Surrender, the rite fulfilled in self-offering
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पिंड पदावरी । दिला आपुलिये करीं ॥1॥
माझें जालें गयावर्जन । फिटलें पितरांचें ॠण ॥ध्रु.॥
केलें कर्मांतर । बोंब मारिली हरिहर ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे माझें । भार उतरलें ओझें ॥3॥ ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I have placed this body at the feet of the Lord with my own hands. My pilgrimage to Gaya is accomplished, and the debt to my ancestors is cleared. I have performed the final rite by calling out to Hari. Says Tuka, the heavy burden I carried has been lifted from me.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I have placed this body at his feet with my own hands. My pilgrimage to Gaya is done; the debt to my ancestors is cleared. I have performed the last rite; I cried out the names of Hari and Hara. Tuka says: the load I carried, that heavy weight, has come off me.
What it means
Tukaram takes the language of funeral and ancestral rites and turns it inward. With his own hands he offers his body at the Lord's feet, and he says this self-offering accomplishes everything the pilgrimage to Gaya and the rites for the dead were meant to do, even clearing the debt owed to the ancestors. The final rite he performs is simply crying out the divine names. The radical claim is that surrender to God is itself the complete sacrament, and the weight he names lifting off is the whole burden of obligation a person carries through life.
Surrender and Acceptance
The conditions of spiritual receptivity and the letting go of the separate self.
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