Abhanga 2594
What can I do — the jīva is burning, the trapped days will not pass; the whole brahmāṇḍa appears desolate, breath itself is held up. Tukā: O all-knowing Viśvambhara, cool my body.
The verse
काय करूं जीव होतो कासावीस । कोंडलिये दिस गमे चि ना ॥१॥
पडिलें हें दिसे ब्रम्हांड चि वोस । दाटोनि उच्छ्वास राहातसे ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे आगा सर्वजाणतिया । विश्वंभरें काया निववावी ॥३॥
Literal translation
What shall I do — the jīva is burning-fevered, the trapped days will not pass. The whole brahmāṇḍa lies before me as desolate; the breath, choked up, remains. Tukā says: O all-knowing one, Viśvambhara, cool my body.
What it means
A brief, exact verse of spiritual-emergency. Jīva hōtō kāsāvīsa — kāsāvīsa names the feverish, choking, restless burning that is both physical and inner. Kōṇḍaliyē divasa gamē chi nā — the trapped (kōṇḍa = enclosed, suffocating) days will not pass. The second verse extends the diagnosis outward: paḍilēm hē disē brahmāṇḍa chi vōsa — the entire cosmos appears desolate before me (vōsa = empty-deserted-uninhabited). Dāṭōnī uchavāsa rāhātsē — the breath, held up by being thickened/choked, just remains. The bhakti diagnosis is global: not only the jīva burns and time has stopped — the cosmos itself looks empty. The address that follows is precise: agā sarvajāṇatiyā — O all-knowing one — Viśvambharē kāyā nivvāvī — let Viśvambhara cool the body. Viśvambhara (sustainer-of-the-cosmos) is named exactly because the cosmos itself appears desolate; if anything can re-light the brahmāṇḍa, it is the one who already sustains it. Kāyā nivvāvī — cool the body — is the bhakti-prayer of fever, suffocation, dread.
For someone today
Some days the jīva burns and no breath gets through; the world looks suddenly desolate. Do not pretend it is fine or wait for it to pass on its own. Pray this small verse exactly: Viśvambhara, cool my body. The address is theologically significant — the one who sustains all of this is the one whose attention you are asking for. Make the prayer concrete: cool this body, these trapped days, this held breath. It is permitted to ask the all-knower to do the small bodily favor of cooling.
Where this applies
- A panic-day in which breath does not seem to land
- The hot heart of a depressive episode
- Spiritual-aridity that has spread out into the cosmos itself
- Asking the Lord for an immediate small-bodily mercy in the middle of a long ordeal