Poetic Rendering
The field was sown,
the shoots rose green,
the grain ripened,
the harvest was gathered in.
Sheaves were threshed,
the chaff blown off by the wind,
the grain measured and stored
a year’s labour brought to fullness.
And then
the threshing post pulled out,
the threshing floor destroyed,
all that was earned scattered to nothing.
O Kudalasangamadeva,
like a farmer with his harvest ruined,
my life too lies wasted, empty-handed.
Basavanna uses the powerful metaphor of a completed harvest suddenly ruined to describe the collapse of one’s spiritual effort. Every stage of cultivation sowing, growing, reaping, threshing, storing symbolizes the long, painstaking work of inner discipline and devotion. Yet just when the grain (spiritual attainment) seems secure, the very foundation of the work the threshing floor is destroyed. This expresses the seeker’s anguish: despite sincere effort, something essential has gone wrong, and the fruits of spiritual labour have slipped away. The vachana is not just lamentation but an appeal to Kudalasangamadeva to recognize the seeker’s helplessness. It is a confession that without divine grace, even well-earned merit can be lost, and human striving alone cannot guarantee liberation.
Spiritual Context
Core Spiritual Principle: Grace Beyond Merit (Punya-Atīta Prasada). In Shivayoga, spiritual progress is not a karma of accumulation. The vachana exposes the subtle trap of believing one’s sincere effort creates an irrevocable credit. True liberation requires the dissolution of this very account, even if it feels like catastrophic loss.
Cosmic Reality Perspective: From the non-dual view, the harvested grain represents a subtle, refined object of consciousness a higher state, an attainment (Siddhi). But any object, however sublime, is still within manifestation (Shakti). The destruction of the threshing floor is Shiva’s fierce compassion, dissolving the last subtle anchor of attachment so the seeker rests not in an attainment, but in the attribute less (Nirguna) source.
Historical Reality (Anubhava Mantapa Context): This vachana served as a crucial warning to the Sharanas. As their Basavayoga movement grew, there was a risk of spiritual materialism pride in one’s piety, revolutionary zeal, or mystical experiences. Basavanna demolishes this by showing that even the most complete-looking spiritual harvest can be instantly undone by the Divine to purify residual ego.
Interpretation
Sowing to Storing: This maps the entire spectrum of spiritual practice: initial resolve (sowing), nurturing virtues (shoots growing), maturing insight (ripening), integrating experiences (harvesting), discriminating truth from illusion (winnowing chaff), and storing attainments (measured grain).
“The threshing post pulled out, the threshing floor destroyed”: The threshing floor is the stabilized platform of the ego the sense of a “spiritual self” that has grown, achieved, and now possesses wisdom. Its destruction is not an attack from outside, but the collapse of the very foundation of the doer-identity. The “post” is the central pillar of self-congratulation.
“All that was earned scattered to nothing”: This is the realization that spiritual merit (Punya) is also a form of subtle capital. To be fully liberated, one must be bankrupted of both sin (Papa) and merit. The scattering is the disintegration of the account book.
“My life too lies wasted, empty-handed”: This is the pivotal moment of utter humility. The “waste” is only from the farmer’s perspective. From the Divine view, the cleared field is now perfectly fallow and receptive, free from the clutter of the previous crop. The empty hands are now ready to receive what cannot be grasped or stored.
Practical Implications: One must practice non-ownership of spiritual progress. Celebrate insights but do not stockpile them as achievements. Welcome periods of aridity or collapse as potential divine corrections, clearing out the accumulated “grain” of subtle pride.
The Cosmic Reality
Anga (Human Dimension): The linear, causal mind that believes in a straightforward equation: effort + time = secure spiritual wealth. It operates in the realm of seasonality and expects a return on investment. Its despair at the ruin is the despair of a worldview shattered.
Linga (Divine Principle): The timeless, causaless reality that operates beyond seasonal logic. It is not against cultivation but is ultimately indifferent to the accumulated harvest, as its nature is boundless giving, not measured exchange. It values the fallow field as much as the full one.
