Abhanga 244

Claiming devotion while disrespecting God's presence in ordinary life is worse than simply carrying an honest worldly burden, because it just trades one weight for the heavier weight of pride.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

A anti-renunciate-pride abhang. Four sharp claims:

1. देवाचे म्हणोनि देवीं अनादर — हें मोठें आश्चर्य वाटतसे — sayingof-the-devaand disrespecting the deva — great wonder. The contradiction: someone who self-identifies as belonging-to-the-deva (devāchē = of-the-deva; e.g., a renunciate, a sannyāsi, a religious-claimant) and yet disrespects the deva (in the deva-form, in the deva-bhakta, in the deva's manifestations). The contradiction itself is the great āścarya — astonishment-and-pity. (Tukaram is gentle here — āścarya not condemnation.)

2. आतां येरा जना म्हणावें तें काई — जया भार डोई संसाराचा — what to say to the others — those with samsāra-burden on the head. The implicit-comparison. The renunciates who claim devāchē but disrespect the deva are worse than the householders carrying the samsāra-burden. The householders are at least honestly carrying the weight; the renunciates are dishonestly avoiding-it-while-claiming-devotion.

3. त्यजुनी संसार अभिमान सांटा — जुलूम हा मोटा दिसतसे — renouncing samsāra, exchanging for abhimāna — great violence. The exchange-mechanics. The renunciate doesn't actually drop the load; he exchanges it for abhimāna (pride / ego) — he replaced family-ego with saint-ego. This exchange is great julūma (violence / oppression). The abhimāna-substitute is more violent than the samsāra it replaced.

4. तुका म्हणे अळस करूनियां साहे — बळें कैसे पाहें वांयां जाती — Tuka says: lazily bearing; forcefully — see — in vain wasted. Two failure-modes of the abhimāna-renunciate:

5. Lazily-bearing (āḷasa karūnīyām sāhē) — they carry the abhimāna lazily, not engaging the actual practice.
6. Forcefully-wasted (baḷē kaisē pāhē vāyām jātī) — they forcefully practice, but in vain are wasted — the practice produces nothing because the abhimāna is at the root.

[T]

For someone today

This is one of Tukaram's sharpest critiques, aimed not at unbelievers but at religious claimants. It is a striking contradiction, he says, when someone calls themselves devoted to God yet disrespects God as God actually shows up — in other devotees, in ordinary people, in everyday things. An honest householder who carries the weight of worldly life on their head is actually better off than a renunciate who has secretly swapped that weight for pride; giving up the world only to replace it with the ego of being a renunciate is itself a kind of violence. Whether such a person carries that pride lazily or pursues their practice with great force, the effort comes to nothing, wasted at the root by the very pride they never let go of. So examine yourself and others honestly: does claiming to belong to God come with disrespect for how God actually appears in the world? If so, recognize that trade for what it is, and recognize the effort spent on it as wasted.

मराठी: तुकारामांच्या सर्वांत तीक्ष्ण टीकांपैकी ही एक आहे — ती अश्रद्धांवर नाही, तर धार्मिकतेचा दावा करणाऱ्यांवर आहे. देवाचे आहोत असं म्हणणारा माणूसच देव प्रत्यक्षात जिथे प्रकट होतो — इतर भक्तांमध्ये, सामान्य माणसांमध्ये, रोजच्या गोष्टींमध्ये — तिथे अनादर करतो, हा खरोखरच मोठा विरोधाभास आहे. डोक्यावर संसाराचं ओझं प्रामाणिकपणे वाहणारा गृहस्थ, गुपचूप ते ओझं अभिमानाशी बदलणाऱ्या संन्याशापेक्षा खरंतर बरा असतो; संसार सोडून त्याजागी संन्यासाचा अहंकार स्वीकारणं हीदेखील एक प्रकारची हिंसाच आहे. असा माणूस तो अभिमान आळसाने बाळगो किंवा मोठ्या जोमाने साधना करो, त्याचे प्रयत्न व्यर्थच जातात, कारण मुळाशी असलेला अभिमानच त्याला पोखरत असतो. म्हणून स्वतःला आणि इतरांना प्रामाणिकपणे तपासा — देवाचे असल्याचा दावा करताना देव जिथे खरोखर प्रकट होतो तिथे अनादर तर होत नाही ना? तसं असेल, तर ती अदलाबदल नेमकी काय आहे हे ओळखा, आणि त्यावर घालवलेले श्रम व्यर्थ गेल्याचंही ओळखा.

Where this applies

• Of-the-devaclaim withanādara toward deva-as-manifested. Recognize as wonder.
• Renunciation exchanging for abhimāna is julūma. Honest-householder is better.
• Lazy-abhimāna or forceful-but-in-vain. Both wasted.

Related verses

• Abhanga 2467 — What looks like your whole world, like a fig to the insect living inside it, is only a tin
• Abhanga 4481 — Tukaram promises that sincerely calling on the Lord's name, knowingly or unknowingly, with
• Abhanga 4482 — Tukaram teaches that no ritual equals sincerely speaking the Lord's name, that self-center
• Abhanga 4497 — Tukaram describes a life so soaked in devotion that Krishna's presence fills every ordinar