Abhanga 156

Life is a game played across four watches, and the way out of its trap is not to stop playing but to change your company, choosing companions who keep you steady instead of ones who feed your ego.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

Sequel/extension to abhang 155. Where 155 named hamāmā as bhakti's take-the-weight invitation, this abhang names hamāmā as life itself — and life as a four-watches structure (the night-watches of classical Indian timekeeping, prahara).

• First watch (childhood / youthful turn-to-practice): came into the color of the game; took on weight as soham (the breath-mantra of identity-with-the-real); but seeing the gaḍī (comrade — peer-pressure / company), forgot the seriousness and fell into the trap by oneself.
• Second watch (engaged adulthood): great joy, chand-chand passion; the day grows sweet — but the kid does not know what comes next.
• Third watch (mid-life): took on weight; aham-paṇa (I-ness) makes the legs unstable. Straining-and-straining (sos sos) → fall in the trap. सत्य जाणें हा निर्धार — know this as truth.
• Fourth watch (final): hamāmā continues but hands-and-feet tremble. Yama (Sūryā-Pāṭīl-cā por) — the son of the Sun, the death-god — and you fall into his lap.

The exit: Tuka was scared of the game (हमामा घालितां भ्याला तुका) and abandoned the comrade-arrangement (गड्याची सोई) — the social-circuit that was the trap. He went to the one Yadava-boy — Viṭhobā as Krishna-the-cowherd — and with him pastures cows. The exit is not from the world but from the wrong-comrade-circuit; the right comrade is Viṭhobā. [T]

For someone today

This abhang is a life-stage diagnostic. The four watches map cleanly: youth (took on the soham breath but the peer-pressure scrambled it), engaged adulthood (sweet day, no foresight), mid-life (ego makes the legs wobble; straining is itself the fall), end-stage (Yama). The message is not nihilistic. The exit-move is precise: Tuka was scared and abandoned the comrade-arrangement — meaning, he saw the social-circuit that was the trap and stepped out of it. He did not stop playing; he changed the comrade. With the right comrade (the Yadava-boy Viṭhobā), the play is cow-pasturing, not pile-on-collapse.

The translation for today: the gaḍī (comrade-circuit) is your default social-engine — what your peers are doing, the achievement-game, the consumption-loop, the status-pile-on. Tuka's claim is that playing the same game with a different comrade changes everything. Keep the play; change the company.

मराठी: ही ओवी एक जीवन-टप्प्यांचं diagnostic. चार पहार स्पष्ट: तरुणपणा (सोहं घेतलं — पण समवयस्कांच्या दबावाने गोंधळ), engaged adulthood (दिवस गोड — पुढचं माहीत नाही), मध्य-वय (अहंकाराने पाय डळमळ; सोस-सोस हा स्वतःच पतन), शेवट (यम). संदेश nihilistic नाही. exit-हालचाल अचूक: तुकाराम भ्याला आणि गड्याची सोय सांडली — म्हणजे जो social-circuit सापळा होता तो पाहिला आणि बाहेर पडले. खेळ बंद केला नाही — गडी बदलला. योग्य गडी (यादवांचा मूल विठोबा) सोबत खेळ गायी-चारणं, pile-on-कोसळणं नाही.

आज: गडी म्हणजे तुमचा default social-engine — समवयस्क काय करतायत, achievement-खेळ, consumption-loop, status-pile-on. तुकारामांचा दावा: तोच खेळ वेगळ्या गड्यासह केला तर सर्व बदलतं. खेळ ठेवा — कंपनी बदला.

Where this applies

• Hamāmā-of-life forgetting. Recognize the four-watches.
• Third-watch wobble from I-ness. सोस सोस itself is the fall.
• The exit: change the comrade, not stop the play. Viṭhobā the Yadava-boy.

Related verses

• Abhanga 155 — This abhang names the take-the-weight dimension of real engagement. The deity (or any genu
• Abhanga 1101 — This abhang names the yēṇē-jāṇē-khuṇṭalē register (R-c 12):
• Abhanga 1488 — Simple acts of devotion, such as a name repeated, a mark worn, a garland tied, are the rea
• Abhanga 2000 — True devotion is single-minded and undivided, like a bird that waits only for its one clou