lingayatism

[woodshadows]

Hello, I have long been inspired by the writings of Basavanna and others of the lingayat tradition. I have been trying to practice mantra chanting (om namah shivaya) for the past two years now and recently made the decision to dive in completely and follow the path of lingayatism. My question is whether anyone on these forums might be lingayat or havei nformation pertaining to it to help guide me. I have read the few webpages I could find (there don't seem to be very many out there), but I would like to find some guidance in terms of structure for this practice. For instance, when doing chanting I am confused about whether I should be holding the ishtalinga in my hand and focusing upon it, or whether I should have it in the Ayigalu and instead be using rudraksha mala, or maybe both simultaneously. I also have read conflicting ideas about devotional pooja - in many of the writings it seems to imply that such overt devotional rites are unnecessary, since lingayatism is almost the equivalent of a protestant rejection of the catholicism of mainstream hinduism (with it's insistence on the priestly class, going to temple, very formalized rites etc), but then I see writings from more contemporary sources which seem to be just as mainstream as the most mainstream hinduism (which I guess in any idealistic system the weaknesses of the systems which it rejected eventually creep back in over time). Anyways, my spiritual compass is confused and yet I feel a great yearning for following this path and doing it properly, or in a way that feels spiritually valuable in some way, I just feel like I can't quite pin it down and 'put it in a box' to make sense of it and use it to structure my own practice around - partly owing to the very nature of this path itself, which seems to emphasise the individual making their own path (to some extent) with the contradictory contemporary ideas which are more systematized but for that reason perhaps too far astray from the original ideals which first drew me to this practice. Any sort of commentary would be much welcomed.