Lament, the self-made trap
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
सुखें होतो कोठे घेतली सुती । बांधविला गळा आपुले हातीं ॥1॥
काय करूं बहु गुंतलों आतां । नये सरतां मागें पुढें ॥ध्रु.॥
होते गांठी तें सरलें येतां । आणीक माथां रीण जालें ॥2॥
सोंकरिलियाविण गमाविलें पिक । रांडापोरें भिके लावियेलीं ॥3॥
बहुतांचीं बहु घेतलीं घरें । न पडे पुरें कांहीं केल्या ॥4॥
तुका ह्मणे काही न धरावी आस । जावे हे सर्वस्व टाकोनिया ॥5॥
न मनावे तैसे गुरूचे वचन । जेणें नारायण अंतरे ते।
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I was living in peace somewhere when I bound the noose around my own neck with my own hands. What shall I do now? I am deeply entangled. There is no going forward or backward. Whatever savings I had are spent, and a new debt has piled upon my head. Without tending the field, the crop was lost. Wife and children have been driven to begging. I have borrowed from many and taken many homes, yet nothing ever suffices. Says Tuka, hold no longing for anything. Leave everything behind, cast it all away. Do not follow any teaching that keeps you apart from Narayana.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I was living happily somewhere when I tied the noose around my own neck with my own hands. What can I do now? I am deeply tangled. I cannot go back or forward. Whatever I had saved is spent, and a new debt has piled on my head. I did not tend the field, so the crop was lost. My wife and children have been sent out to beg. I borrowed from many and took many houses, yet nothing is ever enough. Tuka says: hold no longing for anything. Leave it all behind; cast everything away. Do not heed any teaching that keeps you apart from Narayana.
What it means
Tukaram speaks in the voice of a man who ruined his own peace and is naming the wreckage honestly. The noose, the debts, the lost crop, the family driven to beg: these are the worldly entanglements a person ties for himself out of craving and never finds enough. Then he turns the picture into instruction. The way out is not more borrowing or more managing but letting go of longing altogether and casting the whole burden away. The final test he gives is simple: any teaching that separates you from Narayana is the wrong rope to pick up.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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