Complaint, the unreachable God
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तुजशीं संबंध चि खोटा । परता परता रे थोंटा ॥1॥
देवा तुझें काय घ्यावें । आप आपणां ठकावें ॥ध्रु.॥
जेथें मुदल न ये हातां । व्याज मरावें लेखितां ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे ऐसा । त्रिभुवनीं तुझा ठसा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
This relationship with You is simply false. Keep retreating, again and again, O Incomplete One. What is there to receive from You, O God? One only ends up deceiving oneself. Where the principal itself cannot come to hand, one only exhausts oneself calculating the interest. Says Tuka, such is Your imprint across all three worlds.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
This bond with you is simply false. Keep backing away, again and again, O Incomplete One. What is there to receive from you, O God? You only end up cheating yourself. Where the principal itself never comes to hand, you wear yourself out reckoning the interest. Tuka says: such is your imprint across the three worlds.
What it means
Tukaram speaks in the voice of a wounded lover and a frustrated creditor at once, calling the whole arrangement with God false because God keeps withdrawing. He pushes the complaint to its edge, even naming God "the Incomplete One," the one who never fully gives himself. His ledger image carries the sting: if you cannot even lay hold of the principal, the original promised presence, then counting up the interest is wasted effort that only exhausts you. The closing line widens the charge from his own case to all three worlds, saying this elusiveness is simply God's mark everywhere. Read against itself, the harshness is a goad: it points at the soul's own grasping, calculating relationship to God, which can never reach a Presence that refuses to be possessed.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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