I'm anxious all the time and can't stop worrying — how do I find calm?
If the deity has charge of it, you don't have to keep carrying it.
You know the feeling: the mind won't sit still even for a minute. One worry hands off to the next, the body stays braced, and "I should just fix this myself" quietly becomes heavier than the problem you started with. You're tired of carrying it, but you can't seem to put it down.
Tukaram knows this state from the inside — he is not lecturing you from above it. In one abhang he simply admits, "my mind is restless, it doesn't stay steady, not even for a moment" — and then does the only thing that worked for him: he stops relying on his own effort and leans the whole weight on something larger. That is his answer to worry. Not "think harder" or "calm down," but set the burden down — hand it to the deity who, in his framework, is structurally able to take it. The catch he names honestly: if you're still carrying it, you haven't actually handed it over yet.
What he promises on the other side of that handing-over is not numbness. It is nirbhaya (fearlessness) and sukha (a settled, well-being kind of happiness) — God standing both behind and ahead of you, "unravelling the knot" of distress, while you get to pass your days lightly instead of bracing against them.
Abhang 1731 — When the mind won't hold still
मन माझें चपळ न राहे निश्चळ । घडी एकी पळ स्थिर नाहीं ॥१॥ तुका म्हणे माझा न चले सायास । राहिलों हे आस धरुनी तुझी ॥३॥
This is the anxious mind described exactly: capaḷa (restless, fickle), unable to stay steady "for even one ghaḍī or paḷa" — the short time-units, roughly minutes and seconds. Tukaram doesn't pretend he conquered it by willpower; he says plainly "my own effort doesn't run" — sāyāsa, striving, fails. What steadies him is not a technique but a relationship: "I have stayed, holding only this hope of yours." The lesson for an anxious person is permission to stop white-knuckling: when your effort to control the worry has clearly stopped working, that exhaustion is the doorway, not the failure. You rest on something other than your own grip.
Abhang 43 — What burden is mine, if you've taken charge?
करिसी अंगीकार । तरी काय माझा भार ॥२॥ मज सोडवीं दातारा । कर्मापासूनि दुस्तरा ॥ध्रु.॥
Here is the heart of the matter — "if you take charge, then what burden is mine?" Tukaram's logic is uncomfortably clean: if you've genuinely handed the thing over, you're no longer carrying it; and if you're still carrying it, you haven't actually handed it over. The continued weight is itself the evidence. For the chronic worrier whose "I should fix this myself" has grown heavier than the original problem, this abhang says the bottleneck isn't better surrender-language — it's the actual act of setting it down. The deity is available to take what you give; the only step that's yours is the giving.
Abhang 1635 — God stands behind you and ahead of you
आम्हां हरिच्या दासां कांहीं । भय नाहीं त्रैलोकीं ॥१॥ देव उभा मागें-पुढें । उगवी कोडें संकट ॥ध्रु.॥
Worry is fear about what's coming. This abhang answers it directly: "to us, Hari's servants, there is no fear at all in the three worlds — God stands behind and ahead, and unravels the knot of distress." The image is precise comfort: you are not facing the future alone and forward-facing — māgē-puḍhē, the deity is positioned on both sides of you. And sankaṭa (the tangle, the crisis) is described as a kōḍē, a puzzle that he untangles, not one you must solve by churning it over at 3 a.m. The closing program is disarmingly simple: just be in sukha and sing. That is what's left when the dread is taken off your shoulders.
Abhang 2407 — Once you've handed yourself over, what's left to fear?
समर्पिलों जीवें भावें । काशा भ्यावें कारणें ॥ध्रु.॥ तुका म्हणे माप भरूं । दिस सारूं कवतुकें ॥३॥
This is the settled state on the far side of worry. "Surrendered with my whole being — why would I fear, and for what reason?" — samarpilōm jīvē bhāvē means a handing-over made not as a slogan but with life and feeling. Once that's real, fear loses its footing; it has nothing to attach to. And the everyday texture that follows is the opposite of bracing: "whatever I do is delight; fill out the measure of days, pass them lightly." For someone whose every day is spent anticipating the next problem, Tukaram offers the alternative — days sārūm kavatukē, passed in delight rather than in dread.
Abhang 3 — Ask for the love underneath the worry
गोड तुझें रूप गोड तुझें नाम । देईं मज प्रेम सर्व काळ ॥ध्रु.॥ तुका म्हणे कांहीं न मागे आणीक । तुझे पायीं सुख सर्व आहे ॥३॥
Anxiety is usually a swarm of outcome-prayers: let this go well, let that not happen. Tukaram quietly skips a level. He doesn't ask for the outcomes — he asks for prema, love itself, "at all times." His reasoning lands the whole page: "all happiness is at your feet." When love is present, the prizes you were anxious about shrink; when it's absent, that absence is exactly what makes them loom so large. So the next time you catch yourself praying-by-worrying for a specific result, his challenge is to ask what's underneath it — usually just the wish to feel held while you wait. Ask for that directly, and watch what happens to your grip on the outcome.
Abhang 47 — When you finally stop bracing
आम्ही जरी आस । जालों टाकोनि उदास ॥१॥ गेले मानामान । सुखदुःखाचें खंडन ॥४॥
This names the deep calm that arrives after the grip lets go — and it names it carefully, because it can be mistaken for going flat. Once hope-as-anxious-clutching is set down, the fear that rode on it goes too: "now what fear holds me?" The categories that used to keep you keyed-up — honor and dishonor, this-is-a-good-day / bad-day — stop being load-bearing. Tukaram gives a clear test so you don't confuse this peace with depression: is there khantī — sorrow, regret, weight — still being carried in the chest? "We do not carry sorrow in the mind." If the quiet comes without that ache, it isn't numbness; it's the equanimity that worry was blocking all along.
In one breath
Stop trying to out-think the worry — your own effort isn't what steadies the mind, and Tukaram says so from experience. Hand the thing over for real (if you're still carrying it, it isn't handed over yet); trust that the deity stands behind and ahead of you and unties the knot you can't; and let what's left be sukha — days passed lightly, fear with nothing to grip, no sorrow carried in the chest.