Verse 56 of 68
Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 56
മന്നിങ്കൽ വന്നിഹ പിറന്നന്നു തൊട്ടു പുന-
രെന്തൊന്നു വാങ്മനസുകായങ്ങൾ ചെയ്തതതു-
മെന്തിന്നി�മേലിലതുമെല്ലാം നിനക്കു ഹൃദി-
സന്തോഷമായ് വരിക നാരായണായ നമഃmanniṅkal vanniha piṟannannu toṭṭu puna- rentonnu vāṅmanasukāyaṅṅaḷ ceytatatu- mentinni�mēlilatumellāṁ ninakku hṛdi- santōṣamāy varika nārāyaṇāya namaḥ
“From the moment I came and was born here, whatever speech, mind, and body have done, and will do hereafter, let all of that, in your heart, become a delight. Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.”
The fifty-sixth verse holds a complete dedication. From the moment I came and was born here, whatever speech, mind, and body have done, and will do hereafter, let all of that, in your heart, become a delight. The seeker offers, in one breath, the entire span of his life, past, present, and future, in word, mind, and body, to the Lord. The plea is that all of it become delight in the Lord's heart, regardless of the moral quality of any individual act.
If you have come to this verse with a long history of acts you regret and acts you cannot undo, the verse offers a yathā-tathā (as-it-is) dedication. The seeker is not asked to clean up the record before offering. The seeker offers the record as it is. The Lord's delight is what handles the rest.
The Living Words
Vannu en kālam itu janittu kālam-itu eḷḷaṁ vāy-um manas-um meyy-um ceyt-atum cey-ya-tum bhavān-uḍe hṛd-i ahaṁ-cor-aviṟ akkam-eḻum-iha. From the moment I came and was born here, whatever the mouth (vāy), the mind (manas), and the body (meyy) have done and will do, in your heart let it become ahaṁ-cor (a kind of delight, sweet to the Lord). The verse uses the vāk-mānas-deha triad: speech, thought, action.
Scripture References
Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer, whatever you give, whatever you do as austerity, do it as an offering to me.
यत्करोषि यदश्नासि यज्जुहोषि ददासि यत् । यत्तपस्यसि कौन्तेय तत्कुरुष्व मदर्पणम् ।।
yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi yaj juhoṣi dadāsi yat | yat tapasyasi kaunteya tat kuruṣva mad-arpaṇam ||
Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer, whatever you give, whatever you do as austerity, son of Kuntī, do it as an offering to me.
Krishna's Sanskrit form of total surrender. The verse-56 plea names every human category (mouth, mind, body; past and future) and offers them all to the Lord, asking that all of them become sweet in the Lord's heart.
The Heart of It
The verse is a complete aśeṣa-samarpaṇa, total surrender. The Sanskrit canon calls this prapatti with the additional condition of kṛta-akṛta-samarpaṇa: surrender of what has been done and what has not yet been done. The seeker holds nothing back, including the future.
The Bhagavad Gītā 9.27 gave the canonical Sanskrit form. Yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi yaj juhoṣi dadāsi yat; yat tapasyasi kaunteya tat kuruṣva mad-arpaṇam. Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer, whatever you give, whatever you do as austerity, son of Kuntī, do it as an offering to me. Krishna names every category of human action and asks them all to be offered. The verse-56 eḷḷaṁ ceyt-atum cey-ya-tum is the Malayalam compression of this Sanskrit yat-yat-yat: everything done and everything to be done.
The seeker's offer is bold. Let it become delight in your heart. The verse does not ask the Lord to forgive the past or to bless the future; the verse asks the Lord to delight in all of it. The bhakti-tradition has held this as the Lord's grace: the offered life, even the imperfect life, becomes sweet in the Lord's heart by virtue of being offered at all.
If you have come to this verse holding shame about your past, the verse offers a substitution. Stop trying to clean the past. Offer the past, with the present, and the future, all at once, to the Lord. The Lord's hṛd (heart) is what makes the offering sweet, not the seeker's editing.
The Lord's hṛd is what makes the offering sweet, not the seeker's editing.
The Saints Who Walked This Road
Two saints whose lives held the verse-56 yathā-tathā offering.
Ājamīla (already in verses 11, 31), at the moment of his death, did not have time to edit his record. The Yamadūtas were already at the door. He called the name of his son Nārāyaṇa and the Lord's heart received it as the offering, even though the call was for the wrong reason. The body image is the dying Brahmin in his hut, the un-edited life on the bed, the Nārāyaṇa arriving at the right time and being received as sweet.
Karmabaī (already in verse 20), the unlettered Rajasthani-Odisha woman, offered the Lord khichaḍī without knowing the temple-cooking rules. The Lord ate. She did not edit her offering; she did not learn the Sanskrit upacāra-mantras. The Lord's heart received the simple meal because the meal was offered with no editing. Body image: the old woman at the kitchen fire, the brass pot of khichaḍī, the deity who came and ate without checking the recipe.
The Refrain
ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃ
Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.