Summary
In this vachana, Basavanna questions the habit of calling one thing an omen and another a bad omen. Such interpretation does not free the seeker from the sorrow of embodied life.
He points to the cycle of coming and going. When one is born, the newborn cries. When the body is departing, the person too is in tears.
Before being caught again in this movement of birth and death, Basavanna urges the seeker to worship Kudalasangama Deva.
Imagery & Symbolic Relevance
Omens and bad omens represent the mind’s attempt to read life through signs. Basavanna questions this dependence because signs do not end sorrow.
The cry at birth shows that coming into embodied life is already marked by helplessness. The newborn does not enter with mastery, but with a cry.
The cry at departure shows the other end of the same condition. When the body is known to be leaving, sorrow and fear arise again.
Together, coming and going reveal the unrest of worldly becoming. Birth and death are not neutral events for the bound being; both are marked by distress.
Basavanna therefore turns away from omen-reading and toward worship. Kudalasangama Deva must be worshipped before this cycle seizes the seeker again.
Lingayoga
In Lingayoga, the practitioner must not lose the present life in interpreting signs. The deeper work is to awaken between the cry of birth and the cry of departure.
The Anga has a brief field in which it can turn toward Linga. That opportunity must be used before the body begins to leave.
This vachana asks the seeker to move from anxiety over omens to conscious worship. Practice matures when the cycle of coming and going becomes a reason for refuge in Kudalasangama Deva.
Editorial Commentary
This vachana turns birth and death into a single warning.
Basavanna shows that interpreting signs cannot remove the sorrow built into unawakened coming and going.
Related Vachana
Supporting Vachana
Vachana 166 — The Urgency of Now
Vachana 166 urges the seeker to become a Sharana before the present bodily opportunity is lost. Vachana 167 continues the urgency by showing that coming and going are marked by sorrow unless one turns to Kudalasangama Deva.
Advancing Vachana
Maheshwara Vachana 85 — The Linga in the Palm, the Animal Within
The dependence on omens in Vachana 167 advances into the inward seeing of Maheshwara Vachana 85. What is sought here through signs must become self-recognition before Kudalasangama Deva.
