Bauls were great mystics of such beauty and depth that people started thinking that they were mad. So the literal meaning of the word “baul” is mad; it means: the mad mystic. Their whole life was so utterly different, so radically different from the ordinary life, that naturally they looked mad. They danced, they sang, they moved like madmen, traveling up and down the country singing songs of joy, of celebration. Naturally they looked mad, because in a world of suffering how do you conceive of celebration? In a world where everybody is miserable, the man who is dancing and has laughter in his soul looks simply out of place, outlandish, mad, stoned, not in his senses. Hence the word “baul” — it means the mad mystic. Slowly slowly they have disappeared; very few Bauls are still alive. But the glory is gone because this country no more welcomes the real mystic. It still talks about mysticism, in fact talks much about mysticism, but its heart has become materialistic.
