Poetic Rendering
Like the frog caught in the serpent’s jaws,
yet still stretching toward a passing fly
such is our folly.
Like the man condemned to the gallows,
dreaming of savoring milk and ghee
how long does he imagine he will live?
This body is but a guest
soon to return to dust;
yet you deceive yourself,
striving endlessly to feed its hungers.
Those who live only for the body’s cravings
never hear the call of Kudalasangamadeva
see this, brother,
and awaken.
This vachana delivers a piercing warning about the human tendency to cling to trivial desires even when death stands at the doorstep. Basavanna illustrates this with two stark images: a frog caught in a serpent’s jaws still leaping for a passing fly, and a man already condemned to the gallows fantasizing about savoring milk and ghee. Both reveal the same tragic blindness see king fleeting pleasures while the ground beneath is collapsing.
Basavanna declares that the human body is merely a temporary guest, destined to dissolve back into dust. Yet people exhaust their lives trying to satisfy its unending hungers, deceiving themselves into thinking these pursuits hold meaning. Such individuals, absorbed in feeding the body alone, remain deaf to the inner call of Kudalasangamadeva the call that awakens one to the eternal, the real, the Linga-consciousness.
The vachana is thus an urgent call to re-prioritize life’s direction: stop investing in what perishes, and turn inward to what never dies. Only by shifting from bodily obsession to spiritual awareness can one truly hear the Divine’s call and make use of this precious, fleeting human birth.
Spiritual Context
Core Spiritual Principle: Human life is an opportunity with an expiration date. To squander it in the service of the dying (deha) while ignoring the deathless (Linga) is the ultimate spiritual tragedy. True intelligence (buddhi) is measured by the urgency with which one re-prioritizes from the transient to the eternal.
Cosmic Reality Perspective: In Shivayoga, the body is a temporary aggregation of the five elements (pancha bhutas), a passing formation in the flow of Shakti. The Linga is the immutable Shiva-consciousness that witnesses this formation and dissolution. To serve the formation while ignoring the Witness is to serve the wave while denying the ocean. It is a categorical error of attention.
Historical Reality (Anubhava Mantapa Context): In 12th-century Kalyana, a society obsessed with ritual purity of the body and accumulation of physical wealth, this vachana was a shock therapy. It attacked the very foundation of worldly dharma and caste-based bodily identity. For the Sharanas, it justified their radical focus on inner realization (anubhava) over external status, and their practice of using the body for Kayaka (sacred labor) rather than for its own adornment and pleasure.
Interpretation
1.“Like the frog caught in the serpent’s jaws, yet still stretching toward a passing fly…” The frog represents instinctual, animal consciousness (pashu-bhava). The serpent is Time (Kala) or inevitable death. The fly is any momentary sensual or mental pleasure (vishaya). The image captures the absurdity of the unconscious life: pursuing more consumption when the fundamental condition of consumption (life itself) is being consumed.
2.“Like the man condemned to the gallows, dreaming of savoring milk and ghee…” This shifts from animal to human folly. The gallows is the certain fate of the body. Milk and ghee symbolize refined, cultural, even “sattvic” worldly pleasures. The condemnation highlights that the sentence is already passed; delay is not an option. Planning for future sensory enjoyment is a fantasy built on denying the present fact of mortality.
3.“This body is but a guest soon to return to dust; yet you deceive yourself, striving endlessly to feed its hungers.” This states the ontological truth. The body is a leased instrument, not the owner. “Feeding its hungers” is the activity of the false tenant who believes the lease is permanent. The deception (moha) is the belief that satisfying the instrument is the purpose of existence.
4.“Those who live only for the body’s cravings never hear the call of Kudalasangamadeva…” This reveals the functional consequence: craving creates internal noise. The “call” is subtle, a whisper of silence. The cacophony of bodily desirefor food, sex, comfort, praisedrowns it out completely. One must become quiet to hear.
Practical Implications: One must conduct a “Mortality Audit.” Regularly contemplate: “If I knew I had a limited time, would this activity, this worry, this pursuit still seem important?” Use the answer to ruthlessly prioritize actions that turn the mind toward the Linga and silence the clamor of bodily identity.
The Cosmic Reality
Anga (Human Dimension): The realm of biological imperative and mortal fear. Here, the logic of survival and pleasure dominates. The unexamined life is spent negotiating between the serpent’s jaws (fear of death) and the fly’s allure (desire for pleasure), never looking up.
