Poetic Rendering
The milk belongs to the calf
its mouth has already claimed it.
The river belongs to the fish
endlessly it drinks what it lives within.
The fragrance of a blossom belongs to the plant
for the stem itself has tasted its secret sweetness.
So tell me, what offering remains untouched,
pure, unsavored by another?
And deeper still
even the one who offers,
even the very “I” that seeks to give
is Yours alone,
not mine.
What meaning do these distinctions hold?
Where is giver, where is gift, where receiver?
All that is given,
and the one who gives,
is but You offering Yourself
to Yourself,
O Kudalasangamadeva.
The End of Transaction and the Dawn of Non-Duality This vachana represents one of Basavanna’s most luminous declarations of Advaita Bhakti—a devotion that dissolves the duality between devotee and deity. 1. Nothing in the world is truly “mine” to offer Through simple yet profound metaphors
• milk already tasted by the calf,
• river water already consumed by fish,
• fragrance already enjoyed by the plant
Basavanna reveals a universal truth: Everything in creation is already claimed by life. Even before we “offer” something to God, it has already been part of the divine cycle. Thus, the traditional idea of giving God something pure, untouched, unclaimed becomes impossible.
The true meaning of Basavanna’s devotion Basavanna is not rejecting worship he is revealing its deepest, most mysterious layer. When the ego dissolves, worship becomes a movement of grace, not effort. When the seeker disappears, only the Divine remains, flowing, giving, receiving, and being. The collapse of the ego’s last refuge Basavanna then turns the gaze inward: Even the I that wants to worship the heart, the breath, the hand that lifts the offering is not truly “mine.” It is all the play of consciousness. This insight destroys the final stronghold of ego:
“I” am not the worshipper.
“I” am not the one who gives.
There is no “my offering.” Worship becomes non-dual: the Divine worships the Divine When this understanding dawns, worship is no longer a transaction. There is no giver. No gift. No receiver. There is only the Divine encountering itself through the temporary mask of the devotee. This is the heart of the vachana: All offerings are God offering God to God.
Spiritual Context
Core Spiritual Principle: Authentic worship is the recognition of pre-existing, non-dual unity. It is not an act of giving from a separate self to a separate Other, but the conscious celebration of the Divine’s own self-luminosity and self-enjoyment (svatma-samstuti). The ritual is the recognition; the offering is the recognition.
Cosmic Reality Perspective: In the absolute non-duality (paradvaita) of Shivayoga, only Shiva exists. All manifestation is Shiva’s vimarsha (self-reflection). The “milk,” “river,” and “fragrance” are Shiva’s own energies. The “calf,” “fish,” and “stem” are Shiva’s own forms. The act of “offering” is Shiva’s own spanda (pulsation) of consciousness moving within itself. Worship is the localized awareness of this cosmic fact.
Historical Reality (Anubhava Mantapa Context): This vachana represents the philosophical pinnacle of the Anubhava Mantapa’s rebellion. It dismantled the entire priestly economy of transactional puja (worship for favor) that dominated 12th-century Kalyana. By declaring the worshipper and worshipped to be one, it rendered ritual intermediaries obsolete and made every laborer’s act (kayaka) and every shared meal (dasoha) into direct, non-dual worship. It was the theological basis for their radically egalitarian and experiential spirituality.
Interpretation
1.“The milk belongs to the calf… The river belongs to the fish… The fragrance… belongs to the plant.” These are not moral statements but ontological facts. They describe ecosystems of inherent, non-transactional relationship. They establish that nothing in creation stands apart as an independent, “unclaimed” object. Everything is already in a state of belonging, consumption, and participation within the whole. This invalidates the premise of an external offering.
2.“So tell me, what offering remains untouched, pure, unsavored by another?” This is the devotional crisis that leads to awakening. The seeker confronts the impossibility of the foundational act of duality: giving something “mine” to “You.” The search for a pure object reveals there is none.
3.“And deeper stilleven the one who offers… is Yours alone, not mine.” This turns the inquiry inward and collapses the last pillar. The subject (“I”) is also discovered to be an object within the field of the Divine. The sense of personal doership (kartrtva-bhava) is revealed as an appropriation of divine agency.
4.“All that is given, and the one who gives, is but You offering Yourself to Yourself.” This is the non-dual resolution. The entire triadgiver, gift, receiveris re-absorbed into a single, self-referential loop of divine play (lila). Worship is redefined as conscious participation in this loop, which is existence itself.
Practical Implications: One must shift from doing worship to being worship. Before any act of devotion, pause and recognize: “This body-mind is Your instrument. This intention is Your prompting. This action is Your movement. I am the space where You worship You.” This turns effort into allowance and ritual into recognition.
