Abhanga 4374
Stop panicking, because the divine is already right in front of you, beyond shape, holding everything, and true absorption in the Name erases the separation between you and it.
The verse
कां रे दाटोन होतां वेडे । देव आहे तुम्हांपुढें ॥१॥
ज्यास पाठ नाहीं पोट । करी त्रैलोक्याचा घोंट ॥ध्रु.॥
तुमची तुम्हां नाहीं सोय । कोणाचें काय जाय ॥२॥
तुका गातो नामीं । तेथें नाहीं आम्ही तुम्ही ॥३॥
Literal translation
Why-vēḍē — Deva-in-front. No-back-no-belly — drinks-trailōkya-gulp. Own-soya-not-yours — who-loses-what. Tukā: sing-in-Nāmīm — no-tumhī-āmhī.
What it means
A 3-verse reassurance text. Why are you forcefully becoming distraught — Deva is right in front of you. He who has no back, no belly — yet makes a gulp of the three worlds. Your own way isn't yours — whose what is lost? Tukā sings in the realm of the Name — there is no 'we' and 'you' there. The paradox: no-back-no-belly (formless) but drinks-trailōkya-gulp (containing all-worlds in a sip). The unity: in-the-Name there's no tumhī-āmhī (no-we-and-you separation) — bhakti-non-dual fusion. Pair with 4310 (svāmī-darśana-petition).
For someone today
Tukaram asks why you are working yourself into panic and despair when God is right in front of you, not far away. The one you are searching for has no back, no belly, no shape at all, and yet holds the entire universe in a single gulp — so do not measure the divine by what you can see or touch. Nothing that happens to you is truly separate from your own path, so stop keeping score of who gains and who loses. When you sing the Name with real absorption, the whole sense of 'me' versus 'you' dissolves, and that dissolving is the point.
मराठी: तुकाराम विचारतात की देव तुमच्यासमोरच असताना तुम्ही उगीच अस्वस्थ आणि हतबल का होता. ज्याला ना पाठ आहे ना पोट, ना कोणताही आकार, तोच एका घोटात अवघे त्रैलोक्य सामावून घेतो — म्हणून परमेश्वराला डोळ्यांना दिसणाऱ्या रूपावरून मोजू नका. तुमच्यासोबत जे घडते ते खरेतर तुमच्याच वाटेपासून वेगळे नाही, त्यामुळे कोणाचे काय गेले याचा हिशोब ठेवणे सोडून द्या. नामात खरेखुरे बुडून गेलात की 'मी' आणि 'तू' हा भेदच विरघळून जातो, आणि तेच खरे साध्य आहे.
Where this applies
- When fear or panic grips you and you feel completely alone in a crisis
- When you catch yourself imagining God only as a distant figure with a fixed human shape
- When you are anxiously tallying what you have lost compared to others
- When you are singing or chanting and want to let go of the feeling of being a separate self facing the world