Abhanga 10

Once a real choice is public, the work becomes taking leave of the people who knew the previous you — kindly, without pretending you can return.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

This is the closing abhang of the four-abhang gopī-narrative (0007→0010). It is a leave-taking. The speaker addresses former companions or kin — तुम्हांसवें (with you-all) — and severs the bond of mutual concern. Three things have happened: (1) what was secret is now public; (2) she has become not-of-the-same-kind among ordinary people; (3) she names herself देवपिशी — God-mad. [T]

The phrase "न सर ती" — not of the same kind / no-longer-equal-to — is the abhang's most precise theological term. It does not mean "better than" or "above"; it means no longer comparable. The speaker has crossed a category-line. The community she once belonged to and she are now unmeasurable against each other. This is bhakti's quiet sociology — the bhakta is not higher than her former community; she is categorically different in a way that makes the community's measures inapplicable. [T]

"न धरावा लोभ कांहीं मजविशीं" — do not hold any लोभ toward me — is the gentlest and hardest line. लोभ is a complicated word: it means attachment, but specifically the clinging-hope of expecting someone to remain who they were. The speaker is asking her former community to release their image of her, to stop hoping she will return to being "the woman she was." Notice she does not say this with anger; she says it as a plea. The work being done in this verse is releasing-others-from-needing-her-back. [T]

"देवपिशी" — God-mad — is a transvalued slur, like शिंदळी in 0007. Society would call this woman पिशी (a mad-woman, sexually-possessed by something improper). She accepts the label and shifts its referent: yes, I am पिशी — but God's. The slur the world threw at her becomes her self-name. This is bhakti's recurring move — taking the world's worst word for the bhakta and wearing it. [Tradition]

The closing of the sequence at "देवपिशी" rather than at peace or fulfillment is striking. Tukaram does not show the bhakta arriving at calm respectability; he shows her arriving at being permanently strange. The settled-ness from 0009 (नाहीं भय चिंता) coexists with the social-marker of 0010 (देवपिशी). She has both — the inner peace AND the outer category of madwoman. [T]

The four-abhang sequence (0007→0010), read together, traces the classical bhakti journey:

This systematic four-stage structure is a deliberate compositional choice. Whether Tukaram authored or his arrangers selected this opening sequence, the gatha begins by walking the reader through the whole arc of devotion-as-cost — not just the inviting parts. [T]

The trope of देवपिशी / bhakta-as-mad has long roots in Indian bhakti. Mira Bai is described as bawari (mad-woman). The Tamil Alvar Andal is the girl who lost her senses for Vishnu. The Bengali Vaishnava Chaitanya was repeatedly described as unmād (in mad-rapture). Tukaram is placing himself / his speaker in this lineage — the bhakta whose love has carried her past the threshold of social-ordinary functioning. [Tradition]

For someone today

English: This is the abhang for the moment when a private choice has become public knowledge and you have to find words for what to say to the people who knew the previous version of you. Tukaram's three-line script is precise. First: name that you no longer have shared business with them — gently, factually. Second: acknowledge that what was secret is now known. Third: ask them to release any लोभ — any clinging hope that you will return to who you were. And finally: accept the name they will give you. If they call you "crazy" or "lost it" or "you've changed," do not defend yourself; let the name carry you. देवपिशी is the name you take when you stop fighting their version of you and let it be true on your own terms.

The hardest line for modern readers is "न सर ती लोकांमाजी जालें" — I have become not-of-the-same-kind. Most modern self-help would soften this — "we can still be friends," "you can still understand me," "let's stay connected." Tukaram does not soften it. The choice has actually made the speaker not measurable against her former community. The kind thing — the loving thing — is to say so, so they can release her and find peace with the absence rather than wait for a return that is not coming. The cruelty is not in the parting; the cruelty would be in pretending she could come back.

The deepest teaching is in the closing self-naming. देवपिशी — God-mad. The bhakta does not arrive at being a respectable spiritual person. She arrives at being permanently strange to the ordinary world. The settled peace of 0009 and the public-categorization of 0010 coexist; both are real. If your spiritual life is making you settled inside and strange outside — Tukaram is saying that is not a contradiction. That is the shape.

