
Siraj Sai says, foolish Lalon,
knowing the Rasul you will gain the akhirah.
The prophet who is the helmsman of the farther shore
lives on through the four ages.
Hayatul Mursalin is his name
that is why He is so called.
In what form the prophet will be attained in the present - in Lalon's view the search for this is the sage's work. Not the invisible formless, not an avatar of another age, not a historical figure - Lalon wishes to perfect this nur-sadhana by worshipping only the man of the present.
Indeed the truth is, man is the present
do it now.
Little by little in the heart's lotus
will play the play of nur.
Lalon fakir's philosophy is essentially a guru-oriented karan-sadhana. On this path the guru is the redeemer of the fallen, the supreme God, Dayal Chand - though the man of blood and flesh is nothing other. Setting aside this living guru-form, the sage searches for his own essence. In the four kinds of feet - the teaching guru, the initiating guru, the sadhana guru, the consciousness guru - sadhana is perfected. Devotion is the strength of this sadhana, for the guru is subject to devotion. At the guru's touch iron becomes gold, the blind see, the lame dance - such is his glory. There is no scripture of the theory of sadhana. The deep hidden esoteric truth must be known by following the true guru's instruction and developing realisation through the living of life, for this is a sadhana of life. Little by little, brightening the heart's lotus, one comes to know one's own 'I'. And once one can know oneself, all can be known.
Whose mind will be fixed at the guru's feet
all his difficulties will go
that very one will gain the priceless wealth in hand.
Where Alek's home is the abode
Safiullah is his stair.
Lalon says, the mind's fence
is fastened to the guru's feet.
In Lalon's philosophy the body is a great matter. Whatever is in the universe is in the body's vessel. Within the body itself is the play of Sai Niranjan, the light of the prophet's nur, the throne-abode. Apart from the body the Lalon sage has no other tirtha. Yet it is also true that Lalon's sadhana at last seeks its completion in a gemini-like paired sadhana. Only in the union of the body-pair is Sai-darshan possible, in nothing else - that is the seed-mantra. In this esoteric practice of reaching the unreachable through a pair, the body itself is the temple, and union the worship. Here another thing is important to know: in this sadhana it is not the sage but rather the sadhana-companion who is the chief helmsman, without whose grace crossing is impossible. She becomes the consciousness guru, in another name Sri Guru. In paired sadhana, at the climax of union, the purusha (Sai) becomes prakriti, and prakriti (body, prophet) becomes purusha. But knowing this unknown knowledge of body-theory is no small matter, for this body, this world of the five elements, is ceaselessly conflict-ridden in indissoluble causal bonds - maya-appearance is its nature. The body's desire does not stop, is never satisfied. To feed the bird that wishes to suck up all the seas is truly an impossible task. So the clever sage first tames that hungry wild bird, and then makes love - he goes by that path.
Love is the life of Lalon's philosophy. Unless steadfastness comes into love's purity, this philosophy is mere hollow dry talk. In Lalon's view it is in love that the sage's perfection lies, in love release from bondage. All sadhana-devotion, all binding and casting, all fakiri dealing finally turns false if there is no love in the mind. Immersed in love's desire is that priceless treasure, the way to grasp the unreachable sweetness. In Lalon's various verses that appeal returns again and again.
My mind stays drowned in the raga of pure love.
Immerse your body in the current, do not give in to malice - swim along upstream.
Having put out Madan, light him again - play the game on the icy peak.
Beholding both, palms upward - that is the mark of love.
At the root of the muladhara is that very nur
the distinction of nur, the boundless ocean.
In whom has sprouted love's seedling
he it is who gleams.
Arrow against arrow, the hurling - the earning of poison
the movement is downward, both are the ending.
If with the weapon of love you cut the five arrows
man's karan will be accomplished.
One pure deed of love is the essence of Lalon's philosophy; and yet Lalon does not speak of any strange love devoid of desire. Love without desire, in his view, is meaningless. But the sage does not dance to desire; he makes desire dance. Desire to him is the wave - a turbulent river (the path), love the goal (the farther shore), and this body the ferry to that shore, the guru the helmsman. But the sight of the farther shore, or the attainment of perfection, for which one must know the causeless karan or the causeless pursuit of love - that bhava is not the work of small knowledge. The sage who dwells on the summit of rasa alone attains it; the rest drown and die in the storm.
Is causeless bhava possible at all? To understand the argument, let the famous idea of the philosopher Immanuel Kant concerning 'pure reason' first be known. That power of knowledge which can express itself in the freedom of its own distinctness, without man's worldly and sensory urges or the necessity of the law of cause and effect - that, in Kant's judgment, is 'pure reason' - the only transcendent existence of the human mind. Expectation-free morality and desireless rasa-thinking (aesthetic feeling and love) prove it again and again in certain special moments of life. From these two marvellous dispositions of the mind, the materialist Kant was at last compelled to accept the existence of God or the supreme being in man's pure reason, though in his language this God is unreachable, unproved. Kant believes that man is in truth a dweller of two worlds. As he dwells freely in a phenomenal world bound to cause and effect with a sensitive body and senses, so with the urge of pure reason he may range in a transcendent world where distinctness itself is the rule. As if one soul in two forms. Therefore, crossing worldly delusion and dull bondage, to illuminate the inner transcendent distinctness should be the aim of human life - that, in Kant's view, is self-culture. To see the intent of God in any external object, in a historical person or in a great book is, in Kant's view, sheer idolatry. Rather, the word or command of religion can arise only from man's own soul, illuminating the world of the mind through the awakening of pure reason. This much alone does the materialist Kant understand by religion.
In Lalon fakir's philosophy too we find much the same opinion. 'God in all beings' - this Upanishadic word of the Brahma faith Lalon perhaps does not deny, but not in all beings - Fakir Lalon searches for God only in man, in the heart's lotus in the depths of man, in the mind-body, in form and in the present. To Lalon, man alone is the root sadhana.
All sadhana bears fruit for him
whose devotion in this world is fixed on the human guru.
The luminous one who is formless
he takes a visible, embodied form.
The divya-jnani comes to know it
in the Kali age man is the avatar.
Adam-Qaaba is within this human body
see it, O mind, do not sneer.
Running from land to land
why do you die panting?
As I said before, in Lalon's philosophy the human body is a spiritual matter - the vessel of nur, the holy chalice. From Kant's philosophy it is at this stage that Lalon's distinctness is clear. Kant's 'pure reason' is no substance, it is a power of knowledge, while in Lalon it is substance-power as well, to be known through the yoga of sadhana. Detachment is wasted; there is no liberation in the woods - in his own body Lalon searches for the tirtha, the strength of sadhana, resting on the belief, like Kant's, that man is a dweller of two worlds.
One day I did not see Him.
Beside the house is Arshinagar
there dwells the neighbour.
How can I have the power to know that form?
Day and night, in eyes of knowledge clogged with maya's husk.
I and the unknown are one
in one place we two dwell.
Between us drifts a hundred thousand yojanas
I do not get to hold.
