Money and work worries keep me up at night — how do I stop the panic?
On the belly-anxiety that drags you everywhere, and the economy of surrender.
You know the feeling: it's 3am, the numbers are running in your head, and the worry has a physical grip — somewhere in the gut. Tomorrow's bills, this month's income, the job that might go, the savings that won't stretch. You can't switch it off, and trying to switch it off only makes it louder. Tukaram knew this exact 3am precisely. He calls it pōṭa-bhaya — "belly-fear" — and he describes it as a thing that has stuck to your back and drags you country to country, following you wherever you flee.
His answer is not "don't worry, it'll be fine." It's sharper and stranger than that. First, he names the trap honestly: the belly never fills — chase it however far you like, the worry just kills you slowly (jhura-jhurūm marē, "dies wasting-away"). So the panic isn't a problem to be solved by getting more; more is exactly what it promises and never delivers. Second, he offers a different economy altogether. Where we're trained to think supply comes from grabbing, extracting, out-running others, Tukaram says the resourced position is the surrendered one — the one that has access to a source that doesn't run dry (the kāmadhenu, the wish-cow whose milk has no end).
Underneath all of it is a quiet reframe of what you're actually asking for at 3am. Usually it isn't really the money — it's the wish to feel held while you wait. Tukaram's instruction is to ask for that directly, to hand the ledger of debt and interest to someone else, and to stop trying to micromanage your own share. None of this is magic accounting. It's a way to put the panic down so you can sleep, and work the next day from steadiness instead of dread.
Abhang 1564 — the belly stuck to your back
पोट लागलें पाठीशीं । हिंडवितें देशोदेशीं ॥१॥ पोट काशियानें भरे । तुका म्हणे झुरझुरूं मरे ॥४॥
This is the diagnosis, and it is brutally accurate. The belly (your livelihood-anxiety) has clung to your back and makes you wander everywhere chasing security — and wherever you flee, it comes along. The killer line is the last: by what can the belly ever be filled? — it can't, and the one who keeps trying just dies worrying and wasting away. Naming the panic this exactly is itself the first relief: it stops you believing that one more deal, one more cushion, will finally quiet it. It won't. The chase is the disease, not the cure.
Abhang 44 — the cow that never runs dry
कामनेच्या त्यागें भजनाचा लाभ । जाला पद्मनाभ सेवाॠणी ॥ध्रु.॥ कामधेनूचिया क्षीरा पार नाहीं । इच्छेचिये वाही वरुषावे ॥२॥
Here is the alternative to the empty belly. We assume supply is something you extract from finite sources — your salary, your savings, your hustle — so of course it feels scarce and frightening. Tukaram points to a different store: the kāmadhenu, the wish-cow whose milk has no limit. The strange claim — we are the strong, the well-placed surrendered ones — is that letting go of grasping (kāmanechyā tyāgēm, "by abandoning craving") is not weakness but the access point to an economy that doesn't run out. When you stop white-knuckling the finite source, "no one stays empty."
Abhang 2528 — hand over the ledger
ॠणाच्या परिहारा जालों वोळगणा । द्यावी नारायणा वासलाती ॥१॥ आजिवरि होतों धरूनि जिवासी । व्याजें कासाविसी बहु केलें ॥२॥
If part of your 3am is literal debt, this abhang speaks straight to it. Tukaram says, in the language of money: the interest has caused me much distress (vyājē kāsāvīsī bahu kēlē) — the compounding worry that eats you alive. His move is to stop trying to clear the account by his own straining and instead ask God for the settlement (vāsalātī) — to become a bonded-servant and let the debt be discharged by service, not by panic. Practically: do your honest work, then put the ledger down at night. You are not the only accountant on the books.
Abhang 219 — take what comes, do the work in front of you
येइल तें घेइन भागा । नव्हे जोगा दुसरिया ॥१॥ तुका म्हणे राबवा देवा । करीन सेवा सांगितली ॥३॥
A huge amount of work-anxiety is the exhausting effort of trying to control the outcome — angling, second-guessing, specifying exactly what you need and then grieving what you got. Tukaram offers a cleaner stance: I'll take what comes as my share (yeīla tē gheīna bhāgā), and set me to work — I'll do the service told (rābavā devā). Stop specifying your preference; do the task actually in front of you. This is not passivity — it's the relief of being an honest worker rather than an anxious controller. You labor; you don't have to also carry the whole economy on your back.
Abhang 3 — ask for the thing under 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॥
When you pray (or wish, or strain) at 3am, you think you're asking for money. Tukaram suspects you're really asking to feel love and safety at all times (deīm maja prema sarva kāḷa) — the held feeling that would make the outcome-anxiety quieter. So he skips the outcome-prayer entirely and asks for that directly. His reason is precise: all happiness is already at your feet — when that sense of being-held is present, the prizes shrink; when it's absent, the same prizes balloon into 3am monsters. Ask for the deeper thing under the worry, and watch your grip on the outcome loosen.
Abhang 35 — being broke does not disqualify you
देव सोयरा देव सोयरा । देव सोयरा दीनाचा ॥ध्रु.॥ तुका म्हणे जेवी सवें । प्रेम द्यावें प्रीतीचें ॥३॥
Money-panic carries a quiet shame: I don't have enough, so I'm failing, so I'm disqualified. Tukaram cuts that at the root. God is the kin of the lowly (deva soyarā dīnāchā) — not as charity, but as family by preference. What is actually received from you is the inner sweetness, the feeling — and the resource-poor have at least as much of that as the wealthy. So whatever your bank balance, you are not shut out of the one economy that matters. The "enough" you're failing to reach is external; the only thing truly asked of you is internal, and that you already have.
Abhang 67 — stop turning everything into a transaction
भाडेकरी वाहे पाठीवरी भार । अंतरींचें सार लाभ नाहीं ॥ध्रु.॥ देवपूजेवरी ठेवूनियां मन । पाषाणा पाषाण पूजी लोभें ॥२॥
Modern anxiety runs on a transactional engine: do this so I get that. Tukaram is harsh on it — even spiritual practice done for payoff is just stone worshipping stone, out of greed, and the anxious striver is like a hired porter carrying weight with no inner gain. The relevance to your worry: as long as everything you do is a lever for an outcome, you live perpetually in the gap between effort and result — which is exactly where panic lives. His cure isn't a better outcome; it's removing the outcome-frame — doing the work as itself, not as a bet. Less of your life held hostage to results means fewer 3am ransom notes.
In one breath
The belly-fear can never be filled by chasing more — that chase is the panic itself, not its cure. So name it, hand the ledger of debt and worry to someone larger than you, take honestly what comes and do the work in front of you — and ask, underneath it all, not for the money but for the held feeling you actually want. From there you can sleep, and from there you can work.