Abhanga 4204
Genuine devotion can hold affirmation and unknowing together at once, and it grows gradually until, like a long awaited reunion, it suddenly turns into wholehearted joy.
The verse
आहे ऐसा देव वदवावी वाणी । नाहीं ऐसा मनीं अनुभवावा ॥१॥
आवडी आवडी कळिवराकळिवरी । वरिली अंतरी ताळी पडे ॥ध्रु.॥
अपूर्व दर्शन मातेपुत्रा भेटी । रडूं मागे तुटी हर्षयोगें ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे एकें कळतें दुसरें । बरियानें बरें आहाचाचें आहाच ॥३॥
Literal translation
Say-Deva-is — experience-Deva-isn't. Āvaḍī-pebble-by-pebble — antar-tāḷī-fits. Apūrva-darśana-mother-son-meeting — crying-retreats-by-harṣa-yoga. Tukā: by-one-other-known — by-bariyā-bariyā — āhāch-āhāch.
What it means
THE canonical 3-verse paradoxical bhāva-and-vichāra-simultaneous text. Let the voice utter: there is such a Deva. Let the mind experience: there is not such. Love-and-love, pebble by pebble — picked up, in the heart the tāḷī (sense-match) falls together. Like an unprecedented mother-son meeting: crying retreats by the burst-of-joy. Tukā says: by one, the other is known; by the firm, the firm; by the slack, the slack. The doctrine: bhakti requires holding two opposites simultaneously — affirmation by voice (āhē-aisā-dēva) and negation by mana-experience (nāhīm-aisā). Out of the pebble-by-pebble āvaḍī, the inner-match (tāḷī) falls together; like the mother-son-reunion's tear-to-joy transformation. Each-knows-its-own. Among Tukārām's most-philosophically-compact statements.
For someone today
Tukaram says you can call God existing with your voice while at the same moment feeling in your heart that the ordinary sense of existing does not quite apply, and both of these can be true together. Love does not arrive all at once; it is gathered a little at a time, piece by piece, until suddenly, inside, everything clicks into place. He compares this to an unexpected reunion between a mother and her long lost son, where tears of longing dissolve instantly into a burst of joy. And whatever you bring to your devotion, whether it is solid and sincere or thin and half hearted, is exactly what comes back to meet you.
मराठी: तुकाराम म्हणतात, तोंडाने "देव आहे" असं म्हणता येतं, आणि त्याच वेळी मनात मात्र "असणे" या शब्दाचा नेहमीचा अर्थ इथे लागू पडत नाही, असंही जाणवू शकतं — या दोन्ही गोष्टी एकाच वेळी खऱ्या असू शकतात. प्रेम एका क्षणात येत नाही; ते थोडं थोडं, टप्प्याटप्प्याने जमत जातं, आणि अचानक मनात सगळं एकसंध होतं. याची तुलना ते आई आणि हरवलेल्या मुलाच्या अनपेक्षित भेटीशी करतात — विरहाचे अश्रू क्षणात आनंदाच्या भरात विरून जातात. आणि आपण भक्तीत जे काही ओततो, मग ते ठाम आणि प्रामाणिक असो किंवा उथळ आणि अर्धवट, तेच आपल्याकडे परत येतं.
Where this applies
- When you are trying to hold two seemingly contradictory truths about faith or love at the same time
- When you feel love building slowly through small moments rather than arriving all at once
- When you experience a sudden, overwhelming reunion or realization that turns old grief into joy
- When you notice that the depth of what you give to something determines the depth of what you get back from it