Abhanga 2650
The mind is not steady — what is lacking there? Once the burden is placed, Hari does not neglect his dāsas. So why this struggle for the sake of wealth? Tukā: the belly has made Deva very deceitful.
The verse
धीर नव्हे मनें । काय तयापाशीं उणें ॥१॥
भार घातलियावरी । दासां नुपेक्षील हरी ॥ध्रु.॥
याऐसी आटी । द्यावी द्रव्याचिये साटी ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे पोटें । देवा बहु केलें खोटें ॥३॥
Literal translation
The mind is not steady — what is lacking on his side? Once the burden has been placed, Hari does not neglect his dāsas. Why this āṭī (struggle, intense effort) for the sake of dravya (wealth, money)? Tukā says: the pōṭē (belly, stomach) has made Deva very khōṭē (false, fake, counterfeit).
What it means
A small candid self-diagnosis verse. Dhīra navhē manēm — kāya tayāpāśīm uṇē — the mind is not steady — what is lacking on his (Hari's) side? The structure is a self-rebuke: the mind's instability is on my side, not Hari's. Tayāpāśīm uṇē — what is lacking on his side — the answer is nothing.
The dhrūpada confirms: bhāra ghātaliyāvarī — dāsām nupēkṣīla Hari — once the burden has been placed, Hari does not neglect his dāsas. The rule is reliable; the burden-once-given does not return unmet.
The third verse asks the pointed question: yā-aisī āṭī — dyāvī dravyāchiyē sāṭīm — why this āṭī (struggle, anxious effort) for the sake of dravya (wealth)? If Hari is reliable, why this struggling for wealth?
The close gives the candid answer: pōṭē — Devā bahu kelē khōṭē — the belly has made Deva very fake (khōṭē = false, counterfeit, fraudulent). Pōṭa (belly) — the stomach's hunger-pressure has Devā khōṭē kelē — made Deva counterfeit. This is a remarkable self-diagnosis: my belly-need has produced a counterfeit-version of Deva in my prayers — a transactional, anxious, wealth-petitioning Deva who is not the real one. The real Deva is reliable; the belly-distorted Deva is the one I have been struggling with.
For someone today
The verse offers a precise self-diagnostic: when your mind is not steady about the protector's reliability — examine whose side the lacking is on. The honest answer is usually: my side. And the cause is often: pōṭē — the belly's pressure, the stomach's hunger, the immediate-bodily-needs that distort how I am picturing the protector. The belly has made Deva very khōṭē — the body's anxious needs have constructed a counterfeit-version of the protector. The remedy is to recognize the khōṭē-Deva you have constructed for what it is, and let the real Deva (who does not neglect his dāsas) come back into focus.
Where this applies
- The candid self-diagnosis of how belly-need distorts prayer
- Recognizing the khōṭē-Deva (counterfeit-protector) constructed by anxious bodily-need
- Asking the steadiness-question — whose side is the lacking on?
- Trust-restoration when bodily anxiety has manufactured a transactional-Deva