Metaphor, the thief within
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
मी माझें करित होतों जतन । भीतरिल्या चोरें घेतलें खानें ॥1॥
मज आल्याविण आधीं च होता । मज न कळतां मज माजी ॥ध्रु.॥
घोंगडें नेलें घोंगडें नेलें । उघडें केलें उघडें चि ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे चोरटा चि जाला साव । सहज चि न्याय नाहीं तेथें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I was guarding what was mine, but the thief within took what I had stored. He was there even before I arrived, dwelling within me without my knowing. The blanket is gone, the blanket is gone. I have been left utterly naked. Says Tuka, the thief Himself has become the honest one. In that place, ordinary justice does not hold.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I was guarding what was mine, but the thief inside took what I had stored. He was already there before I came, dwelling within me without my knowing. The blanket is gone, the blanket is gone. I have been left utterly naked. Tuka says: the thief Himself has become the honest one. In that place, ordinary justice does not hold.
What it means
Tukaram discovers that the robber was never outside; the thief lives within. He kept watch over what he called his own, only to find that an inner presence had quietly emptied his store. That presence was there before he ever arrived, indwelling and unnoticed: God, the true Self closer than the self he guarded. With the blanket gone he stands wholly bare, every covering of ego stripped away. The final paradox is that the thief turns out to be the only honest one, and that where God is at work, the ordinary rules of justice and ownership simply do not apply.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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