Poetic Rendering
Like a calf wandering from its mother,
calling, searching without rest
so my heart longs for Your Sharanas.
Like a lotus yearning for first light
to open its hidden fragrance,
so I wait for their company,
O Kudalasangama.
In this vachana, Basavanna expresses the soul’s deep yearning for the company of true Sharanas, comparing it to a lost calf searching for its mother and a lotus awaiting the sun. These images reveal a devotion that is not intellectual or ritualistic, but instinctive, tender, and essential for spiritual survival. For Basavanna, the presence of Sharanas the realized beings who embody Shiva provides the warmth, guidance, and awakening that the seeker cannot generate alone. Their company becomes the very sunlight of the soul, without which the inner blossom cannot open. The vachana teaches that spiritual growth is nourished through satsanga, the company of the pure, whose presence naturally aligns the seeker with Kudalasangama.
Spiritual Context
Core Spiritual Principle: Satsanga Ananya Gati – The Unsubstitutable Path of Sacred Company. The soul’s evolution has an organic trajectory toward communion with those who embody the realized state (Sat). This company (sanga) is not merely helpful but essential; it is the direct environment in which the seeker’s latent potential is activated, just as sunlight is non-negotiable for a lotus.
Cosmic Reality Perspective: In Shiva-Shakti non-duality, individual consciousness (Shakti) is not separate; it is a wave longing for the ocean. The Sharana is a wave that fully knows its oceanic nature. Their presence creates a gravitational field of remembrance, pulling other waves (seekers) into conscious recognition of their own true substance. The longing is Shakti’s innate intelligence pulling her toward Shiva.
Historical Reality (Anubhava Mantapa Context): This vachana is the spiritual-emotional foundation of the community. It explains why the Anubhava Mantapa was not just a philosophical academy but a living ecosystem. The intense longing for the company of the wise (Sharanas) was what held the community together more powerfully than any doctrine. It made the collective body itself a primary guru.
Interpretation
The “calf wandering from its mother” represents the soul’s fundamental sense of existential separation (avichara), its most primal suffering which is also its most potent guide. The “lotus yearning for first light” symbolizes the heart whose beauty and fragrance (qualities of love, wisdom, peace) remain dormant and enclosed until activated by the specific frequency of divine consciousness embodied in the Sharana. The waiting is not passive; it is an intense, receptive orientation, a sadhana in itself.
Practical Implications: Spiritual practice must include the conscious cultivation of this longing (viraha) and the active seeking of satsanga. It validates the devotee’s feeling of incompleteness and directionless yearning, not as a failure, but as the most authentic compass pointing toward the necessary condition for growth.
The Cosmic Reality
Anga (Human Dimension): The dependent, relational aspect of consciousness. It is not an independent unit but exists in a state of natural belonging. Its health and flowering are contingent upon connection to its source, which it recognizes in a more evolved form (the Sharana).
Linga (Divine Principle): Koodalasangamadeva as the nourishing, illuminating source the “mother’s milk” and the “sunlight.” It is the fullness that answers the heart’s sense of emptiness.
Jangama (Dynamic Interaction): The Jangama is the living bridge, the Sharana in motion. They are the “first light” that touches the lotus, the answering call to the calf’s cry. They perform the sacred function of making the abstract Linga concretely available for relationship, guidance, and reflection, thus fulfilling the Anga’s deepest need.
Shata Sthala
Primary Sthala: Bhakta. This vachana defines the emotional core of the Bhakta stage. It is the stage of viraha-bhakti (devotion of separation and longing). The intensity and purity of this longing are the measures of the Bhakta’s sincerity and the engine for their progression.
Supporting Sthala: Pranalingi. The culmination of this longing is Pranalingi, where the seeker’s life-force (prana) becomes one with the Linga. The reunion of calf and mother is a direct metaphor for this union. The Sharana’s company is the environment where this merging is learned and realized.
Practical Integration
Arivu (Awareness Practices): Contemplate the feeling of spiritual longing itself. Do not rush to fill it with distractions. In meditation, feel the “call of the calf” within your own heart. Let that feeling be your guide and your most honest prayer.
Achara (Personal Discipline): Make it a discipline to regularly seek satsanga. This could mean being part of a sincere study group, attending talks by authentic teachers, or immersing yourself in the writings of the Sharanas. Prioritize this over solitary practices that lack this nourishing element.
Kayaka (Sacred Action): Let your work be an expression of this yearning to connect and nourish. See your labor as a way to create or sustain communities where this sacred company can flourish. Become part of creating the “sunlight” for others.
Dasoha (Communal Offering): The highest dasoha is to become, to the degree you can, a source of satsanga for others. Offer your attentive, honest, and supportive presence. Create spaces where the yearning heart is honored and met with warmth, not just intellectual answers.
Modern Application
We suffer a crisis of spiritual loneliness and disconnected seeking. We have infinite information (online courses, podcasts) but a profound lack of transformative satsanga the living, embodied company of those grounded in wisdom. Our yearning is often misdirected into consumerism, toxic relationships, or digital crowds, leaving the “lotus” of the heart perpetually in bud.
This vachana liberates by validating your deep need for authentic spiritual community and guidance. It tells you this need is not weakness, but wisdom. It directs you to seek out real human connections with depth and integrity, and to value them as essential nourishment. It transforms FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) into FOMSO (Fear of Missing Satsanga Out), correctly identifying what is truly vital for your soul’s growth.
Essence
The cry that knows from where it came,
The bud that knows the sun by name,
The soil that knows the waiting rain
This is the heart, and this its pain,
Which is also its only gain.
To seek the warmth that holds the flame.
This vachana describes the metaphysics of spiritual morphic resonance. The Sharana exists in a specific state of consciousness a morphic field of awakened being. The yearning seeker, through their intense longing and attraction, tunes their own psychic frequency to resonate with this field. Like a calf recognizing its mother’s unique call across a field, the consciousness recognizes its own “kind” in a higher state. This resonance is the mechanism of transmission beyond words, enabling a quantum leap in the seeker’s own state.
A sapling grows straight in a forest of tall, straight trees, not by being told, but by being surrounded by them. The Sharana is the tall tree. Your longing is the sapling’s innate phototropism, bending you toward the light of their example. Your growth is catalyzed by proximity to the mature form.
We are inherently relational beings, and this extends to our spirituality. We cannot become what we cannot perceive. The Sharana makes the Divine perceptible in human form. Our longing for them is the deepest intuition that we are not meant to invent the path alone, but to recognize it in the footsteps of those who have already arrived, and to walk it in the company of those who are sincerely walking.
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