The Name, the Indweller knows
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
इतन गोते काहे खाता । जब तूं आपणा भूल न होता ॥1॥
अंतरजामी जानत साचा । मनका एक उपर बाचा ॥2॥
तुकाप्रभु देसबिदेस । भरिया खाली नहिं लेस ॥3॥
मेरे रामको नाम जो लेवे बारोंबार । त्याके पाऊं मेरे तनकी पैजार ॥ध्रु.॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Why do you keep drowning when you could never truly be lost? The Indweller knows the truth. The mind holds one thing; the mouth speaks another. Says Tuka, the Lord pervades every land, every place. He fills all; not the slightest spot is empty. Whoever takes my Rama's name again and again, I would lay my body as sandals at their feet.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Why do you keep drowning, when you could never truly be lost? The Indweller knows the truth. The mind holds one thing and the mouth speaks another. Tuka says: the Lord fills every land and every place; he fills all, and not the smallest spot is empty. Whoever takes my Rama's name again and again, I would lay my body as sandals at their feet.
What it means
Tukaram asks why a person flounders in despair when, with God filling everything, they were never really lost. The trouble is the split between mind and mouth: saying one thing while holding another inside, when the Indweller sees straight through to the truth. He insists that the Lord pervades all places without leaving the least gap, so there is no nook where one is truly abandoned. The closing devotion is extreme on purpose: for anyone who repeats Rama's name constantly, Tukaram would make his own body the sandals at their feet. The Name, sincerely spoken, is what raises a person above the drowning.
The Power of the Name
The supremacy of nama-smarana: God's name as the highest practice.
More in this theme →