Summary
Basavanna describes the quietness that follows fulfilment. Anguish subsides, longing becomes calm, and the mind stops forming restless intentions. In that stillness, the true self is found.
Seeing Kudalasangama Deva brings an auspicious joy that fills his whole being. He then understands that what appears to be inside is also outside, and what appears outside is also within.
Through Prabhudeva’s compassion, Basavanna remains without separation from Kudalasangama Deva.
Imagery & Symbolic Relevance
The vachana begins with three inward movements coming to rest: anguish, longing, and sankalpa.
Anguish shows the pain of seeking while fulfilment is still absent. Longing keeps the seeker reaching toward what appears distant. Sankalpa is the mind’s repeated forming of intentions—“I must reach,” “I must obtain,” or “I must become.”
Basavanna does not say that these movements were forcibly suppressed. They become quiet because their purpose has been fulfilled.
He then says, “The self was found.”
This does not mean that Basavanna gained a new personality or discovered another object within himself. The self that had been obscured by longing and restless intention becomes clear when those movements settle.
The next movement is seeing Kudalasangama Deva. This vision does not produce excitement that soon passes. It brings mangalāmaya sukha-sanga—an auspicious and fulfilling union of joy.
The joy is described as a sanga, a joining or intimate participation. Basavanna no longer stands apart merely observing the Lord. Seeing becomes nearness.
The statement concerning inner and outer gives the centre of the vachana.
Ordinarily, a person thinks that thoughts, feelings, and awareness are inside, while the world and the Divine are outside. This creates two separate fields.
Basavanna sees that the inner is not cut off from the outer and that the outer is not excluded from the inner. The boundary through which the self was experienced as confined within the body no longer governs his awareness.
This should not be treated as a denial of ordinary physical distinctions. The vachana concerns the ending of spiritual separation, not the loss of practical awareness.
The final line attributes this condition to Prabhudeva’s compassion. Basavanna does not claim that he ended separation through his own effort or knowledge.
Through that compassion, he remains in Kudalasangama Deva without a gap. The word “remained” is important. This is not a passing vision followed by renewed separation; it is settled abidance.
The movement is therefore clear: anguish subsides, longing and intention become quiet, the true self is found, seeing becomes joyful participation, inner and outer are understood without division, and Basavanna remains inseparable from Kudalasangama Deva through Prabhudeva’s compassion.
Lingayoga
In Lingayoga, longing and disciplined intention help direct the seeker toward Linga. Yet they cannot remain forever as restless striving.
When awareness becomes established, the mind no longer needs to keep producing plans for reaching the Divine. The seeker recognizes that Kudalasangama Deva is not confined to either an inner experience or an external object of worship.
The practical measure is inward quietness without loss of awareness: longing has fulfilled its purpose, self-directed intention has settled, and remembrance remains without separation.
Editorial Commentary
Sankalpa here refers to the mind’s forming of intention and inward movement. Its quieting does not mean loss of the ability to act; it means the end of restless spiritual self-direction.
“The self was found” indicates recognition after distraction and seeking have subsided. It should not be expanded into a separate theory of the self.
“Inner is outer and outer is inner” expresses the ending of spiritual division. The line should not be interpreted as denying ordinary bodily or worldly distinctions.
The final condition arises through Prabhudeva’s compassion and should not be presented as Basavanna’s independent achievement.
Related Vachana
Supporting Vachana
Sharana Sthala Vachana 1252 — The Agony of Separation from the Sharana
Sharana Vachana 1252 describes the earlier condition of intense separation. Seeing Kudalasangama Deva brings life, while absence from the Lord and His Sharanas makes a night seem like an age and fills the day with aching and burning. Separation becomes so unbearable that death appears gentler.
This prepares Vachana 1054 directly.
In Vachana 1252, anguish and longing arise because Divine and Sharana-nearness have been tasted but are not yet continuously present.
In Vachana 1054, that same anguish subsides. Longing becomes calm because separation has ended. What was painfully sought in Sharana Sthala becomes settled abidance in Aikya through Prabhudeva’s compassion.
Advancing Vachana
Aikya Sthala Vachana 1088 — One in the Linga
Vachana 1054 declares that the division between inner and outer has been understood and that Basavanna remains without separation from Kudalasangama Deva.
Vachana 1088 gives this realization a fuller structure. The Guru removes the division between body and mind and makes them one in Linga. Inner and outer both belong to Kudalasangama Deva; Basavanna dwells within His inward reality, worships Him through His outward reality, and knows Him through His own awareness.
The continuation is precise. Vachana 1054 reveals the end of separation as a settled state of joy and compassion. Vachana 1088 shows how that state includes body, mind, inner life, outward life, worship, and knowing.
What is first recognized as “within and without without division” becomes the whole person established as one in Linga.
