Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 23

The twenty-third verse is the seeker's plain question. Why is it taking so long? The poet, with folded hands, salutes the Lord and asks why one-pointed devotion has not yet arisen in him. The Krishna Priya gloss reads the verse with sympathy: the goal of human birth is God-realization; devotion along with self-enquiry is the path; one-pointed devotion helps to focus mind in doing self-enquiry; the seeker is asking why this concentration has not yet come. The verse names the most common practitioner-frustration in the bhakti tradition: years of practice, and the mind still scatters.

If you have come to this verse with a long-standing practice that has produced more dryness than fruit, with the fear that you may have done it wrong, the verse is for you. The verse does not give an explanation. It hands you the prayer the seeker can hold while waiting: Why so late? Please come.

The Living Words

Lokāram-ādi-mutalāyiṭṭu jñān-um iha. Starting from the letter L, here, I (the poet). The verse explicitly marks the alphabet-key: this is the verse that begins with L in the Malayalam alphabet sequence.

Kai-koppi vīṇu iṛaikkunnu nāthon-uḍu. With folded hands, falling and praying, before the Lord. Kai-koppi is with hands joined; vīṇu is fallen, prostrate; iṛaikkunnu is praying, beseeching; nāthon-uḍu is to the Lord.

Ekānta-bhaktiyakame vannu udippatu. For one-pointed devotion to dawn within. Ekānta is one-pointed, single-aim; udippatu is the dawning, the rising. The verse names the specific quality that has not yet arisen.

Vaikunnatu entu Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. Why is it being delayed? Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa. Vaikunnatu is the delay, the slowness. The Malayalam grammar carries the seeker's plain question without disguise.

Scripture References

The Heart of It

The verse is one of the most personally honest in the work. After twenty-two verses of teaching, the poet stops, folds his hands, and asks the Lord, in the simplest possible way, why is it taking so long?

The question is not a complaint. It is the seeker's discovery that the practice cannot produce the fruit by its own effort. Verse 7 said: the discipline is not the seeker's; the discipline is the Name's. Verse 23 is the seeker's recognition that the fruit is also not the seeker's. Ekānta-bhakti, one-pointed devotion, is granted, not seized. The seeker can recite the Name. The seeker can serve at the guru's feet. The seeker can keep the bow daily. The actual udayam, the dawning of one-pointed devotion, arrives in its own time, by grace.

The Bhagavad Gītā gave this honest acknowledgement an honest Sanskrit form. Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate; vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā sudurlabhaḥ. At the end of many births, the wise one takes refuge in me, knowing Vāsudeva is everything; such a great soul is very rare. Krishna does not say the dawning happens on schedule. He says it happens at the end of many births, and the great soul who arrives there is sudurlabha, very rare. The verse-23 vaikunnatu entu is the seeker's frustration with this slowness. The Sanskrit bahūnāṁ janmanām ante is the Lord's quiet reply: it takes as long as it takes.

If you have come to this verse afraid that your practice has been wasted, the verse is gentler than the fear. The verse is, by its own structure, part of the practice. The honest question, said with folded hands, said inside the recitation, is itself a movement of bhakti. The seeker who has not yet been given ekānta-bhakti has been given the prayer for ekānta-bhakti, which is the form devotion takes for those who have not yet arrived. The prayer, in time, becomes the arrival. The Krishna Priya gloss is wise about this: Among the crores and crores of holy names, one can choose any name and stick on to that for developing focus. The seeker does not have to wait for ekānta-bhakti to descend; the seeker can begin the focus by sticking, day after day, to one Name.

The verse's most pastoral word is vaikunnatu, being late. The Malayalam grammar is the same a child uses with a parent. Why are you so late? The question is not metaphysical. It is the question of a child waiting for a parent's hand at the school gate. The verse names the seeker as that child and asks the Lord to be the parent who finally arrives.

The Saints Who Walked This Road

Three saints who lived the verse-23 question.

Nārada, the cosmic ṛṣi-singer of the bhakti tradition, in the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra he composed (or that was composed in his name), answers this very question for the seekers around him. Sā tu asmin parama-prema-rūpā: amṛtasvarūpā ca. It (bhakti) is supreme love; it is of the form of immortality. The seeker who asks why so late? is told by Nārada that the answer is in the asking. The body image is the cosmic singer with his vīṇā, walking the worlds, naming the practice by name and answering the seeker's frustration with a simple sentence: bhakti is itself the destination, not only the path.

Kṛṣṇa-priya (the verse's commentator), late twentieth-century Kerala-online, is herself an exemplar of the slow bhakti the verse names. Her commentary on the Harināma Kīrtanam was written in plain Indian English over years on a quiet WordPress blog, not in any temple, not for any community of the orthodox. The commentary is the form her ekānta-bhakti took. The body image is the woman at the keyboard, the verses arriving one at a time, the slow patient gloss the verse's own teaching invited.

Dhruva (referenced in verse 12), at five years old, asked Nārada the same question. The five-year-old's version was simpler: who has a higher seat than my father? The cosmic singer gave him the dvādaśākṣarī-mantra and walked away. The boy did japa under a tree. The Lord appeared. The body image is the boy under the tree, the japa arriving at six, the polestar at the end. The slowness was not the Lord's; it was the boy's preparation. The same is asked of every seeker.