Poetic Rendering
By the Guru’s word
my ears were purified.
By beholding the holy sharanas
my eyes were purified.
By touching the feet of the Lord
my body was purified.
By tasting Your prasāda
my mouth was purified.
By moving in the company of Your sharanas
all the stains of ignorance fell away.
And, O Kudalasangamadeva,
my mind was purified
when I realized You dwell in all
in the Jangama before me
and equally within myself.
Basavanna describes a sixfold purification of the seeker: through hearing sacred truth, seeing holy souls, touching the divine, tasting blessed offerings, serving the community of sharanas, and finally realizing the omnipresence of Shiva. The culmination is inner purification recognizing that the Divine is not confined to temple or form but lives equally in the saint, the devotee, and one’s own heart. This realization wipes away all impurity.
Spiritual Context
Core Spiritual Principle: Embodied, sacramental non-dualism. The path to the Formless is through the sanctification of form. The senses and the body are not enemies to be conquered but instruments to be purified and redirected (dharane) towards the Divine, leading to the ultimate realization of non-duality.
Cosmic Reality Perspective: This vachana outlines the process of Shakti (the individual’s energy of perception and action) returning to and recognizing its source in Shiva. Each purified sense organ becomes a gateway for this return. The final realization is the collapse of the subject-object dichotomy: the one who sees (Anga), the act of seeing (Jangama), and the seen (Linga in the other) are all revealed as one seamless Divine Reality.
Historical Reality (Anubhava Mantapa Context): This is the foundational pedagogy of the Anubhava Mantapa. It presents a radical, community-based spirituality that replaces Vedic ritual. Purification comes not from bathing in sacred rivers but from sacred company (satsang), service, and shared offerings. It democratizes spiritual practice, making it accessible to every sharana through their daily interactions and their perception of one another.
Interpretation
Ears (Guru’s word): The initiation. The vibratory truth shatters preconceived notions and aligns the intellect.
Eyes (Beholding sharanas): The power of sight is re-trained to perceive divinity in human form, cultivating reverence and breaking judgments.
Body (Touching the Lord’s feet): The sanctification of touch and the surrender of the ego through the physical act of prostration, grounding spirituality in the body.
Mouth (Tasting prasada): The sense of taste is consecrated. Consuming grace as food transforms the very substance of the body and erases the distinction between the sacred and the mundane.
Stains of Ignorance (Moving with sharanas): This is the purification of the subtle body (sukshma sharira)the habits, desires, and latent impressions (vasanas). The collective consciousness of the saintly community reforms the individual’s psyche.
Mind (Realizing the omnipresent Linga): The culmination. The intellect is purified of its final delusionseparation. The mind stops categorizing “self,” “other,” “saint,” and “God,” and rests in the unified field of divine presence.
Practical Implications: The practitioner is guided to engage all senses in spiritual practice: listening to teachings, keeping company with the virtuous, practicing physical reverence, receiving food as grace, and actively serving the community. The goal is to constantly refine one’s perception until God is seen everywhere, without exception.
The Cosmic Reality
Anga (Human Dimension): The Anga is a multi-layered instrument of consciousness awaiting activation. It is not a barrier but the very vehicle for realization. Each part of it, from the gross physical senses to the subtle mind, is a locus for divine encounter.
Linga (Divine Principle): The Linga is the all-pervading substrate of existence. It is the sacred sound in the Guru’s word, the divine presence in the Sharana’s form, the tangible energy in the prasada, and the core consciousness in every being. It is both transcendent (the Lord) and immanent (the indweller).
Jangama (Dynamic Interaction): The Jangama is the living, breathing process of sacramental life. It is the act of listening, seeing, touching, tasting, and serving. Ultimately, it is the dynamic cognition the continuous “realizing” that perceives the Linga in the flow of life and relationship, dissolving the static separation between devotee and God.
Shatsthala
Primary Sthala: Sharana (Total Refuge) The vachana describes the lived experience of one who has taken total refuge. The Sharana immerses themselves completely in the ecosystem of grace the Guru, the community, the sacraments and through this total immersion, achieves purification. The stance is one of active receptivity to all these means.
Supporting Sthala: Pranalingi (One for whom Linga is Life-Breath) The final realization demonstrates the Pranalingi stage. The Linga is no longer an external object of worship but is as vital and omnipresent as the air one breathes. It is found in the core of one’s own being and in the life of every other being, becoming inseparable from life itself.
Practical Integration
Arivu (Awareness Practices): Practice mindfulness with each sense gate. Before listening, set an intention to hear truth. Before looking, set an intention to see the divine in others. Before eating, offer the food to the Linga within. Use every interaction as a trigger for the remembrance: “You dwell in all.”
Achara (Personal Discipline): Create a personal discipline that incorporates these six purifications: daily study or listening (ear), darshan of saints or sacred images (eye), prostration in prayer (body), eating sanctified food (mouth), and committed service to the spiritual community (purification of character).
Kayaka (Sacred Action): Let your work be an offering that serves the community of sharanas. See your workplace as an extension of the Anubhava Mantapa, and your colleagues as potential vessels of the divine presence.
Dasoha (Communal Offering): Actively participate in creating and sustaining a community that provides these six means of purification for others. Be a source of truthful words, a humble presence that others can “behold,” and a generous distributor of prasada.
Modern Application
We live in a state of sensory overload and pollution ears filled with noise and misinformation, eyes bombarded by superficial imagery, bodies disconnected from reverence, taste corrupted by artificial food, and minds fragmented by hyper-individualism and alienation from genuine community.
This vachana provides a profound detoxification protocol for the modern soul. It teaches us to curate our inputs: what we listen to, what we look at, what we touch with reverence, what we consume, and who we associate with. The ultimate healing comes from the cognitive shift of seeing the sacred interconnectedness in all people and things, which erases the deep-seated impurity of existential loneliness and meaninglessness.
Essence
The Guru’s sound cleared my ear,
The Saint’s form made the vision clear.
The touch of Grace grounded my form,
The taste of Blessing, my inner storm.
The Sangha’s walk washed my soul’s stain,
Then, Mind saw Youin them, in me, the same.
The Deeper Pattern: This vachana maps the sequential calibration of a complex receiver (the human being) to attune to a universal signal (the Linga). Each stepfrom auditory tuning (ear) to cognitive coherence (mind)increases the signal-to-noise ratio, filtering out the static of ignorance (avidya). The final, perfected state is when the receiver realizes it is not separate from the signal itself; the observer and the observed field are one resonant reality.
In Simple Terms: It is like cleaning a dusty window pane. First, you clean one corner (the ear), then another (the eye), then the whole pane (the body and senses). Finally, when the pane is perfectly clean, you realize there is no separate “window” at allyou are simply looking directly at the world, which is itself a perfect, luminous expression of the Divine. The barrier was only the dirt.
The Human Truth: The universal human quest is for purity, meaning, and connection. We often seek this by rejecting the world or the body. The timeless truth here is that purity is found not in rejection, but in the sacred engagement with life through our senses, our community, and our own mind. The final obstacle is not the world, but the thought that we are separate from the Divine life pulsing within it and within us.
Views: 0