Loving reproach, the hide-and-seek God
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
व्यवहार तो खोटा । आतां न वजों तुझ्या वाटा॥1॥
एका नामा नाहीं ताळ । केली सहजरांची माळ ॥ध्रु.॥
पाहों जातां घाई। खेळसी लपंडाई ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे चार । बहु करितोसी फार॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Your dealings are false; I will no longer walk Your road. There is no consistency even in a single name; You have strung a garland of random beads. When I look closely, it becomes a battle; You play a game of hide and seek. Says Tuka, You make much ado over nothing.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Your dealings are false; I will not walk Your road any longer. There is no steadiness even in a single name; You have strung a garland of random beads. When I look closely it turns into a fight; You play a game of hide and seek. Tuka says: You make a great fuss over nothing.
What it means
Tukaram scolds God in the voice of an exasperated devotee. He accuses God of crooked dealings and threatens to stop following the path, but the tone is intimacy, not rejection. The complaints are about elusiveness: not even one steady name to hold, a garland of mismatched beads, a search that turns into a struggle, a Lord who hides as soon as you look for Him. The closing line, that God makes much ado over nothing, names the experience of seeking a God who keeps slipping away and dramatizing the chase. Underneath the reproach is the longing of someone who cannot find the one he refuses to stop looking for.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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