Linga (Divine Principle): Koodalasangamadeva as the silent ground of being that exists before the body’s birth and after its dust. The “call” is the gentle, persistent pull of this ground, inviting the wave to remember it is water.
Jangama (Dynamic Interaction): The awakening shock the moment when the metaphor is understood not as poetry but as one’s own situation. It is the dynamic force that turns the head from the fly to the sky, from the dream of ghee to the reality of the noose. This is the true movement of grace.
Shata Sthala
Primary Sthala: MAHESHWARA. This vachana is the essential catalyst for entering the Maheshwara stage. The Maheshwara’s tapas begins with this visceral understanding of the body’s temporality and the urgency of purification. The “fire” is first lit by the friction between the truth of death and the illusion of permanent bodily life.
Supporting Sthala: BHAKTA. The Bhakta’s love must be tested: is it a love for the comfort God provides, or a love for God itself that surpasses all bodily concern? This vachana purifies devotion by stripping it of any transactional hope for worldly or heavenly rewards.
Practical Integration
Arivu (Awareness Practices): Practice “Contemplation of the Elements.” Look at your hand and see it not as “my hand” but as temporarily organized earth, water, fire, air, and space. Contemplate its inevitable return to these elements. This dis-identifies consciousness from the form and creates space to hear the “call.”
Achara (Personal Discipline): Institute periodic asceticism (upavasa). This isn’t punishment, but training. Fast from food, media, or speech to experience that you are not the body’s hunger. In the quiet of unmet craving, listen for the subtler call.
Kayaka (Sacred Action): Use the body as a tool for awakening, not an end in itself. Direct your labor toward what outlasts the body: serving others, creating beauty, sharing wisdom. Let the body wear out in service to the eternal, not in pursuit of its own comfort.
Dasoha (Communal Offering): Build communities that reinforce this re-prioritization. Gather not for feasting and gossip (feeding the frog), but for remembrance, service, and deepening practice. Remind each other gently of the preciousness and brevity of the human opportunity.
Modern Application
The Digital Flytrap. We are the frog, and the smartphone is the endless swarm of flies (notifications, likes, news, entertainment). The serpent of our mortality is more hidden than ever, sanitized and pushed into the future. We spend our precious attention the currency of conscious nesscurating a digital self (a body of data) while the call of the real self goes unheard.
Practice digital mortality. Set regular reminders of death (memento mori). Use technology with intentionality: consume content that points toward the eternal, not just the entertaining. Have “gallows conversations” about what truly matters. In a culture selling endless upgrades for the “guest-house,” dare to live as a pilgrim just passing through, investing in the journey home.
Essence
The fly distracts, the noose is tied,
Yet still for passing taste we strive.
O deafened heart, when will you hear
The call that cuts through mortal fear?
This borrowed dust, this fleeting breath
Awake! Before the wake of death,
Turn from the feast that cannot last,
And hear the One who holds you fast.
This vachana describes the energy allocation problem of bound consciousness. A finite amount of psychic energy (prana-shakti) is available to the human system. In the unawakened state, nearly 100% of this energy is automatically allocated to the Body-Mind-Emotion (BME) complex its defense, its gratification, its story. This is the frog reaching for the fly. The “call of Koodalasangamadeva” is a faint signal on a different frequency, requiring a minimum energy threshold to detect. The vachana is an algorithm for conscious energy re-allocation: by recognizing the BME complex as a sinking ship (the serpent’s jaws), the system can panic and re-route energy from pleasure-seeking to signal-scanning, until it locks onto the liberating frequency of the Linga.
Imagine you have a bucket of water (your life energy). You’ve been using it to wash a rental car (the body), polishing it, fueling it, worrying about scratches. Basavanna runs over and shouts: “The rental is due back tomorrow, ruined or not! And there’s a dying plant over there the seed of an eternal tree! Water that!” The folly is using all the water on the car. The awakening is the moment you turn and pour it on the seed.
We are hardwired to avoid thinking about death; it’s terrifying. So we stay busy with flies and feasts. This vachana does the unthinkable: it grabs our face and makes us look at the serpent, the gallows. The initial terror gives way to the most profound liberation: the liberation from triviality. When you truly know the body is a guest, you stop being a fussy host. You become free to invest in the only thing that doesn’t check out the Linga, the awareness that hosts the guest. The urgency is not for fear, but for love; don’t miss the chance, in this brief visit, to fall in love with the Host.
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