Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 48

The forty-eighth verse names the bhakti-tradition's harshest observation about the egoistic seeker. Some, thinking nothing exists higher than this place they have, fight with everyone, jabber, push forward with the I-thought, and so, alas, you cut them down. The verse names the seeker who has mistaken his own attainment for the supreme and is using it to argue, dispute, and dominate. The Lord, the verse says, cuts them down: not in cruelty, but in the natural consequence of the ahaṁ-buddhi (I-thought) running unchecked.

If you have come to this verse with a long pattern of arguing your spiritual point, of pushing your understanding against others' understandings, the verse names the cost of that posture. The cost is not external; it is the way the I-thought corrodes the seeker from inside.

The Living Words

Thallinnu mīte param illennum orttum-uḍa-nellārōḍum kutaṟi vāpēśiyum sapadi. Thinking that nothing higher exists than this place they hold, fighting with everyone, jabbering away in the moment. Thallinnu mīte is higher than this; kutaṟi is fighting, struggling against; vāpēśi is jabber.

Taḷḷippuṟappeṭum ahaṁ-buddhi-koṇḍu bata kollunnu nī cilare Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. Pushing forward with the ahaṁ-buddhi (I-thought), alas, you cut some of them down. Ahaṁ-buddhi is the I-thought, the I-conviction; kollunnu is kills, cuts down.

Scripture References

The Heart of It

The verse names a specific failure mode of the spiritual life: the seeker who has, by sincere effort, attained some recognition, some practice-stability, some bhakti, and has then begun to defend that attainment against everyone else. The recognition becomes a position; the position becomes a fortress; the fortress becomes a small kingdom of ego. The Sanskrit canon's name for this is adhyātmikam ahaṁ-kāram, spiritual ego: the most subtle form of ahaṁ-kāra, the ego that takes pride in its own spiritual progress.

The Bhagavad Gītā, in its sixteenth chapter, describes the āsuri-prakṛti (the demonic temperament) precisely: those who say I am the Lord; I am the enjoyer; I am perfected, and use this to dominate. Iṣṭān bhogān hi vo devā dāsyante, they say to themselves, the gods will give us the enjoyments we want. They argue, they fight, they push. Krishna's verdict is harsh: such people fall into lower states.

Verse 48 names this same outcome in plain Malayalam. Kollunnu nī cilare: you cut some of them down. The Lord is not cruel; the ahaṁ-buddhi itself is the cutting-down. When the I-thought has consumed the seeker's recognition, the recognition is no longer protective. The seeker's defense of his attainment becomes the means by which his attainment is undone.

If you have come to this verse with a tendency to argue from your spiritual position, the verse is a warning, with affection. The bhakti tradition's standard has always been the amānin (the one who claims no honor) of verse 21's pull quote. The ahaṁ-buddhi of verse 48 is the opposite. The verse asks the seeker to choose, daily, between them.

The Saints Who Walked This Road

Two figures the bhakti-tradition holds as warnings against the verse-48 ahaṁ-buddhi.

Duryodhana, in the Mahābhārata, is the Sanskrit canon's most direct example of ahaṁ-buddhi taken to its extreme. He had the lineage, the wealth, the army, the court of advisors. He took these as proof that nothing higher than his position existed. He fought with everyone, jabbered (the long debating halls of Hastinapura), pushed forward against every attempt at peace including Krishna's own emissarial visit. The Mahābhārata records his end exactly as the verse names it: kollunnu nī cilare, you cut some of them down. The body image is the king at the gambling-hall, the dice rolling against him, the ahaṁ-buddhi never stopping even as the kingdom fell.

Rāvaṇa, in the Rāmāyaṇa, is the parallel example. He had the vāhana, the army, the amṛta-derived immortality, the boon from Brahmā. He used these to take Sītā by force and to fight every counsel that warned him. His own brother Vibhīṣaṇa walked out (verse 12, verse 30); Rāvaṇa fought to the end. The body image is the ten-headed king in Laṅkā, the heads each a different argument, none of them able to silence the others, the ahaṁ-buddhi multiplied by ten.