Abhanga 3535
Clinging to the line between mine and yours is a rope of attachment around your own throat, and much of what you fear was never even real.
The verse
चुकलों या ऐशा वर्मा । तरी कर्मा सांपडलों ॥१॥
पाठी लागे करी नास । गर्भवास भोगवी ॥ध्रु.॥
माझें तुझें भिन्नभावें । गळां दावें मोहाचें ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे पाठेळ केलों । नसत्या भ्यालों छंदासी ॥३॥
Literal translation
Missed-varma — caught-in-karma. Chases-behind-brings-nāsa — bhōgavī-garbha-vāsa. Mine-yours-bhinna-bhāva — mōha-rope-at-throat. Tukā: made-wander, feared-non-existent-chanda.
What it means
A 3-verse self-rebuke text. I missed the secret-point; karma caught me; chases behind, brings destruction, makes me bear garbha-vāsa; the mine-yours distinction is the mōha-rope at my throat; I wandered fearing what doesn't exist.
For someone today
Tukaram confesses that he missed the crucial point of understanding, and because of that failure he got caught in the grip of karma. He describes karma as something that chases him relentlessly, bringing ruin, and even forcing him to endure the cycle of rebirth. He identifies the real trap as the sharp separation between mine and yours, calling it a rope of attachment tightened around his own throat. He ends by admitting he wandered astray out of fear of something that, in truth, never even existed.
मराठी: मी हा मुख्य मुद्दा चुकलो, आणि त्यामुळेच कर्माच्या विळख्यात सापडलो, असे तुकाराम कबूल करतात. हे कर्म सतत पाठलाग करते, नाश आणते, आणि पुन्हा गर्भवासही भोगायला लावते असे ते सांगतात. माझे-तुझे या भेदभावाचा मोहाचा दोर माझ्याच गळ्याभोवती आवळला आहे, हे ते मान्य करतात. शेवटी तुकाराम सांगतात, मी उगाच भटकत राहिलो, आणि जे मुळात अस्तित्वातच नव्हते त्याला घाबरत राहिलो.
Where this applies
- When you realize a small missed insight led you into a much bigger cycle of trouble
- When the habit of dividing everything into mine and yours quietly tightens around your own life
- When you look back and see that most of your fear was really about something that was never real
- When you confess a mistake honestly instead of hiding from it