Great Devotees of Lord Siva 68A

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Om Namah Sivaya Chenna Basava Chennabasava, the young Veersaiva saint of the 12th century who started the movement of rationalization in religious life. Chennabasava appeared on the religious firmament by the middle of the 12th century on

Karnataka. He and his colleagues known as Sharanas or the Veersaiva mystics or saints initiated the doctrine of golden mean in all the walks of life. It is obvious that this doctrine of the mean is the formation of a characteristic attitude which appears in the sayings of almost every saint. Basava had it in his mind when he called virtue, enlightened faith; Chennabasava when he named virtue harmonious action; Allama Prabhu when he identified virtue with self-knowledge. All these were attempts of Sharanas which reflected the feeling that passions are not of themselves vices, but the raw material of both vice and virtue, according as they function in excess and disproportion or in measure and harmony. There is a pertinent saying of Chennabasava, “Desire, anger, avarice, attachment, pride and envy are the raw material of life. These are needed and not-needed. Desire is not needed in another’s women, but desire is needed towards the love of God. Anger is not needed in the

elders and the preceptors but righteous indignation is needed for the correction of behaviour. Avarice is not needed in the worldly possessions but it is needed for the company of good; attachment is not needed to the another’s woman, wealth and wine; attachment is needed to the virtue and gaining of excellence. Pride is not needed in one’s possession but it is needed in this that the soul is possessed of the Divine. Envy is not needed in the created beings, for sympathy is the hall-mark of humanity; but envy is needed in the sinful acts.” If matter out of place is dirt, mind out of balance is disease. The instincts and emotions that go to constitute the structure of mind should be properly placed. The displacement of these is disease, the proper placement of these is good or virtue. Instincts and emotions are never absolute but only relative. A certain instinct or emotion in human nature is deemed to be less abundant than it ought to be; therefore we place a value upon it

and cultivate it. As a result of this valuation we call it a virtue but if the same quality should become super abundant we should call it a vice and try to repress it. The instincts and emotions are the raw material of life, they should be sublimated and transformed into the fine texture. This is what the life of reason demands. We the modern people love the sound of the word big. We pride ourselves upon the fact that we belong to the biggest country in the world, and possess the biggest navy and grow the biggest oranges and potatoes and love to live in the biggest cities and when we are dead we are buried in the biggest burial place. A saint of the 12th century, could he have heard us talk, would not have known what we meant. Moderation in all things as the ideal of his life and mere bulk did not impress him at all. And this love of moderation was not merely a hollow phrase used upon special occasions; it influenced the life of the Sarana

from the day of his birth to the hour of his death. It was part of his life and literature and it found expression in his dress and demeanour. “Of what avail is it to add and add and add?” Asks poet Tagore. “by going on increasing the volume or pitch of sound we can get nothing but a shriek. We can get music only by restraining the sound and giving it the melody of the rhythm of perfection.” The life of reason therefore imposes upon man self restrain which is the heart of Golden mean. Chennabasava finds a rapprochement between reason and will, between perception and action. If reason lies in the perception of law in the chaotic flux of things, Will lies in the establishment of law in the chaotic flux of desires. The golden mean lies in making perception and action fit for the eternal perspective of the whole. Thoughts help us to this larger view because it is aided by imagination and imagination becomes creative when it is freed from

the moorings of passive memory. By imagination and reason we turn experience into foresight; we become the creators of our future and cease to be the slaves of our passions. So we achieve the only freedom possible to man. The passivity of passion is human bondage, the action of reason is human liberty. Freedom is not from causal law but from partial passion or impulse. We are free only when we know; therefore freedom comes always with self-knowledge. To be a Superman or a Sharana is to be free not from the restraints of social justice and amenity but from the individualism of the instincts. With this completeness and integrity comes the equanimity of the wise man.To be great is not be placed above humanity bossing over others, but to stand above the partialities and futilities of unformed desires and to rule one’s self. This is indeed a nobler freedom than that which men call free will. Let no one suppose that he is no longer the structure of his life.

Sivaya Namah

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