संत साहित्य · Tukārām · Abhanga 2434 of 4582

Abhanga 2434

For today: Ananta caught me; doesn't release the pallu; your words are dry — my [bhakti] is embrace with body-touch ; experience will come for you later.

When you catch yourself arguing about faith instead of simply living it.

When you feel gripped by something larger than yourself and cannot shake the feeling loose.

When you tell a doubting friend that understanding will come to them too, in its own time.

The verse

बोलाल या आतां आपुल्यापुरतें । मज या अनंतें गोवियेलें ॥१॥ झाडिला न सोडी हातींचा पालव । वेधी वेधें जीव वेधियेला ॥ध्रु.॥ तुमचे ते शब्द कोरडिया गोष्टी । मज सवें मिठी अंगसंगें ॥२॥ तुका म्हणे तुम्हां होईंल हे परी । अनुभव वरी येईंल मग ॥३॥

Literal translation

Speak to your limit — me, this Ananta has caught. Shaken, doesn't release the pallu from hand — pierced-pierced jīva pierced. Your words are dry talk — to me embrace with body-touch. Tuka says: for you this will be — experience will come later.

What it means

THE YOUR-WORDS-DRY-TALK + EMBRACE-WITH-BODY-TOUCH ABHANG. A defense of bhakti-experience over philosophical-discourse.

The Ananta-grip: jhāḍilā na sōḍī hātīñchā pālava — vēdhī vēdhē jīva vēdhiyēlā — shaken, doesn't release the pallu from hand — pierced-pierced jīva pierced. Even-when-shaken, [the Lord] doesn't-release the-pallu-from-his-hand; jīva is-pierced (vēdhiyēlā) by-piercing. The Lord's-grip is-irrevocable.

THE CELEBRATED CONTRAST: tumchē tē śabda kōraḍiyā gōṣṭī — maja savē miṭhī anga-sangē — your words are dry talk — to me embrace with body-touch. YOUR words are-dry-talk (kōraḍiyā gōṣṭī); to-ME, embrace with-body-touch (anga-sangē). The jñāna-bhakti contrast rendered viscerally: philosophers have-dry-words; we-have body-to-body-embrace.

The address: implicit-against-the-Brahma-jñāna-philosophers (compare 2421 purē purē tumchē Brahma-jñāna). Tukārām's-stance: experience-trumps-discourse.

[T]

For someone today

For today: Ananta caught me; doesn't release the pallu; your words are dry — my [bhakti] is embrace with body-touch ; experience will come for you later.

Where this applies

When someone quotes scripture or theory at you but you can tell they've never actually felt what they're describing.
When you're grieving or in love and clever words from others feel hollow next to what your body already knows.
When you're new to a practice and worry your understanding is just borrowed talk instead of real experience.
When you want to reassure a skeptical friend that the depth you're describing isn't out of reach for them, just not yet arrived.

Bhakti