Of all the saints, Prabhudeva stands out as the outstanding mystic of that epoch. His contemporary saints looked up to him with respect and reverence for spiritual guidance, enlightenment, philosophical explanations and mystical matters. Just as Socrates is the central figure of Plato's dialogues, so Prabhu is a pivotal force, nay the Shining Sun of Righteousness, around who rotate the rest of the planets (Sharanas) of the Shunya-Sampadane. This is why it is, in fact, correct to say that the Shunya-Sampadanedeserves to be called Prabhu's Dialogues.
ALLAMA PRABHU I
There is a Dark Night of the Soul that we come across in the life of every aspirant. Prabhu must have had experience of such a state in the course of his mystic journey:
My body I have made a garden,
My mind a spade ...
I have dug up illusion's weeds,
Broken up the clod of worldliness,
Harrowed the earth, and sown
The Spirit's seed.
The thousand-fold lotus is my well,
My water-wheel, my breath;
From subtle nerve I have
Channelled the water.
And to keep out the five
Bulls of sense
That might trample my crops,
I have set up all round
Patience and poise as fence.
Behold, O Guheshvara!
Night and day I have lain awake
To protect my tender plants..
Prabhu must have known love, even as Lord Buddha did. But it is the glory of each that he could rise above its passion and its lure. See how Prabhu remonstrates to Kama:
Oh, strike not, do not strike!
O God of Love, why should you shoot
Your shaft in vain?
Lust, anger, greed,
Infatuation, pride and jealousy,
Aren't they enough for you?
What need that they should burn
Who burn already with the pangs
Of separation from Guheshvara?
You silly God of Love!
Prabhu's vachanas give clear evidence of how he had gone through al types of yoga – Hatha, Raja etc., and gone far beyond all of them. He must have travelled across the length and breadth of India as a vagrant ascetic, met hundreds of seekers and had several types of experience with them. But none of these seems to have given him complete satisfaction, because what he was in quest was the Ultimate. But the man who bestowed upon him that supreme experience was the great Shivayogin, Animisha. From him Allama realised the majesty of Shivayoga. It can well be assumed that Prabhu met Animisha in the final stage of his yogic pursuit. This event is recorded, in Shunyasampadane, in words which try to reproduce an estatic experience:
When Grace strikes,
A clod of earth is turned to a pile of gold.
The common stone is charged with alchemy,
When Grace strikes.
The fortune that, for years and years,
I sought, look!
Now flashes upon my sight!
There, in a temple wombed in earth,
I have seen a Gem,
And cast my past behind me
Forever, O Guheshvara!
The Gem is Animisha himself. He continues in the same lyric strain, metaphor piled on metaphor:
The creeper I sought so long is now
About my leg entwined.
The longing of my heart is now
Within my grasp.
Like a poor man stumbling upon a trove,
With a seeker's tireless steps I have come
And seen the Inconceivable
And beheld the sweep of my consciousness!
My whole being, within and without,
Bathed in supernal splendour,
I have gazed at the Source of all light!
I have seen my Supreme Master
With his gaze of unfathomable wonder
Concentrate upon the emblem on his palm;
And having seen, I have been saved,
O Guheshvara.
Having found his ultimate goal, Prabhu prepares himself for grace. But what sort of initiation can it be?
Should the Master you never hoped to see
Appear before your eyes,
What need of utterance to your prayer,
What need of touching to your touch,
What need of ash-marks' smear, or
The whispered spell in your ear?
The holy water need never flow, and
For your initiation
No chapter and verse of Scripture be intoned.
Here you have His Presence without worship,
A bond without binding ...
Oh, make me, O Guheshvara,
Fit to receive thy fitting grace!
Thus, the Jnanalingopadesha takes place. Animisha transmits his unutterable experience to Prabhu's heart through his eye alone. A single look is enough to bring about perfect change in the heart of one who has already felt the presence of the Divine through his constant efforts at yogic discipline. That this should be described as ''the meeting of the mutes'' is very appropriate.
At last, the Linga on Animisha's palm is transferred to Prabhu's hand:
When the invisible Linga has come to my palm,
How can I speak?
