Confession, straying from the fathers' path
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
होतीं नेणों जालीं कठिणें कठीण । जवळी च मन मनें ग्वाही ॥1॥
आह्मी होतों सोई सांडिला मारग । घडिलें तें मग तिकून ही ॥ध्रु.॥
नििंश्चतीनें होते पुढिलांची सांडी । न चाले ते कोंडी मायबापा ॥2॥
आह्मां नाहीं त्यांचा घडिला आठव । त्यांचा बहु जीव विखुरला ॥3॥
तुका ह्मणे जालें धर्माचें माहेर । पडिलें अंतर आह्मांकूनि ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Something has hardened, grown more rigid; the chitta knows its own truth. We abandoned the path we were on, and from that point everything has been stitched together differently. Through complacency, the ways of the ancestors were set aside; such force cannot be opposed, O Father and Mother. We failed to remember them, yet their hearts were torn for us. Says Tuka, the house of dharma, our true home, has become distant from us.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Things have grown hard, harder than hard; the mind is its own witness, close at hand. I let go of the road I was set on, and after that everything was stitched together some other way. Out of carelessness I set aside the ways of the elders; that force cannot be opposed, O Mother and Father. I did not keep them in mind, yet their hearts were torn for us. Tuka says: the house of dharma, my true home, has grown distant from me.
What it means
Tukaram examines a hardening in himself that no one else can testify to; only his own mind stands witness, right beside him. He admits he left the path he was meant to walk, and once he did, his life rearranged itself along other lines. The honest charge is carelessness: through complacency he set aside the practices the ancestors handed down. He forgot them while they grieved for him, and so the house of dharma, his real home, has drifted out of reach. The poem points at the slow drift of neglect, not at any single dramatic fall.
Confession and Sin
Raw, unflinching accounts of personal failure, weakness, and the weight of sin.
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