Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 53

The fifty-third verse holds the seeker's quietest plea. Do not let me be in your power without fruit, in this world where the body has been kept for so many days as no more than waste. May the boundless light arise within. Do not waste any more time. The seeker is asking the Lord not to keep him without granting the bodham (the inner light). The body has already been carried for many days, the verse says, as no more than waste; the seeker does not want the rest of his life to be the same waste.

If you have come to this verse aware that much of your life has felt like waste, the verse hands you the same complaint and turns it into a prayer. Do not let me be wasted further. Let the light come now.

The Living Words

Phalam-illayāte mama vaśam-ākkolā jagati mala-mūtramāyā-taḍi pala-nāḷ iruttiyu-ḍan. Without fruit, do not keep me in your power, in this world; (here) the body, made of urine and excrement, has been kept for many days. Phalam-illayāte is without fruit; vaśam is power; mala-mūtra is excrement-and-urine.

Aḷavu-illayāte veḷivu akamē udippatinnu kaḷayāy-ka kālam-ini Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. Without measure, for the light to arise within, do not waste any more time now. Aḷavu-illayāte is without measure, boundlessly; veḷivu is light, brightness; kaḷayāy-ka is please do not waste.

Scripture References

The Heart of It

The verse uses the body's most undignified language (the body as a vessel of excrement and urine, the aśuci tradition's classical reminder of the body's impermanence) and turns it into a plea. The seeker is not romantic about the body; the body is what the body is, and the body has been kept for many days. The seeker only asks that the body's remaining days not be wasted in the same way.

The verse's bhakti-tradition register is found in the Bhāgavata's eleventh book, the Uddhava Gītā: deha-asth-māṁsa-mayam asat, the body is unreal, made of bone and flesh. The recognition is not new; the verse-53 plea is not for the recognition but for what comes after the recognition: the boundless light arising.

The verse's most personal phrase is kaḷayāy-ka kālam ini: please do not waste any more time. The seeker is naming time as the actual scarce resource. The body is going. The days are going. The verse asks that the going not be in vain.

The Saints Who Walked This Road

Two saints whose lives held the verse-53 do-not-waste-the-remaining-days urgency.

King Khaṭvāṅga (already in verse 33) had a single muhūrta, less than an hour, and used it. The body image is the king at the battlefield's edge, the boon from Indra of one short hour, the inward turn that dissolved the kingdom and the king together in the same forty-eight minutes. The verse-53 plea is for the same not-wasting at any scale of remaining time.

Ādi Śaṅkara (already in verses 1, 14, 26, 28, 39) lived only thirty-two years and walked the country four times in those years, composing entire bhāṣyas on the major Upaniṣads, the Brahma Sūtras, and the Bhagavad Gītā, founding the four maṭhas, and writing dozens of stotras. He used every day. The body image is the ācārya on the road between Kalady and Sringeri and Jagannath Puri and Dvarka, the manuscripts being copied at every stop, the body's short remaining-days filled with Name and word.