Jangama (Dynamic Interaction): The fierce wind of grace that scatters the grain. This Jangama is not gentle; it is the dynamic, disruptive force of truth that breaks the seeker’s attachment to the cycle of sowing and reaping itself. It is the movement that transports the seeker from the economy of merit to the economy of grace.
Shata Sthala
Primary Sthala: Maheshwara. This stage is characterized by vigorous, disciplined practice the complete “cultivation” described. The risk here is that the practitioner, though devoted, may become attached to the forms and fruits of their practice, solidifying a spiritual ego.
Supporting Sthala: Prasadi. The ruin of the harvest is the violent onset of Prasadi grace that comes not to reward but to dismantle. This painful event is the catalyst that can propel the Maheshwara out of identification with their effort and into a state of surrendered receptivity.
Practical Integration
Arivu (Awareness Practices): When experiencing a “spiritual peak” or sense of attainment, consciously offer it to the Linga immediately. Verbally say, “This is not mine to store.” Periodically engage in practices that symbolically “ruin your harvest” e.g., break a routine, abandon a cherished spiritual conclusion, or serve in a way that undermines your spiritual self-image.
Achara (Personal Discipline): Maintain a spiritual “logbook” not of successes, but of lessons from failures and collapses. When a long-held belief or practice seems to fall apart, document the humility and new emptiness it creates, framing it as sacred clearing rather than loss.
Kayaka (Sacred Action): In your work, after the successful completion of a major project (the harvest), deliberately engage in an act that symbolically scatters the achievement share credit universally, dissemble the project team quickly, or immediately start a menial task. This prevents identity from crystallizing around success.
Dasoha (Communal Offering): In community, create safe spaces to share stories of “ruined harvests” times of spiritual failure, doubt, or regression. Honor these stories not as tragedies but as potential passages of grace, where the community’s role is to help the individual see the cleared threshing floor, not just the lost grain.
Modern Application
The Wellness & Optimization Trap. Modern spirituality is often framed as a self-improvement project: meditate to reduce stress, practice mindfulness for productivity, follow a philosophy to achieve “your best life.” This creates a harvest mentality. When anxiety returns, or a crisis shatters one’s hard-won peace, it feels like a personal failure a ruined harvest leading to disillusionment.
This vachana teaches Spiritual Anti-Fragility. It invites us to reframe spiritual practice not as building an edifice of attainment, but as a process of continual, graceful dissolution of the builder. When a “ruin” occurs, instead of despairing, ask: “What attachment to my own spiritual progress is being cleared away?” This transforms setbacks from failures into fierce forms of grace, deepening reliance on the source beyond all practice.
Essence
I tended, grew, and brought to barn
The golden yield of wisdom’s year.
Then, with a sound no ear can hear,
The floor gave way, the grain was gone.
This empty field, this setting sun,
Are Your first gifts, when mine are done.
This vachana illustrates the second law of thermodynamics applied to consciousness. Any ordered system (the harvested grain, the structured ego) tends toward disorder (scattering). The spiritual journey’s final phase is not to resist this entropy but to recognize it as the universe’s method of returning localized, concentrated consciousness (the ego’s achievement) back to a state of even, potential distributionthe formless awareness of the Linga. The ruin is the system’s return to equilibrium.
A child spends all day building an elaborate sandcastle (the harvest). A wave washes it away (the ruin). The child’s initial despair turns to freedom: the beach is now a clean slate for new play, and they are no longer the anxious guardian of a fragile structure. The castle was fun to build, but its destruction released the child from ownership.
Our deepest security is invested in what we have built and stored materially, emotionally, and spiritually. Our greatest terror is its loss. This vachana reveals that the Divine’s ultimate act of love may be to orchestrate that very loss, not out of cruelty, but to free us from the prison of being a custodian, and to introduce us to the liberating truth of being an eternally provided-for child of the infinite.
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