Exhortation, wake before the road runs out
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कैसें असोनि ठाउकें नेणां । दुःख पावाल पुढिले पेणा ॥1॥
आतां जागें रे भाई जागें रे । चोर निजल्या नाडूनि भागे रे ॥ध्रु.॥
आतां नका रे भाई नका रे । आहे गांठीं तें लुटवूं लोकां रे ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे एकांच्या घायें । कां रे जाणोनि न धरा भये ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
How is it that, knowing full well where you stand, you act as though you do not? You will suffer at the next halt on the road. Wake up now, O brothers, wake up! The thief has tricked the sleeping ones and fled. Do not, brothers, do not let what you still hold in your hands be plundered by others. Says Tuka, seeing another fall by a single blow, why do you not take heed and feel fear?
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
How is it that, knowing exactly where you stand, you act as though you do not? You will suffer at the next stop on the road. Wake up now, O brothers, wake up. The thief has cheated the sleeping ones and run off. Do not, brothers, do not let what you still hold in your hands be plundered by others. Tuka says: when you see another felled by a single blow, why do you not take heed and feel afraid?
What it means
Tukaram shakes the listener awake: you know your true situation, so why live as if you do not, when the next halt on this journey will bring suffering? Spiritual life is treated as a road, and the wealth in hand is the time and devotion still left; the "thief" robs whoever stays asleep. He urges them not to let that remaining store be plundered through carelessness. The final question turns it personal: people fall around you in a single stroke, so let that be the warning that wakes a healthy fear in you before it is your turn.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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