Summary
Basavanna declares that every part of his life belongs to Kudalasangama Deva: his inner and outer being, awareness and forgetfulness, devotion and understanding, weakness and rapt absorption.
He compares himself to a stream that has entered the ocean. Once it has joined the sea, its separate boundary can no longer be found; it is the ocean itself.
Therefore, Basavanna does not claim even what appears good or bad in him as independently his own. Kudalasangama Deva knows this truth, the Lord’s feet bear witness, and Basavanna’s own heart confirms it.
Imagery & Symbolic Relevance
The vachana begins with a series of direct declarations: “My inner being is You; my outer being is You.”
The inner being includes thought, feeling, intention, and private awareness. The outer being includes the body, conduct, speech, and visible life. Basavanna does not divide them into one region belonging to God and another belonging to himself.
He then joins awareness and forgetfulness.
When awareness is clear, he does not claim, “I know through my own power.” When forgetfulness occurs, he does not imagine that it forms a second reality outside Kudalasangama Deva. Both are held within the Lord’s presence.
Devotion and understanding form the next pair. Bhakti is the loving movement toward the Lord; yukti is the faculty of reasoning, discernment, or understanding. Feeling and thought do not belong to separate spiritual paths here. Both arise within Kudalasangama Deva.
Weakness or inertia and paravasha—the condition of being overcome in rapt absorption—form the final contrast. Basavanna includes both the low and elevated conditions of experience. He does not call weakness independently his or claim ecstasy as a personal achievement.
The ocean image gathers all these declarations.
A stream may be separately named while it flows toward the sea. Once it enters the ocean, where can its individual boundary or deficiency be found? Its water is no longer distinguishable from the ocean.
Basavanna applies this image to himself. Inner and outer life, clarity and forgetfulness, devotion and understanding, weakness and ecstasy appear as different states, but none has an independent boundary apart from Kudalasangama Deva.
He then surrenders the judgment of good and bad. Whatever is praised as good in him cannot become a reason for pride. Whatever is judged deficient cannot become the final truth about him. Both are placed before the Lord.
The conclusion names the witnesses. Kudalasangama Deva Himself knows; His feet bear witness; and Basavanna’s own heart knows the truth of this relation. No external approval is required.
The movement is therefore from the surrender of every inner and outer state, to the stream losing its boundary in the ocean, to the surrender of self-praise and self-condemnation, and finally to the witness of the Lord’s feet and Basavanna’s heart.
Lingayoga
In Lingayoga, the seeker should not divide life into sacred inward moments and ordinary outward activity. Thought, conduct, devotion, understanding, strength, and weakness must all be brought within the Linga-relation.
This recognition removes both pride and despair. The seeker cannot claim spiritual clarity or ecstasy as personal achievement, nor treat weakness as a condition outside the reach of Kudalasangama Deva.
Practice matures when every condition is honestly placed before Linga without a separate claim of ownership.
Editorial Commentary
The vachana does not say that awareness and forgetfulness, or good and bad conduct, are identical in practical value. It removes their independent ownership; it does not remove discernment or responsibility.
The stream entering the ocean signifies the loss of a separate boundary. The visible person and ordinary functioning continue, but they are no longer claimed as self-existing apart from Kudalasangama Deva.
The witnesses at the end preserve the personal certainty of the vachana: the Lord knows, His feet witness, and Basavanna’s own heart confirms the realization.
Related Vachana
Supporting Vachana
Sharana Sthala Vachana 27 — The Impossibility of Self-Perfection
Sharana Vachana 27 asks whether Basavanna can gather, arrange, and present his virtues and faults before Kudalasangama Deva. He recognizes that no such self-arrangement can make him equal to the Lord of incomparable glory and finally asks what he can do apart from Him.
This prepares Vachana 1079 directly.
In the Sharana vachana, Basavanna questions the attempt to manage virtue and fault as personal possessions. His ability to correct or complete himself is placed before Kudalasangama Deva.
Vachana 1079 gives the Aikya answer. Inner and outer life, knowing and forgetting, devotion and understanding, weakness and ecstasy are not independent possessions at all. Even what is called good or bad belongs to the Lord.
What begins as surrender of self-perfection in Sharana Sthala matures into the ocean-like recognition that no separate boundary remains.
Advancing Vachana
Aikya Sthala Vachana 1083 — The Day the Darkness Broke
Vachana 1079 recognizes that all the devotee’s conditions belong to Kudalasangama Deva and that the stream cannot preserve a boundary after entering the ocean.
Vachana 1083 shows the transforming result of this recognition. Through Chennabasavanna, bodily darkness is shattered, attachment to body, mind, and possessions falls away, and the ego that claimed these as “mine” dissolves. The contentment of Kudalasangama Deva is then revealed, and Basavanna declares that he truly lives.
The continuation is precise. Vachana 1079 returns every state and quality to Kudalasangama Deva. Vachana 1083 removes the ego that could still claim ownership of them.
The stream’s loss of boundary thus matures into freedom from darkness, possessiveness, and ego, followed by settled Divine contentment.
