Abhanga 2610
What came out of the fire — let no one touch it. Drive it far away from here, Hari. Make it known as it was once held: I am here in prapañca. Tukā stayed in silence, fearing people, kept apart.
The verse
निघालें तें अगीहूनि । आतां झणी आतळे ॥१॥
पळवा परपरतें दुरी । आतां हरी येथूनि ॥ध्रु.॥
धरिलें तैसें श्रुत करा हो । येथें आहो प्रपंचीं ॥२॥
अबोल्यानें ठेला तुका । भेउनि लोकां निराळा ॥३॥
Literal translation
What has come out of the fire — let no one now touch it. Drive it far away from here, Hari. As it was held, make it known — here, I am in prapañca. Tukā stayed in silence — fearing people, kept apart.
What it means
A small, hard verse from a season of being-burned. Nighālēm tē agīhūnī — what has come out of the fire. The opening phrase is unspecified — Tukārām doesn't name what came out of the fire, only that something did, and ātām jhaṇī ātaḷē — let no one touch it now. The image is exact: something newly out of fire is still hot; touch will scald the toucher and damage the thing.
The dhrūpada asks Hari to enforce the distance: paḷavā paraparatēm durī — ātām Harī yēthūnī — drive it far away from here, Hari, now from this place. The bhakta cannot police the distance alone; the Lord is asked to be the boundary-keeper.
The second verse names the paradoxical posture: dharilēm taisēm śruta karā hō — yēthē āhō prapañcīm — make known, as I have held it: I am here, in prapañca. The bhakta has not left prapañca (the householder-world); the request is not for forest-retreat. The request is to be in-prapañca-but-untouched, on the basis that I have come out of the fire.
The close is the saddest line in the verse: abōlyānē ṭhēlā Tukā — bhē'unī lōkām nirāḷā — Tukā stayed in silence — fearing people, kept apart. Abōlyā (silence) is here a posture of recovery, not contemplation. Bhē'unī lōkām — fearing people — is the painful confession: not the saintly above-people stance, but the I-have-been-burned-and-cannot-bear-people-right-now stance.
For someone today
Some seasons of life are a just-out-of-the-fire season. The right posture is not heroic re-engagement; it is silence, distance, asking the protector to keep people at a distance. Bhē'unī lōkām nirāḷā — fearing people, kept apart — is a permitted phase, and Tukārām hands you the language for it without shaming. You are still yēthē āhō prapañcīm — here, in prapañca — you have not abandoned your responsibilities; you have just made yourself untouchable for a season because the burn is too recent.
Where this applies
- After betrayal, public humiliation, or institutional injury, choosing silence
- Asking a protector — a spouse, a tradition, a Lord — to be the boundary-keeper
- The recovery-season of being-in-the-world but kept-apart-from-people
- Honest naming: I am afraid of people right now, kept apart