Abhanga 2694

The verse is honest about a difficult bhakti-claim: not all paths are earnable by current-effort alone. Some require samchita — the prior-condition. The signs that one is in dry-effort mode: the work feels like swallowing your own saliva, the accumulation that works for wealth doesn't work for Deva, self-welfare keeps getting obstructed. The verse doesn't prescribe a resolution; it names the difficulty honestly. The bhakta who notices kōraḍī āṭī in himself is at least clear that the operative-condition is not what he is doing. This clarity is the first move.

The verse

Literal translation

What it means

A small, honest, somewhat-difficult verse. Samchitāvāñcūn — pantha na chalavē kāraṇa — without samchita, the path cannot be walked — that is the reason. Samchita — the accumulated-but-not-yet-active karma — is named as the condition for being-able-to-walk-the-path. Without that prior-store, the walking-doesn't-happen.

The dhrūpada: kōraḍī tē avaghī āṭī — vāyām jāya lāḷa ghōmṭī — all dry-effort goes wasted — swallowed-saliva. Kōraḍī āṭī — dry-struggle, effort without the inner-moisture of bhāva. Lāḷa ghōmṭī — swallowed-saliva — what the hungry-but-foodless person does, swallowing their own saliva. The image is precise: effort-without-the-condition produces nothing-to-swallow except one's own saliva.

The second verse names a structural-contrast: dhana vitta jōḍē — Deva aisē tōm na ghaḍē — wealth and money get joined — Deva does not happen that way. Jōḍē (gets-joined, accumulates) is the verb for wealth; na ghaḍē (does not happen) is the verb for Deva. Wealth follows the accumulation-by-effort pattern; Deva does not.

The close: āḍa svahitāsī bahu nāḍa — there is great snare of obstruction to self-welfare. Nāḍa — snare, tangle; āḍa — obstruction. The self-welfare path has many snares of obstruction — the dry-effort, the wealth-pattern, all the things that look-like effort but are not the operative-condition.

This is honest about a hard truth: bhakti requires prior-karmic-condition (samchita) — what we might call grace-already-present — and current-effort alone, in its dry form, cannot manufacture it.

For someone today

The verse is honest about a difficult bhakti-claim: not all paths are earnable by current-effort alone. Some require samchita — the prior-condition. The signs that one is in dry-effort mode: the work feels like swallowing your own saliva, the accumulation that works for wealth doesn't work for Deva, self-welfare keeps getting obstructed. The verse doesn't prescribe a resolution; it names the difficulty honestly. The bhakta who notices kōraḍī āṭī in himself is at least clear that the operative-condition is not what he is doing. This clarity is the first move.

मराठी: हा अभंग भक्तीतील एका कठीण सत्याविषयी प्रामाणिकपणे बोलतो: सर्वच मार्ग केवळ सध्याच्या प्रयत्नांनी कमावता येत नाहीत. काहींसाठी संचित — आधीच असलेली स्थिती — आवश्यक असते. आपण कोरड्या प्रयत्नांच्या अवस्थेत आहोत याची चिन्हे अशी: काम केल्यासारखे वाटते पण जणू आपलीच लाळ गिळत बसल्यासारखे वाटते, संपत्तीसाठी उपयोगी पडणारा साठवणीचा नियम देवासाठी लागू पडत नाही, आणि स्वहित सतत अडखळत राहते. हा अभंग कोणताही उपाय सांगत नाही; तो केवळ ही अडचण प्रामाणिकपणे मांडतो. आपल्यात ही कोरडी धडपड आहे हे लक्षात येणारा भक्त निदान एवढे तरी स्पष्टपणे जाणतो की जे तो करतो आहे तीच खरी अट नाही. हे स्पष्ट भान हीच पहिली पायरी आहे.

Where this applies

• Honest recognition that not all paths are earnable by current-effort alone
• The swallowed-saliva image for futile-effort
• Distinguishing wealth-pattern (joinable) from Deva-pattern (doesn't-happen-that-way)
• Naming the snare-of-obstruction to svahita (self-welfare)

Related verses

• Abhanga 2467 — What looks like your whole world, like a fig to the insect living inside it, is only a tin
• Abhanga 4481 — Tukaram promises that sincerely calling on the Lord's name, knowingly or unknowingly, with
• Abhanga 4482 — Tukaram teaches that no ritual equals sincerely speaking the Lord's name, that self-center
• Abhanga 4497 — Tukaram describes a life so soaked in devotion that Krishna's presence fills every ordinar