संत साहित्य · Tukārām · Abhanga 3935 of 4582

Abhanga 3935

Real closeness with the sacred is earned and specific, Tukaram says, not the same vague thing everyone assumes they already have.

When you notice a personal understanding of something that outsiders can only guess at

When you're distinguishing surface familiarity with a teaching from real, lived closeness

When you want a relationship built on genuine recognition rather than assumption

The verse

तुझें अंगभूत । आम्ही जाणतों समस्त ॥१॥ येरा वाटतसे जना । गुढारसें नारायणा ॥ध्रु.॥ ठावा थारा मारा । परचिया संव चोरा ॥२॥ तुका म्हणे भेदा । करुनि करितों संवादा ॥३॥

Literal translation

Your-anga-bhūta — we-know. Others-feel-you-guḍha-rasa-Nārāyaṇa. Ṭhāva-thāra-māra — para-chiya-samva-for-chora. Tukā: bhēda — samvāda.

What it means

A 3-verse insider-doctrine text. We know your embodied-essence completely. To other people, you feel like a hidden-mystery, Nārāyaṇa. The place, the refuge, the death-blow — for the thief, all of these are someone else's precinct (i.e., the world is opaque to him). Through making distinction (between insider/outsider), I do dialogue. The line bhēda karuni karitōm samvāda (by making distinction, I dialogue) is methodological — bhakti requires (some) bhēda for sambandha.

For someone today

Tukaram says that those who truly know God through devotion understand his living presence directly, while to others he remains only a distant, hidden mystery. He pictures someone without that closeness as being like a thief in unfamiliar territory, unable to find his footing, his shelter, or even the danger around him, because none of it feels like his own. Real closeness with God, Tukaram says, comes through making this distinction honestly and speaking from it, not by pretending everyone already understands the same thing. The lesson is that genuine intimacy with the sacred is earned and specific, not generic.

मराठी: तुकाराम म्हणतात की जे खऱ्या भक्तीने देवाला ओळखतात त्यांना त्याचे सजीव अस्तित्व प्रत्यक्ष कळते, तर इतरांसाठी तो केवळ एक दूरचे, गूढ रहस्य राहतो. अशा जवळिकीशिवाय असलेल्या माणसाची तुलना ते अपरिचित प्रदेशातील चोराशी करतात, ज्याला आपले पाऊल कुठे टाकावे, आश्रय कुठे घ्यावा किंवा भोवतीचा धोका काय आहे हेच कळत नाही, कारण त्याला काहीच स्वतःचे वाटत नाही. देवाशी खरी जवळीक ही हा फरक प्रामाणिकपणे ओळखून, त्यातून बोलण्याने येते, सगळ्यांना आधीच सारखेच कळते असे गृहीत धरून नव्हे, असे तुकाराम म्हणतात. यातून हा धडा मिळतो की पवित्र गोष्टीशी खरी जवळीक कमावलेली आणि विशिष्ट असते, सर्वसाधारण नसते.

Where this applies

Tukārām's insider-doctrine; bhēda-for-samvāda canonical

Non-dual / Advaita Autobiographical