Oh wonder of wonders!
The Guheshvaralinga, without form, without bound,
Has taken a form and has come to my palm.
What can I tell?
With these words,
All tremor gone, my mind is caught up in thee!
Vision is changed to life, all thirst is quenched,
Guheshvara, the tranquil,
Is absorbed in the Absolute,
like light touching light, Prabhu becomes ''the accomplished one.'' Now he is:
He who, having know Reality, is past care;
The Hero, vanquisher of Death;
The Glorious, embodiment of the Most High;
The Blessed, who has attained the Bliss;
The Perfect, who inhabits the Void;
The incarnation, Self-begot,
Who has attained the perfect poise,
O Guheshvara.
This is one of the principal stages in Prabhu's life. Henceforth he will utilise his fund of divine experience to help several seekers. His march now became a Path, his speech a sacred spell. His way of leading them to higher and higher planes of consciousness is without a parallel. He meets each at his own level. With Muktayi, mourning inconsolably for her departed brother, it is one way: to make a Shivayogi of Siddharama who, standing at the final level of yoga, is yet bound by idol-worship and humanitarian compassion, it is another. The way he showed the right path to Goraksha, who was swollen and blinded with pride at his occult powers through Hathayoga, bears witness to his realisation of the ethereal body.
THE MYSTIC WAY OF ALLAMA PRABHU II
Prabhu's mystic way is the path of knowledge. Through severe asceticism and utter renunciation he broke the fetters of Maya.
Not thine the earth, not thine the gold,
Not thine the woman you love:
That's only the curse
The world is heir to ...
The gem of Knowledge is what you own.
Do wear that radiant gem, undimmed,
As ornament, and none
Except thee shall be rich,
O Mind!
He wandered in many parts of the country; followed many kinds of yoga; met many choice spirits of his time; but his pursuit found its consumation and fulfilment only in the background of the philosophy and mysticism of the Sharanas. The philosophy that served as basis and backbone to the Sharanas is Shatsthala-siddhanta of Veerashaivism. This may be regarded as a flight of six steps which Jiva is to ascend in his pilgrimage to the Divine. We find in them all states of mind – beginning from the troubled anguish of a devotee who, forgetting his true self, flounders in self-imposed ignorance, to the final bliss and peace resulting from the realisation that one is oneself the Divine Will that pervades the entire universe. In this Shatsthala system, equal importanc eis given to Bhakti, Kriya and Jnana, or devotion, action and knowledge. The synthesis of all these is its speciality.
The following words of Gulura Siddhaviranarya, the compiler of the book, briefly summarise the essence of Shatsthala Siddhanta:
Becoming a Bhakta by his faith;
a Maheshvara by steadfastness in that faith;
a Prasadi by vigilance in that steadfastness;
a Pranalingi by self-experience in that vigilance;
a Sharana by awareness in that self-experience -
the mystery abiding in a state of will-lessness,
when that awareness has been merged in Truth,
that is Aikyasthala.
One who, as a Bhakta, had meditated upon Ishtalinga, now, turning within, meditates upon Pranalinga, to find the divine power of Ishtalinga seated in his palm to be also in his heart. Merging his Prana-shakti, or psychic force, and Linga into each other, he now meditates upon their undifferentiated state. Prabhu descibes the nature of a Pranalingi in the following vachana:
To a flowing stream
All body is legs;
To a burning fire
All body is tongues;
To a blowing wind
All body is hands ...
O Guheshvara,
To your Sharana
The whole body is Linga!
We find among the Sharanas a wide diversity, except that the mystic way imposes a unity on the diversity. While Basavanna and Sister Mahadevi stand for devotion, Jannayoga is represented by Chennabasavanna; on the other hand, Siddharameshvara embodied Karmayoga in its broadest sense and lifted it to he height of Shivayoga. Many other Sharanas, hundreds of them, formulaate their own ways, in keeping with their temperament and attitude.
But Allama Prabhu combined all these and transcended them. In his delighted expression:
All memory is dead;
All error burnt;
Awareness is forgot;
All symbols have crumbled!
