I'm addicted to approval — likes, praise, what everyone thinks of me
One response for both praise and blame: you are separate from each.
You check the number. You replay the comment. A compliment lifts you for an hour; a cool reply contracts you for a day. Somewhere along the way the question "what do they think of me?" stopped being occasional and became the background hum of every post, every meeting, every room you walk into. The praise feels like food, and you are always a little hungry.
Tukaram does not tell you to stop caring or to pretend you are above it. His move is quieter and steadier: he finds one response that works for both the praise and the blame. If you only know how to absorb the praise, you have also signed up to absorb the blame — they come from the same place, through the same door. He calls the position that takes neither as a verdict vegḷā dohīm pāsunī — "separate from both." Not numb. Separate.
And he relocates the metric. The thing approval-addiction quietly assumes is that other people's eyes are where your worth is decided. Tukaram keeps pointing the worth somewhere else — to a love that does not break (akhaṇḍita premabhāva), to a frame where comparison goes silent. What follows are five places in the Gatha where he meets exactly this hunger.
Abhang 48 — One answer for praise and blame
निंदी कोणी मारी । वंदी कोणी पूजा करी ॥१॥ मज हें ही नाहीं तें ही नाहीं । वेगळा दोहीं पासुनी ॥ध्रु.॥
This is the most direct answer to the addiction. Some abuse you, some worship you — and Tukaram's reply to both is the same: "to me, neither this nor that; I am separate from both." The point he makes is precise: the praise and the blame both land on the body, the public self, but they are not the verdict on who you are — deha-bhoga (bodily experience) just happens, and is not a ruling. When you catch yourself calibrating to the likes and contracting from the criticism, this is the single stance that frees you from both at once.
Abhang 6 — When comparison goes quiet
तुका म्हणे नव्हे आणिकांसारिखा । तो चि माझा सखा पांडुरंग ॥५॥
Approval-addiction runs on comparison: am I enough, am I better, did I win the room? Tukaram names the moment that frame switches off — navhe āṇikāmsārikhā, "he is not like anyone else." The mark of arriving at what is truly yours is not that you evaluated all the alternatives and it won; it's that the comparison column simply goes blank. For someone chasing approval, this is the relief: worth stops being a contest you have to keep winning, and becomes something outside the ranking altogether.
Abhang 68 — Moving the metric off status
ज्यांचा आवडता देव । अखंडित प्रेमभाव ॥ध्रु.॥ तीं च भाग्यवंतें । सरतीं पुरतीं धनवित्तें ॥२॥
Here Tukaram lifts the measuring stick. The truly fortunate (bhāgyavanta) are not the famous, the rich, the well-liked — they are the rare ones whose love does not break, akhaṇḍita premabhāva (unbroken love-feeling). That unbroken love is the wealth. When your sense of being "enough" is tied to applause, this abhang quietly rewrites the scoreboard: the thing that makes a life full is not how many people approve, but whether your devotion holds without gaps.
Abhang 276 — Why praise is shaky ground to stand on
जेणें मुखें स्तवी । तें चि निंदे पाठीं लावी ॥१॥ ऐसी अधमाची याती । लोपी सोनें खाय माती ॥ध्रु.॥
Tukaram is blunt about the currency you're chasing. "The mouth that praises you back-bites the same one" — the flatterer to your face is often the critic behind your back. He calls this the adhama (low) nature: hides the gold, eats the dirt. The lesson for the approval-addict is sobering and freeing at once: the praise you bank on is frequently two-tongued and unreliable, so building your worth on it is building on sand. Stop pricing yourself in a currency that flips the moment your back is turned.
Abhang 46 — The envy underneath the hunger
कोणा ही जिवाचा न घडो मत्सर । वर्म सर्वेश्वरपूजनाचें ॥२॥ तुका म्हणे एका देहाचे अवयव । सुख दुःख जीव भोग पावे ॥३॥
Underneath the craving for likes is usually comparison turned to envy — they got the attention, the praise, the position. Tukaram's correction is structural, not a scolding: "we are limbs of one body" (ekā dehāce avayava). Your envy of another is your right hand resenting your left. He even names matsara (jealousy) as the obstacle to genuine worship. Re-seeing the one-body frame dissolves the competition that keeps the approval-hunger fed — there is no one to beat, only limbs of the same body.
In one breath
Find one response for both the praise and the blame: receive neither as a verdict on who you are — separate from both. Move your sense of "enough" off the scoreboard of other people's eyes and onto a love that doesn't break, and let the comparison that feeds the hunger go quiet. The applause you chase is unreliable currency; your worth was never up for a vote.