Abhanga 3789
Full surrender to a deeply compassionate God is what carries you across life's hardest struggles, and Tukaram speaks this truth because he lived it himself.
The verse
म्हणउनि शरण जावें । सर्वभावें देवासी ॥१॥
तो हा उतरील पार । भवदुस्तरनदीचा ॥ध्रु.॥
बहु आहे करुणावंत । अनंत हें नाम ज्या ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे साक्षी आलें । तरी केलें प्रगट ॥३॥
Literal translation
Therefore-go-śaraṇa — fully-to-Deva. He'll-cross-you — bhava-dustara-nadī. Many-karuṇāvanta — Ananta-his-Name. Tukā: witness-arrived — therefore-revealed.
What it means
A 3-verse refuge-prayer. Therefore go (and take) refuge in Deva fully. He alone will carry across the hard-to-cross river of becoming. He is very-compassionate; Ananta is his Name. Tukā says: the witness came — therefore I have made (this) manifest. The final line is autobiographical: Tukā speaks not theoretically but as one who experienced the rescue and therefore discloses it.
For someone today
Tukaram says the answer to a hard-to-cross life is simple: go and take refuge fully in God, holding nothing back. It is God alone who can carry you across the difficult river of worldly existence, because he is deeply compassionate, so much so that one of his names is Ananta, the boundless one. Tukaram is clear that he is not just repeating a theory, he speaks this way because he himself lived through the experience of being carried across, and only then did he make it known to others. That is why his words carry weight: they come from something he witnessed firsthand, not something he merely heard.
मराठी: तुकाराम सांगतात की कठीण आयुष्याचा उतारा साधा आहे: काहीही राखून न ठेवता पूर्णपणे देवाला शरण जावे. देव एकटाच या कठीण संसार-नदीच्या पार घेऊन जाऊ शकतो, कारण तो इतका करुणामय आहे की त्याचे एक नाव अनंत आहे. तुकाराम स्पष्ट करतात की ते नुसता सिद्धांत सांगत नाहीत, तर स्वतः त्या पार होण्याचा अनुभव घेतल्यानंतरच त्यांनी हे इतरांसमोर उघड केले आहे. म्हणूनच त्यांच्या शब्दांना वजन आहे, कारण ते ऐकीव नाहीत तर स्वतः अनुभवलेले आहेत.
Where this applies
- When you feel overwhelmed by life's difficulties and need to fully trust something larger than yourself
- When you hesitate to hold anything back and finally decide to surrender completely to a source of help
- When you doubt whether real compassion exists and need reassurance that it does
- When you share advice or comfort with others only because you have personally lived through and survived the same struggle