Abhanga 321

This abhang describes the experience of recognizing God as everything. Nārāyaṇa is both the giver and the one who receives and enjoys — the usual sense of bhakti as a transaction with someone else dissolves, because the exchange is happening entirely within God, with the devotee simply the channel. At this point words run out; there is nothing more to say, because speech itself was only ever pointing toward this. The eyes that see recognize that what they behold is simply God's own form playing before them, seeing everything as his form, with no separate objects left to look at. And all sound, inner and outer, resolves into Govinda — even the very sound of chanting or listening becomes indistinguishable from God himself.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

A deva-as-everything abhang. Three claims:

1. दाता नारायण — स्वयें भोगिता आपण — Nārāyaṇa is dātā — himself the bhōgitā. The radical-claim. Nārāyaṇa is both giver and experiencer. The standard frame — deva gives, bhakta receives — is collapsed; deva gives, deva receives (= the bhakta is the channel through which deva-gives-to-deva).

2. आतां काय उरलें वाचे — पुढें शब्द बोलायाचे — now what remains in vāc to speak ahead? The exhaustion-of-words. If deva is both giver and experiencer, what is there for the bhakta to say? The vāc has nothing-more. (Compare 250's not-doing-while-doing-all; here, the not-speaking-while-speech-continuing.)

3. देखती जे डोळे — रूप आपुलें तें खेळे — the eyes that see — his rūpa plays. The seeing-experience. Whatever the eyes see is his rūpa playing. No separate-objects from his rūpa. (Compare 308's all is brahma-rūpa, no empty space.)

4. तुका म्हणे नाद — जाला अवघा गोविंद — the nāda — became avaghā Govinda. The closing-dissolution. Nāda (sound — perhaps the anāhata-nāda / inner-sound, or all sound including external) — became all-Govinda. The sound-realm dissolved into Govinda. (Compare 199's one nāda Devakī's son became basavanta; here, the broader nāda-and-Govinda merger.)

[T]

For someone today

This abhang describes the experience of recognizing God as everything. Nārāyaṇa is both the giver and the one who receives and enjoys — the usual sense of bhakti as a transaction with someone else dissolves, because the exchange is happening entirely within God, with the devotee simply the channel. At this point words run out; there is nothing more to say, because speech itself was only ever pointing toward this. The eyes that see recognize that what they behold is simply God's own form playing before them, seeing everything as his form, with no separate objects left to look at. And all sound, inner and outer, resolves into Govinda — even the very sound of chanting or listening becomes indistinguishable from God himself.

मराठी: ही ओवी देव-हेच-सर्वकाही असल्याचा अनुभव सांगते. नारायण स्वतः दाता आहे आणि स्वतःच भोक्ताही आहे — भक्ती म्हणजे दुसऱ्या कोणाशी होणारा व्यवहार, हा नेहमीचा समज इथे मावळतो, कारण हा व्यवहार देवाच्या आतच घडतो आणि भक्त केवळ त्याचे माध्यम असतो. या अवस्थेत शब्द संपतात — पुढे बोलण्यासारखे काही उरत नाही, कारण वाणी मुळात याच अवस्थेकडे निर्देश करत होती. जे डोळे पाहतात, त्यांना दिसते की समोर जे काही आहे ते त्याचेच रूप खेळत आहे, वेगळी अशी कोणतीही वस्तू उरत नाही. आणि सर्व नाद — आतला व बाहेरचा — गोविंदातच विरघळून जातो, अगदी नामस्मरणाचा नादही देवाहून वेगळा उरत नाही.

Where this applies

• Deva is dātā and bhōgitā simultaneously. Transaction within-the-deva.
• Words exhausted at this state. Don't fill the silence.
• Seeing-eyes see his-rūpa-playing. No separate objects.
• Nāda became all-Govinda. Sound-realm dissolved.

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