Renunciation, the snare of powers
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
भूत भविष्य कळों यावें वर्तमान । हें तों भाग्यहीन त्यांची जोडी ॥1॥
आह्मीं विष्णुदासीं देव ध्यावा चित्तें । होणार तें होतें प्रारब्धें ॥ध्रु.॥
जगरूढीसाटीं घातलें दुकान । जातो नारायण अंतरोनि ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे हा हो प्रपंच गाढा । थोरली ते पीडा रििद्धसिद्धी ॥3॥
॥घोंगडएाचे अभंग-॥12॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Knowing past, present, and future belongs only to the fortune of the wretched. We, the servants of Vishnu, meditate on God with the chitta. What is destined happens through prarabdha. Setting up a shop for the sake of worldly convention only drives Narayana further away. Says Tuka, this worldly entanglement runs deep. The greatest affliction is riddhi-siddhi, the powers of attainment.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Knowing past, future, and present: that gift belongs only to the wretched. We, the servants of Vishnu, keep our mind on God. Whatever is destined happens through prarabdha. To set up a shop for the sake of worldly fashion only drives Narayana away from us. Tuka says: this worldly entanglement runs deep. The greatest affliction is riddhi and siddhi, the powers of attainment.
What it means
Tukaram is refusing the very powers that most seekers crave. To foresee past, present, and future, he says, is no blessing but the lot of the unlucky, because it turns the eye away from God toward display. The servant of Vishnu does only one thing: he keeps his mind on the Lord and lets prarabdha, the ripened fruit of past action, run its course. To trade on such powers, to open a shop and draw a crowd, is to lose Narayana himself. So he names the real danger: riddhi and siddhi, the occult attainments that look like the summit of the path, are in truth its worst affliction.
Renunciation
The case for letting go of worldly attachments and turning wholly to God.
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