The feeling that man is not a mere casual visitor at the palace-gate of the world, but the invited guest whose presence is needed to give the royal banquet its sole meaning, is not confined to any particular sect in India. Let me quote here some poems from a mediæval poet of Western India—Jnândâs—whose works are nearly forgotten, and have become scarce from the very exquisiteness of their excellence. In the following poem he is addressing God's messenger, who comes to us in the morning light of our childhood, in the dusk of our day's end, and in the night's darkness: Messenger, morning brought you, habited in gold. After sunset, your song wore a tune of ascetic grey, and then came night. Your message was written in bright letters across the black. Why is such splendour about you, to lure the heart of one who is nothing? This is the answer of the messenger: Great is the festival hall where you are to be the only guest. Therefore the letter to you is written from sky to sky, And I, the proud servant, bring the invitation with all ceremony. And thus the poet knows that the silent rows of stars carry God's own invitation to the individual soul. The same poet sings: What hast thou come to beg from the beggar, O King of Kings? My Kingdom is poor for want of him, my dear one, and I wait for him in sorrow. How long will you keep him waiting, O wretch, who has waited for you for ages in silence and stillness? Open your gate, and make this very moment fit for the union. It is the song of man's pride in the value given to him by Supreme Love and realised by his own love. The Vaishnava religion, which has become the popular religion of India, carries the same message: God's love finding its finality in man's love. According to it, the lover, man, is the complement of the Lover, God, in the internal love drama of existence; and God's call is ever wafted in man's heart in the world-music, drawing him towards the union. This idea has been expressed in rich elaboration of symbols verging upon realism. But for these Baüls this idea is direct and simple, full of the dignified beauty of truth, which shuns all tinsels of ornament. The Baül poet, when asked why he had no sect mark on his forehead, answered in his song that the true colour decoration appears on the skin of the fruit when its inner core is filled with ripe, sweet juice; but by artificially smearing it with colour from outside you do not make it ripe. And he says of his Guru, his teacher, that he is puzzled to find in which direction he must make salutation. For his teacher is not one, but many, who, moving on, form a procession of wayfarers. Baüls have no temple or image for their worship, and this utter simplicity is needful for men whose one subject is to realise the innermost nearness of God. The Baül poet expressly says that if we try to approach God through the senses we miss him: