My ego keeps inflating — even my good deeds feed my pride
Even charity that preserves the I-am-the-giver turns dharma into adharma.
You give, you study, you do the disciplines — and somewhere in the doing, a quiet voice keeps score. Look what I gave. Look how much I know. Look how serious I am about this. The very acts meant to make you smaller are making you bigger. You can feel it: the good deed leaves a residue of "I," and the residue is the problem.
Tukaram meets this without flattery. His diagnosis is uncomfortably simple — it is not what you do that decides things, it is what state you do it from. A good action carrying ego inside it does not stay good. In Abhang 90 he says it outright: charity that preserves ahantā (the I-am-the-giver) has केला अवघा चि अधर्म — "made all of it adharma." Dharma performed for the self flips into its opposite, like a few burnt sesame seeds ruining the whole pot of rice.
His answer is not "do more good deeds harder." It is to change the orientation underneath them — bhajan-of-Pandurang, practice aimed at God rather than at your own standing — and even to ask that the proud, knowing self be burned away (Abhang 1213). The cure is direction, not volume. So the diagnostic he hands you is one question, asked honestly: did this dissolve the I, or preserve it?
Abhang 90 — Burnt sesame in the rice
वांटिलें तें धन । केली अहंता जतन ॥४॥ तुका म्हणे चुकलें वर्म । केला अवघा चि अधर्म ॥५॥
This is the most direct answer to your question. Tukaram lists the good deeds — scriptural learning, tapas (austerity), pilgrimage, charity — and shows each one quietly feeding ahankar instead of dissolving it. "Wealth was distributed; I-am-the-giver was preserved." His verdict is that such effort "missed the secret" and turned the whole of it to adharma. The life-lesson is a test you can run on any good act: if it left the ego bigger, you missed the point, and the answer is not more of the same kind — it is reorienting the practice toward God, not toward your own reputation.
Abhang 320 — The learning that would have sunk me
विद्या असती कांहीं । तरी पडतों अपायीं ॥२॥ तुका म्हणे थोरपणें । नरक होती अभिमानें ॥५॥
Here Tukaram is grateful he was made a kuṇabī (a farmer) and not given high status, "otherwise I would have died in dambha (pretense)." He even thanks God that he had no vidyā (learning) — because learning with pride "would have made me fall into apāya (harm)." The closing rule speaks straight to your situation: थोरपणें नरक होती अभिमानें — greatness itself is fine, but greatness with abhimāna (pride) leads to naraka. The takeaway is precise: honor the good thing without taking pride in it; it is the pride attached to it, not the thing, that ruins you.
Abhang 1213 — Burn the self that knows
जाळा तुम्ही माझें जाणतें मीपण । येणें माझा खुण मांडियेला ॥१॥ तुका म्हणे मज तारीं गा विठ्ठला । नेणतां चि भला दास तुझा ॥३॥
This abhang names the deepest root of an inflating ego: the jāṇatē mīpaṇa, the I-am-knowing-self — the I have understood, I am the one doing this well posture that quietly grows under every good deed. Tukaram does not try to manage it; he prays Viṭṭhal to burn it, and says he is better as the nēṇatā dāsa, the unknowing servant. That is the answer when even your insight feeds your pride: stop polishing the knowing self and ask for it to be undone — the servant who does not keep score serves, while the one who knows merely performs.
Abhang 252 — Leaving, but carrying it with you
कुटुंबाचा केला त्याग । नाहीं राग जंव गेला ॥१॥ तुका म्हणे मागें पाय । तया जाय स्थळासि ॥३॥
Tukaram presses the same point into the realm of renunciation. A man can renounce his family, keep up his chanting routine, do all the outward good — but if the rāga (passion/anger) and sant-nindā (fault-finding) still sit in the belly, the bhajan is vōngaḷavāṇē (dirty) and the gesture changes nothing. मागें पाय तया जाय स्थळासि — taking the outward step while leaving the inside untouched, "he goes back to the same place." For you: the inflated ego is not fixed by adding more impressive practices on top of it; the inner state is the actual practice, and the form does not cleanse what the form is hiding.
Abhang 67 — The porter who carries the load for nothing
भाडेकरी वाहे पाठीवरी भार । अंतरींचें सार लाभ नाहीं ॥ध्रु.॥ तुका म्हणे फळ चिंतिती आदरें । लाघव हे चार शिंदळीचे ॥३॥
When the ego runs the show, even devotion becomes a transaction — a deed done for a payoff, for standing, for a return on the self. Tukaram's image is brutal: the hired porter carries the load on his back and gains nothing inwardly; the result-minded worshipper is "stone worshipping stone." This speaks to the part of pride that keeps a ledger — I did this, so I am owed. The cure he names is to remove the outcomes-frame entirely: practice as itself, not as a means to enlarge or reward the "I."
In one breath
Tukaram's answer is that a good deed carrying ego inside it is not a good deed — charity that preserves I-am-the-giver becomes adharma, and greatness with pride becomes naraka. So stop adding more impressive practices on top of the proud self; instead run one honest test — did this dissolve the I, or preserve it? — and turn the act toward God rather than your own standing, even praying that the knowing, scorekeeping self be burned away.