Poetic Rendering
Where the Linga abides, slander cannot dwell.
Where slander reigns, the Linga departs.
Let them appear as they may,
speak as they will,
but those who live by the Linga’s light
stand beyond all comparison
mighty are they, O Kudalasangama’s sharanas!
This vachana establishes the fundamental incompatibility between divine consciousness and negative speech. Basavanna reveals that the presence of the Linga (divine awareness) and the presence of slander (negative expression) cannot coexist in the same consciousness. The teaching represents the understanding that spiritual realization necessarily transforms speech patterns, and conversely, that careless or harmful speech indicates distance from divine awareness. This is not moralistic teaching but the revelation of a fundamental spiritual law governing consciousness.
Spiritual Context
Core Spiritual Principle: The Displacement Law of Consciousness (Citta-Vṛtti Avirodha). Consciousness can hold only one dominant vibration at a time. High-frequency consciousness (Linga-awareness) and low-frequency expression (slander) are ontologically mutually exclusive. The presence of one necessitates the absence of the other; they cannot co-exist as active principles.
Cosmic Reality Perspective: This is a non-dual understanding of vibration and resonance. Shiva (Linga) is pure, silent, harmonious consciousness. Slander is Shakti in a distorted, fragmented, and dissonant mode. When consciousness is tuned to Shiva’s frequency, it cannot broadcast Shakti’s distortion; the instrument is incapable of producing that note. To produce slander, the instrument must be detuned from Shiva.
Historical Reality (Anubhava Mantapa Context): This vachana was the essential social glue for the Lingayoga community. In a revolutionary movement dissolving caste and welcoming all, gossip, backbiting, or character assassination (kūṭa nindane) could have destroyed the experiment from within. This teaching framed slander not as a social faux pas but as a direct spiritual regression, a self-exile from the divine presence that unified the community.
Interpretation
1. “Where the Linga abides, slander cannot dwell.” This states the active purifying power of grace. The Linga’s presence is not passive; it actively fills the mental space, leaving no room for the psychic patterns that generate slander. Slander requires a sense of separate self judging another; the Linga’s presence dissolves that separation.
2. “Where slander reigns, the Linga departs.” This describes the self-executing law of exclusion. Engaging in slander isn’t just a mistake; it is an active choice of a perceptual framework (duality, judgment) that forces the unifying framework of the Linga to recede. It’s not that God leaves in anger; the consciousness chooses a room too small for God to fit.
3. “Let them appear as they may, speak as they will…” This indicates immunity born of ontological security. When your reality is established in the Linga, external opinions (others’ “appearance” and “speech”) lose their power to define or destabilize you. You are anchored in a truth beyond appearance.
4. “…but those who live by the Linga’s light stand beyond all comparison mighty are they…” This reveals the source of true spiritual power. “Beyond comparison” means they have exited the egoic economy of better/worse, higher/lower that fuels slander. Their “might” (śakti) is the power of that unified consciousness itself unassailable because it is non-reactive and rooted in the absolute.
Practical Implications: Speech is not a peripheral spiritual concern but a central diagnostic tool. The content and tone of one’s speech are direct indicators of the quality of one’s inner sanctuary. Curbing slander is not about politeness but about safeguarding the presence of the Divine within.
The Cosmic Reality
Anga (Human Dimension): The Anga is the gatekeeper of the sanctuary of speech. Its duty is vigilant discrimination (viveka) over what is allowed to take residence in thought and find expression in word. It must learn that hosting slander means evicting the Linga.
Linga (Divine Principle): Kudalasangama is the silent, all-inclusive truth. It is the reality that sees no “other” to slander. Its presence is the atmosphere of unconditional acceptance; slander is a poison gas that cannot exist in that atmosphere.
Jangama (Dynamic Interaction): The Jangama is truth-in-conversation. Their speech heals, unites, and clarifies. They demonstrate that powerful communication need not fracture; it can weave. They are the living proof that the Linga’s light, when it shines through speech, creates might that builds up rather than tears down.
Shata Sthala
Primary Sthala: Prasadi. The ability to maintain a slander-free mind and tongue is a gift of grace. It is the Prasadi that purifies the subtle body, making it a fit vessel. The “mighty” power of the Sharanas is this grace in action.
Supporting Sthala: Sharana. The Sharana, one who has taken refuge, understands that refuge includes their words. To slander is to step outside the fortress of refuge into the dangerous, divisive field of the ego.
