Abhanga 2644
The udāsīna (dispassionate) one's body is brahma-rūpa (brahma-form); puṇya-pāpa does not touch it.
The verse
उदासीनाचा देह ब्रम्हरूप । नाहीं पुण्य पाप लागत त्या ॥१॥
अनुताप अंगीं अग्निचिया ज्वाळा । नाहीं मृगजळा विझों येत ॥ध्रु.॥
दोष ऐशा नावें देहाचा आदर । विटलें अंतर अहंभावें ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे जाय नासोनियां खंती । तंव चि हे चित्तीं बद्धता ते ॥३॥
Literal translation
The udāsīna (dispassionate) one's body is brahma-rūpa (brahma-form); puṇya-pāpa does not touch it. Anutāpa (repentance) is fire-flames in the body; mrgajaḷa (mirage-water) cannot come to quench. By such-named sin is the body-ādara (adoration, careful-attention); the inside is split (viṭalēm) by ahambhāva. Tukā says: until the khantī (lament) goes by being destroyed — that very thing is the baddhatā (bondedness) in the chitta.
What it means
A precise contemplative-yogi diagnostic verse. Udāsīnāchā dēha brahma-rūpa — nāhīm puṇya pāpa lāgata tyā — the dispassionate one's body is brahma-form; puṇya-pāpa does not touch it. The technical claim — when the dispassion is real, the body has become brahma-rūpa, and the moral-categories of puṇya-pāpa cannot stick to it. This is the udāsīna-mukta (dispassionate-released) state.
The dhrūpada delivers the diagnosis of why repentance does not produce this state: anutāpa angīm agnichiyā jvāḷā — nāhīm mrgajaḷā vijhōm yēta nā — repentance is fire-flames in the body; mirage-water cannot come to quench. Anutāpa (repentance) is itself a fire — and what one usually uses to quench it (worldly-pleasures, distractions) is mrgajaḷa — mirage-water — appears wet but is not. The repentance-fire keeps burning. Repentance itself, in this register, is not the solution; it is part of the bondage.
The second verse names the deeper diagnosis: dōṣa aiśā nāvē — dēhāchā ādara — viṭalēm antara ahambhāvē — under such-name as sin is the body-adoration; the inside is split by ahambhāva (I-am-this-body feeling). Even religious-attention to the body — careful-adoration of the body's habits — is the sin, because it sustains the ahambhāva that splits the heart. The bhakta who is anxiously-caring-for-his-own-body's-purity is still in ahambhāva.
The close: jāya nāsōniyām khantī — tanva chi hē chittīm baddhatā tē — until the khantī (lament, regret) goes by being-destroyed, that very thing is the baddhatā (bound-ness) in the chitta. Khantī — lingering-lament, residual-regret — is itself the bondage. As long as it persists, baddhatā (bondedness) persists in the chitta. The repentance-fire and the regret-lingering are both subtle-bondages; only their destruction releases the chitta.
For someone today
The verse offers a sharp contemplative diagnostic: repentance can itself be a bondage. The body-fire of anutāpa burns, but the worldly-quench is mrgajaḷa (mirage-water) — appears to soothe, does nothing. Even careful religious-attention to one's own conduct — body-adoration disguised as virtue — sustains ahambhāva. The release is not in more repentance but in the destruction of khantī — the lingering-lament must itself go. Until then, the chitta remains in baddhatā. The verse is a hard-but-useful diagnostic for those whose practice has become elaborate repentance-and-self-monitoring without the udāsīna-brahma-rūpa release-into-dispassion arriving.
Where this applies
- A practice that has become elaborate repentance without releasing into dispassion
- Recognizing that body-adoration disguised as virtue is still ahambhāva
- The contemplative-yogi diagnosis that khantī is itself the bondage
- The udāsīna-brahma-rūpa release-criterion: puṇya-pāpa no-longer-sticking