Where is now Motion or Mind?
No Motion, for the body is naught;
No Mind, for it's lost in the Linga;
And gone, gone too,
O Guheshvara,
All that came between
The eyes and Light!
Prabhu describes the perfect state he has received from Animishayogi. He attained the ultimate perfection beyond all dichotomies of thought and speech. Prabhu had thus become
The Supreme Lord
Whose gait is without feet,
Whose touch is without hands,
Whose taste is without tongue,
Who begs, with a bowl of Love,
For the Supreme!
In Prabhu's eyes, the divine experiences is not the liberation to be had after death:
What does the god give
To him who worships
For liberation's sake,
After he is dead?
O Guheshvara,
Your Sharana is
Undivided and whole,
Having won his release
Without death or pain.
This is to live in the world and yet be out of it. It is the Jivanmukta state. It is ''like a light in a crystal bowl'', ''like the strength of perfume concentrated in the wind.'' The seeker's head bends in reverence to the mystic height of Prabhu. Allama, though in the body, is bodiless; though form, is formless. Now a throne ready for this ''Void of the Void.'' It is called ''the throne of the Void''. Shunya is not naught or negation. It is that which harbours yet transcends all. It is that which needs no other support but itself. In this sense, Allama Prabhu is the Shunyamurti, or the Void that has taken on form.
What kind of puja is it that such an accomplished seer must undertake? Listen to the grandeur of the Cosmic Worship in his own words:
To Pranalinga -
The body is bed,
The Milky way the bath,
Perfume of no flower the rite,
And the word that says
Shiva, Shiva! In
The Lotus of the heart,
That is, O Guheshvara,
Advaita.
To the Guru's sunshine
The disciple is the shadow;
To the tranquil Linga
The Void is the bed;
Breath is the thread,
And light the throne.
Not letting the mind
Run here and there,
O Guheshvara,
I poured out the bath
And won my bliss!
Lo! the firmament itself
Is the pot of water; and
Water, the celestial ganges.
The sun and the moon are flowers;
Brahma the incense,
Vishnu the flame,
Rudra what makes the meal.
O Guheshvara, lo!
Here's your worship, whole!
When we notice how Prabhu, who was able to live permanently on the lofty height of self-experience, comes down for the good of the world and stretches his helping hand, we realise the depth of his universal compassion.
GURU AND DISCIPLE
When a great and accomplished yogi like Prabhu ardently desires the blessings of a Guru, it can well be imagined how indispensable is the need of a Guru for average seekers. In the spiritual tradition of India, specially of Indian mysticism, the Guru is looked upon as the Absolute incarnate. He, therefore, commands greater reverence than even God Himself. Prabhu, having shaken off the shackles of Maya, realises through his intuitional insight that Animisha is his Guru.
During his search, Prabhu meets a devotee, Gogayya by name, engaged in cultivation. Prabhu explains to him how his own spiritual cultivation is superior to Gogayya's cultivation of his farm. After thus initiating him in spiritual cultivation, he proceeds a few steps ahead and accidentally sees an underground vault and enters it. There, in the serene light of a lamp burning without oil, he finds a great yogi sitting in a trance with his unwinking gaze focussed on the Amritalinga in his left palm. Prabhu is overwhelmed with unexpected joy, because the Guru, whom he had intuitionally envisaged and longed to meet, is now before him in a visible form.
Prabhu desires to have a word of grace. But Animisha is silence-bound, being lost in the Divine. Prabhu, feeling no difference between Guru and disciple, or himself and Animisha, decides to wrest the grace, as if he were almost the Guru. He prays:
If Thou wouldst be my Master
And Thy disciple I,
Come, cleanse the stains
Of all my sins!
Root out my body's lusts,
Come Thou into my flesh,
Be Thou the breath of my breath,
Possess Thou wholly my will,
Come, sit upon my palm
And bless me with Thy grace,
O Guheshvara.
