Abhanga 2659

You can let go of your old sense of self while still alive, letting desire and anger mourn its passing while dispassion and clear knowing burn it away, once a teacher's grace lights that fire.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

This abhang opens Tukārām's celebrated 4-verse self-cremation-while-living vision sequence (2659-2662) — one of the most extraordinary mystical-vision passages in the entire Gatha. The bhakta describes performing his own funeral-rites symbolically through bhakti-jñāna while still living. Each ritual element of the Hindu antya-karma (last-rites) is named precisely and given a symbolic-bhakti equivalent:

1. Corpse-state of the body (prēta-rūpa śarīrāchā bhāva) — the body's identification-with-self has died first; what remains is corpse-form. The śmaśāna (cremation-ground) is the marked spot.

2. The mourners: kāma-krōdha-māyā (desire, anger, illusion) — the inner-pollutants are the ones weeping at this funeral. Yama-dharma — even Death's own dharma — cries hāya-hāya; the Lord-of-death is the chief-mourner because his client has been claimed by jñāna.

3. The pyre: vairāgya-śēṇī (dispassion as the dung-cake fuel) and jñāna-agni (knowledge as fire). The Marathi śēṇī is the cow-dung-patty used in real funeral-pyres; vairāgya is the patty, jñāna is the spark.

4. The pot-ritual (phiravilā ghaṭa phōḍilā charaṇī): in Hindu funerals, the chief-mourner circumambulates the corpse with a water-filled pot, then smashes it at the feet, releasing the prāṇa. Here the bhakta does this to himself.

5. Mahāvākya as the funeral-shout: in real funerals, the cry Rāma-Rāma or hari-hari is shouted; here the mahā-vākya (the great Upaniṣadic saying — tat tvam asi, aham brahmāsmi) is what thundered.

6. Tilāñjali to lineage-name-form: the water-with-sesame oblation traditionally goes to ancestors. Here it goes to kuḷa-nāma-rūpa — to the entire system of lineage-name-form-identity. The lineage is being-offered-out.

7. Body offered to whose-it-is: the body returns to its source.

8. Ashes happen by themselves: rakṣā jālī āpīm-āpa — the sacred ashes (rakṣā = the consecrated funeral-ash applied to the body) happened by themselves. No human-effort produced this.

9. Lamp lit by guru-krpā: the funeral-lamp (which the chief-mourner lights at the head of the corpse) was lit by guru-krpā — the teacher's grace was the spark.

For someone today

This is not a meditation-on-mortality in the conventional sense. It is the more radical claim that the living bhakta can perform his own antya-karma — can let kāma-krodha-māyā be the mourners, vairāgya be the pyre-fuel, jñāna be the fire, the mahāvākya be the funeral-shout, the lineage-name-form be the recipient of the tilāñjali, and guru-krpā be the lamp. The result: rakṣā jālī āpīm-āpa — the ashes happen by themselves. The bhakta does not have to wait for biological-death to undergo the transformation that funerals symbolize. The transformation can happen now, in living, with the rites done symbolically through bhakti.

The implication for daily practice is austere: are you willing to let the kāma-krodha-māyā weep at the loss of you? Are you willing to apply vairāgya as the pyre's-fuel? Will you let the mahāvākya thunder in the assembly of your own community of mind?

Where this applies

• The jīvanmukta-vision of performing one's own funeral-rite symbolically
• Recognizing kāma-krōdha-māyā as the inner-mourners losing their client
• Applying vairāgya and jñāna-agni as the pyre-elements
• Receiving guru-krpā as the lamp-lighting grace
• The opening of the 4-verse self-cremation sequence (2659-2662)

Related verses

• Abhanga 2661 — Surrendering the body and its elements into the sacred fire does not destroy them, it retu
• Abhanga 2374 — Rather than scattering devotion among many lesser deities who demand offerings, Tukaram sa
• Abhanga 2377 — This detailed meditation on Vitthal standing on a brick at Pandharpur, out of love for his
• Abhanga 2387 — Accept whatever life brings with reverence, and place the burden on God rather than carryi