The Cosmic Reality
Anga (Human Dimension): The dream figure in the divine dream. In the dream, the figure believes it is independent, picking a flower to offer to the dreamer. Upon awakening (realization), it is seen that both dreamer and dreamed are one consciousness. The Anga is that realized dream-figure, knowing itself as the dreamer’s own activity.
Linga (Divine Principle): Koodalasangamadeva as the dreamer and the dream. The Linga is the single, undivided consciousness that projects, inhabits, and receives all appearances. It is the only “substance” available to be offered.
Jangama (Dynamic Interaction): The process of dreaming and the moment of lucidity. It is the eternal flow of manifestation (the offering) and the simultaneous recognition within the dream that “I am the dreamer” (the worship). The true Jangama is one who abides in this continuous lucidity.
Shata Sthala
Primary Sthala: AIKYA. This vachana is a pure utterance from the state of Aikya. It does not describe a path to union; it describes the landscape of union. The questioning (“what offering remains?”) is not a seeker’s doubt but a rhetorical exposition of the truth from the other side of realization.
Supporting Sthala: SHARANA. The Sharana, in total surrender, prepares for this by offering up the very notion of being the offerer. Their practice is to intend: “Let all my actions be Thine.” This intention matures into the direct knowledge that they never were otherwise, culminating in Aikya.
Practical Integration
Arivu (Awareness Practices): Practice “Triad Collapse Meditation.” Sit in prayer. Visualize the gift (a flower, your breath), the giver (yourself), and the receiver (the Divine). Then, slowly let all three dissolve into a single, luminous point of awareness. Rest in that point where giving and receiving are meaningless.
Achara (Personal Discipline): Transform daily rituals. While lighting a lamp or eating food, silently affirm: “This is You, lighting You, for You. This is You, nourishing You, as You.” Let the ritual enact the recognition, not the transaction.
Kayaka (Sacred Action): Perform work as divine self-expression. See your labor not as “my service to the world,” but as “the Divine’s creativity flowing through this form to sustain and adorn its own manifestation.”
Dasoha (Communal Offering): See sharing as circulation within the one body. When you give or receive, know it is the left hand giving to the right hand within the same organism of consciousness. This erases any sense of debt, superiority, or inferiority.
Modern Application
Transactional spirituality and identity-based worship. The pervasive mindset of “I am doing my practice to get peace/enlightenment/grace.” The commercialization of spirituality where offerings are tied to expected returns. Nationalistic or tribal religiosity where “our” group offers worship to “our” God against “theirs.”
Cultivate worship as ecological awareness. See your life as a node in the divine ecosystem where energy and matter transform but are never owned. In a consumer culture based on possession and transaction, this understanding is revolutionary. It fosters deep inter-being with all life and ends spiritual materialism. Practice seeing every interaction with people, animals, nature as the Divine meeting, offering to, and knowing itself in another form.
Essence
No separate gift, no giver stands alone,
No distant God upon a throne.
The milk, the calf, the hand held high,
Are all One Being’s single sigh.
What then is worship? Just the dawn
Where all but God itself is gone,
And what remainsso vast, so free
Is God in love with only Thee.
This vachana describes the topological unity of consciousness. In topology, a coffee mug and a doughnut are considered the same because one can be continuously deformed into the other without cutting or gluing. Here, the “giver,” “gift,” and “receiver” are not three distinct entities but different topological deformations of a single continuous substance (Consciousness). The “offering” is the process of deformation itself. Realization is seeing the invariant unity beneath all deformations. The vachana states that any apparent separation is just a temporary fold in the infinite fabric of the Linga.
Imagine the universe is a single, conscious ocean. A wave rises (the giver), holds a bubble of foam (the gift), and offers it to the depths (the receiver). From the wave’s perspective, this is a real transaction. From the ocean’s perspective, it is just water rearranging itselfa playful movement within its own being. Basavanna says: be the ocean’s perspective. The wave, the bubble, and the depth are all me. All worship is me, loving me, as me.
We are wired for subject-object relationships; our survival depends on it. This vachana invites us into the terrifying, ecstatic truth that lies beyond that wiring: the truth of radical, unimaginable intimacy where no “other” exists. It speaks to the deepest loneliness of the separate self and offers its ultimate cure: there never was a separate self to be lonely. The liberation is absolute from the burden of being a seeker, a giver, or a sinner. It is the final homecoming, where you discover you were never the pilgrim, but the shrine itself, and the pilgrimage was just you walking around inside your own boundless heart.
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