Longing, the servant's poverty shames God
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
काय करील तें नव्हे विश्वंभर । सेवका दारिद्र लाज नाहीं ॥1॥
मजपासूनि हें पडिलें अंतर । काय तो अव्हेर करूं जाणे ॥ध्रु.॥
नामाच्या चिंतनें नासी गर्भवास । नेदी करूं आस आणिकांची ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे नेणों किती वांयां गेले । तयां उद्धरिलें पांडुरंगें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
What is there that the sustainer of the world cannot do? Is he not ashamed that his own servant suffers in poverty? The distance has come from my side; how could he know how to neglect? By contemplating his name, even the torment of rebirth is destroyed; he never lets one place hope in any other. Says Tuka, I do not know how many were lost in vain, yet Panduranga dissolved them all.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
What is there that the sustainer of the world cannot do? Is he not ashamed that his own servant lives in poverty? The distance between us came from my side. How would he know how to cast me off? By thinking on his name, even the torment of rebirth is destroyed; he lets you put your hope in no one else. Tuka says: I do not know how many were lost in vain, yet Panduranga lifted them all.
What it means
Tukaram presses God with a loving reproach. The one who sustains the whole world can surely do anything, so the servant's poverty reflects on the master, and Tukaram asks whether God is not ashamed of it. Then he turns honest: the gap was opened from his side, not God's, and a God like this does not even know how to abandon anyone. He points to the cure, dwelling on the Name, which dissolves the misery of rebirth and leaves no room to hope in any other. The closing testimony answers his own worry: countless others seemed lost beyond saving, and Panduranga raised every one of them.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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