The Guru bestows the Linga upon his disciple by way of initiation of diksha. He performs the diksha by means of word, touch, sight or even by mere wish. The last is called transmission of irresistible grace. It is very rare to find either one who gives or one who receives such grace. Fortunately, Prabhu and Animisha were of this unearthly order. Realising his own identity with Animisha, Prabhu observes:
There is not One and Other,
Not This and That,
When camphor joins the fire
Or salt with water:
Nor yet when Master joins
With his disciple,
O Guheshvara!
and takes the Amritalinga from Animisha's palm. Immediately the Prana of Animisha too enters into Prabhu. As the body drops to the ground, Prabhu is for a moment sorry at losing his long-sought Guru, and chides himself. But the very next moment he realises:
When the Real merges with the mind,
And that mind with the Linga,
Ay, when the Linga is come
To sit upon my palm,
the idea of saying ''It's lost, it's gone'' is wrong and does not become one who has just now been blessed. Now he sings for joy and wonder:
Where is the cuckoo, and where the mango-tree?
And yet they meet!
Where is the myrobalan, child of the hills,
And where the sea-bred salt?
And yet they meet!
Even so have we met, you and I,
Guheshvaralinga,
Even so!
He is moved almost beyond speech:
When the invisible Linga has come to the palm,
How can I speak?
Oh, wonder of wonders!
The Guheshvaralinga, without form, without bound,
Has taken a form and has come to my palm:
What can I speak?
THE GRACE OF THE GURU
Guru and disciple belong to the unearthly order and the intense longing for union arises in both. The guru eagerly awaits the arrival of the disciple, who in turn incessantly yearns for his grace; and when the time is ripe for their union, they rush to each other and mingle.
In the process of initiation, the Guru draws out the divine consciousness inhering in the disciple, by the head-palm contact and instals it in the disciple's palm in the form of the Linga. Here the divine grace of the Guru, descending from the higher level to the lower, manifests itself in the disciple's palm. The grace gradually descends from the Sahasrara to the will, from the will to the mind, from the mind to prana, and lastly from prana to body. Ishtalinga, worn upon one's person, denotes the Shiva-shakti, or the conscious-force that is aroused in the Sahasrara by the head-palm contact and flows down the body. It pervades not only the will, mind and prana of the disciple but every part of his body, and subjects it to the control of Atman. This transformation is effected not merely in the waking consciousness but in the dormant consciousness as well. As Prabhu puts it:
When your disciple's palm
Is blessed with Linga
Lo, his will becomes pure and free!
The last line means that when the will is emptied of its contents or the dormant consciousness is turned into divine consciousness, the pull of the sense-organs ceases to function; the dreams and desires, likes and dislikes, anger and pain, which have so far been active in the dormant consciousness, are now anihilated. The conscious force awakened by the Guru flows down from the Sahasrara down to the root-plexus and, extirpating as vasanas, or residues lying dormant in the form of seeds there, so empties the will. Then only is the stage set for a man to become a superman.
Note:
Some attempts have been made in recent times to publish the original Shunyasampadane in Kannada; but for the benefit of non-Kannada readers, a
comprehensive edition with an English translation of each vachana and an introduction in English was felt to be necessary. This suggestion was,
in fact, made by Shri Kumarswamiji of Navakalyanamath of Dharwar. He also offered to help translate these vachanas into English and to write a
general introduction to the work. At that time, he was Honorary Professor of Veerashaiva Philosophy at the University; but owing to pressure of
other commitments he had to give up the teaching work in the University and also that of editing Shunyasampadane as he originally desired to do.
So an independent committee consisting of Dr. S.C. Nandimath, Prof. Armando Menezes and Dr. R. C. Hiremath was formed. This committee has now
completed the first volume of the work, consisting of the first three chapters of the Shunyasampadane. The remaining chapters will be published
in about five further volumes in the course of the next year or so.
Karnatak University
Dharwar, July 15, 1965
This article 'Shunya Sampadane - Sampadane of Allama Prabhu' is taken from SHUNYASAMPADANE, Volume I, 1965, KARNATAK UNIVERSITY, DHARWAD.
This website can be best viewed in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and higher with screen resolution 1024 by 768 pixels.