मराठी: ही ओवी अशा क्षणासाठी आहे जेव्हा खाजगी निवड सार्वजनिक झाली आहे आणि आधीच्या तुम्हाला ओळखणाऱ्या लोकांशी काय बोलायचं हे शब्दात मांडायचं आहे. तुकारामांची तीन-ओळींची script अचूक आहे. पहिलं: आता आपला सहभाग नाही हे सांग — सौम्य आणि सरळ. दुसरं: जे लपलं होतं ते आता सर्वांना माहीत आहे हे मान्य कर. तिसरं: माझ्याबाबत आता लोभ ठेवू नका असं सांग — मी पुन्हा पहिल्यासारखी होईन ही धरून ठेवलेली अपेक्षा सोडा. आणि शेवटी: ते जे नाव देतील ते स्वीकार. "वेडी झालीस," "बदललीस," "आपल्यासारखी राहिली नाहीस" असं म्हणतील — स्वतःचं समर्थन करू नका; ते नाव वाहू द्या. देवपिशी — हेच ते नाव जे तुम्ही त्यांच्या तुमच्याबद्दलच्या मतापुढे लढायचं सोडून, स्वतःच्या अटींवर खरं ठरवता.

आधुनिक वाचकांसाठी सर्वात कठीण ओळ — "न सर ती लोकांमाजी जालें" — मी लोकांत सरीची राहिलेली नाही. आधुनिक self-help हे मऊ करेल — "अजूनही मित्र राहू," "तू मला अजून समजू शकशील," "आपण जोडलेले राहू." तुकाराम हे मऊ करत नाहीत. निवडीने खरंच त्या बाईला तिच्या आधीच्या समाजाशी न-मोजता-येणारी केलं आहे. प्रेमाची गोष्ट हीच — असं म्हणून टाक, जेणेकरून ते सोडू शकतील आणि न-येणाऱ्या परतीची वाट न बघता शांतता मिळवतील. क्रूरता विभक्त होण्यात नाही; क्रूरता असेल "ती परत येईल" हे ढोंग करण्यात.

सर्वात खोल शिकवण शेवटच्या स्व-नामकरणात आहे. देवपिशी — देव-वेडी. भक्त "प्रतिष्ठित आध्यात्मिक माणूस" बनत नाही. ती सामान्य जगाला कायमची वेगळी बनते. ०००९ ची आत-शांती आणि ०००१० चं बाह-categorization दोन्ही एकत्र असू शकतात; दोन्ही खरी. तुमचं आध्यात्मिक जीवन तुम्हाला आत स्थिर आणि बाहेर वेगळं करत असेल — तुकाराम म्हणतात ते विरोधाभास नाही. तेच रूप आहे.

Where this applies

• When the people in your previous life have realized you are not coming back to it, and you have to find words for what to say to them. Tukaram's three-line script: (a) we no longer share business, (b) what was secret is now public, (c) please don't hold expectation of my return. Said gently. This is the form of kindness that respects them enough to tell them the truth instead of letting them hope.

• When someone is still trying to maintain a claim on you and you have to release them as much as yourself. The line "न धरावा लोभ कांहीं मजविशीं" is for this. The work is not for them to stop loving you — it is for them to stop expecting you back. You can be loved without being expected-back. The abhang asks the speaker to ask explicitly for that distinction.

• When you have been called crazy or lost-it for a choice you have made — and you have to decide whether to defend yourself or to accept the name and let it carry you. Tukaram's move is uncommon: he accepts the name. Yes, mad. But God's mad, not the world's mad. The strategic gift of accepting the name is that it ends the argument — there is nothing left to debate once you have agreed with their worst description and only specified its referent.

Related verses

• Abhanga 9 — English: This abhang is the verse for the moment after a real life-direction choice. Most
• Abhanga 11 — Once you have left, the next discipline is becoming deaf to the people who keep calling yo
• Abhanga 4 — Beauty seen and not yet possessed is the position devotion is built from. The longing is n
• Abhanga 7 — If devotion is real, the shame the world will throw at you is not a problem to solve. It i