Practical Integration
Arivu (Awareness Practices): Implement the “Linga-Slander Meter.” When a critical thought about another arises, pause. Ask: “Does this thought create a sense of separation or unity? Does it make the Linga’s presence feel nearer or further?” Use this as a real-time guidance system.
Achara (Personal Discipline): Observe a “24-Hour Speech Fast” from any form of gossip, judgment, or complaint about others. Use the silence to become aware of the impulse. This isn’t suppression; it’s creating space to feel the displacement effect described in the vachana.
Kayaka (Sacred Action): Let your work communication be an extension of this principle. In professional critique or feedback, focus on actions and outcomes, not character. Practice speaking truth that builds and corrects, not truth that wounds and severs.
Dasoha (Communal Offering): Create a community agreement of “Sacred Speech.” Gently and lovingly remind each other of this vachana’s principle when gossip begins. Make the collective commitment to protect the shared inner sanctuary by guarding your shared words.
Modern Application
The Economy of Outrage and Digital Slander. Social media and partisan media thrive on comparison, judgment, and character assassination (often disguised as critique). We are immersed in a culture of “slander reigning,” which normalizes divisive speech and makes the maintenance of an inner Linga sanctuary a radical, counter-cultural act.
Cultivating Digital Ahimsa and Restorative Speech. The practice of Shivayoga today requires conscious disengagement from ecosystems of slander. It means not sharing that inflammatory post, not indulging in gossip groups, and reframing internal judgment. It involves actively using speech online and offline to illuminate, connect, and clarify, thus becoming a “mighty” force for restoring sacred integrity to the shared space of human discourse.
Essence
The mind is a temple.
You cannot house both
the silent flame of God
and the whispered poison
about your neighbor.
Choose your guest wisely.
One fills the space with light,
the other, with smoke that chokes
the very altar you built.
I have seen those who chose the flame.
No gossip sticks to them;
no comparison finds purchase.
They walk through storms of opinion
untouched, dry,
carrying their own weather of peace.
Their might is this:
their sanctuary is sealed,
and its door only opens inward.
This vachana describes a zero-sum game in the ecology of consciousness. The “mind-space” is a finite energetic field. High-coherence states (Linga-awareness) and low-coherence states (slanderous thought) compete for dominance. They are not just different thoughts; they are different attractors that organize the entire psychic system. The Linga is an attractor of unity, drawing all mental and emotional energy toward integration. Slander is an attractor of fragmentation, drawing energy toward separation. The system cannot be drawn toward two opposing attractors simultaneously; it must choose. This is the metaphysical law behind the mutual exclusivity.
Imagine your mind is a radio. The Linga is a station broadcasting a beautiful, complex symphony (unity, truth). Slander is a station broadcasting static and discordant noise (separation, distortion). You cannot listen to both at once on a single radio. The moment you tune to the noise, you lose the symphony. Basavanna says: you are the listener, but you are also the tuner. Your choice of thought and speech is you turning the dial. The “mighty” are those who have broken the dial off and fixed it permanently on the station of the Linga.
We often believe we can compartmentalizebe “spiritual” in our meditation but still engage in gossip or harsh judgment. This vachana shatters that illusion. It states that consciousness is unitary; what you cultivate in one area leaks into all others. Slander isn’t just a bad habit; it’s a direct assault on your own spiritual core, evicting the very peace you seek. The fear we have in curbing our speech is the fear of losing a sense of power or social bonding through gossip. This vachana reveals that true, unassailable power lies in the opposite direction: in the “might” of those who have made their inner world a sanctuary so clean, so true, that nothing divisive can live there. In that sanctuary, one finds a fearlessness and stability that all the gossip in the world cannot shake.
The Way of Basava ultimately reveals that our spiritual power comes not from accumulating more but from excluding what contradicts our essential nature. When we stop trying to mix light and darkness and instead commit fully to maintaining sacred space within, we embody the truth of Shivayoga the recognition that divine consciousness is not something we attain but something we allow by removing what obscures it. His message to the world: “To speak falsely of another is to obscure the Divine in yourself.” Thus, truthful speech becomes the highest form of ecological harmony it preserves the spiritual atmosphere in which love and wisdom can thrive.Where the Ecology of Speech Reflects the Harmony of Spirit The Linga Within as the Silence that Burns Away Slander.
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