Summary
Fire arises within the moonstone, and air fills the space between Ida and Pingala. Basavanna invokes these striking yogic images but does not remain with technique. He immediately turns toward repeated knowing and declares that the manner of remembering Kudalasangama Deva is ever new.
In this knowing, there is no head that can claim to be the knower; in this grasping, there is no body that can possess what is realized. Such is the condition of Kudalasangama Deva’s Sharana: knowing, and knowing again, without converting realization into a completed personal attainment.
Imagery & Symbolic Relevance
The moonstone and fire form the opening paradox. Moonstone conventionally suggests coolness, yet fire arises within it. Basavanna places apparently contrary qualities together to show an occurrence that cannot be explained by ordinary expectation.
The image does not require an elaborate cosmological meaning. Its force lies in the unexpected arising of fire where fire is not ordinarily expected.
The next line names Ida and Pingala, with air filling the space between them. These belong to the vocabulary of yogic breath and inner channels. Yet the vachana does not explain a method of controlling them, nor does it claim that their manipulation produces realization.
The movement immediately passes into knowing and knowing again. Therefore, the named yogic field is not the conclusion of the vachana. It is the setting from which Basavanna turns toward awakened recognition.
The statement that the means or manner of remembering Kudalasangama Deva is new is central. Remembrance has not become mechanical repetition. Each knowing renews it.
The newness does not necessarily mean that a previously unknown technique has been invented. It means that remembrance does not become stale, fixed, or exhausted. Kudalasangama Deva is recognized afresh.
“To know, there is no head” removes intellectual ownership. The head cannot stand apart and say, “I have contained this knowledge.”
The vachana does not say that the physical head disappears. It states that true knowing cannot be confined to or claimed by the head as an independent knower.
“To grasp, there is no body” removes possession through embodiment. The body cannot seize realization, hold it as an object, and claim it as personal attainment.
The paired statements remove both forms of appropriation:
the head cannot own the knowing;
the body cannot own what is known.
The concluding statement identifies this as the way of Kudalasangama Deva’s Sharana. The Sharana does not cease knowing; the Sharana remains within renewed knowing without establishing a separate knower who possesses the result.
Lingayoga
In Lingayoga, breath, inward attention, and the fields named as Ida and Pingala may belong to practice. They must not, however, be mistaken for realization itself.
The practitioner must distinguish between a bodily or breath-related experience and the knowing that cannot be claimed by head or body.
Vachana 1169 had already warned against forcing Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna and then declaring, “I have seen the Linga.” Vachana 1185 retains yogic vocabulary but places the decisive emphasis elsewhere: on continually renewed knowing and remembrance.
The practical discipline is therefore twofold:
do not reject the means of practice;
do not turn the means into proof of personal realization.
Remembrance must remain new. The seeker cannot live upon the memory of a former experience and claim that knowing is complete.
Editorial Commentary
The repeated expression aridaridu must remain as knowing and knowing again. It indicates repetition, renewal, and continuing recognition. It should not be reduced to the accumulation of information.
The Kannada does not require the additional claim, “I awakened.” The entry should remain with the repeated movement of knowing rather than insert an independent actor not clearly stated in the vachana.
The phrase concerning remembrance indicates that its parikara—its means, manner, or mode—is new. The exact emphasis is renewed remembrance, not the invention of a new external ritual.
Ida and Pingala should remain as explicitly named. They must not be expanded into detailed subtle-body anatomy or used to construct a technical yoga system beyond the vachana.
The statements about having no head and no body must not be interpreted as literal physical disappearance. They remove the claims of intellectual ownership and bodily possession.
Kudalasangama Deva remains the Lord addressed. The final condition belongs to His Sharana.
Related Vachana
Supporting Vachana
Sharana Sthala Vachana 5 — The Eye-Opening Conduct
In Sharana Vachana 5, Basavanna remembers that Kudalasangama Deva sent His Sharana into the mortal world. He asks why the Sharana was sent and understands the purpose by observing the Sharana’s conduct.
By seeing and seeing again, Basavanna’s eye opens. Recognition does not arise from a single glance, assumption, or borrowed explanation. It deepens through repeated attention to the Sharana’s lived conduct.
This prepares Vachana 1185 directly. Sharana Vachana 5 gives the movement of seeing and seeing again until the eye opens.
Aikya Vachana 1185 carries that movement inward as knowing and knowing again. What first becomes clear through repeatedly beholding the Sharana’s conduct becomes ever-new remembrance in which neither head nor body can claim possession of realization.
The repeated seeing of Sharana Sthala matures into repeated knowing in Aikya.
Advancing Vachana
Aikya Sthala Vachana 1189 — Jangama Is the Form of Knowledge
Aikya Vachana 1189 declares that Jangama is the form of Knowledge and the devotee is the form of right conduct. Without Knowledge, conduct is compared to a body without a head.
It further states that from Knowledge arise conduct, Anubhava, and Prasada. Knowledge is therefore not retained as an inward experience separate from life; it becomes the source of right living, direct realization, and fulfilled receiving.
Vachana 1185 removes the separate head that claims knowledge and the separate body that tries to possess realization. Knowing remains continually renewed before Kudalasangama Deva.
Vachana 1189 advances this by showing what that knowing becomes. It does not remain an inward state repeatedly enjoyed by an individual. It takes living form as Jangama, becomes conduct in the devotee, matures as Anubhava, and fulfils itself as Prasada.
The progression is exact: Vachana 1185 reveals knowing without personal ownership; Vachana 1189 reveals that ownerless Knowledge becoming the whole movement of sacred life.
