Surrender, God strips us bare
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
काय करूं आतां माझिया संचिता । तेणें जीववित्ता साटी केली ॥1॥
न ह्मणावें कोणी माझें हें करणें । हुकुम तो येणें देवें केला ॥ध्रु.॥
करूनि मोकळा सोडिलों भिकारी । पुरविली तरी पाठी माझी ॥2॥
पाणिया भोंपळा जेवावया पानें । लाविलीं वो येणें देवें आह्मां ॥3॥
तुका ह्मणे यासी नाहीं वो करुणा । आहे नागवणा ठावा मज ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
What can I do about my own destiny? It has traded away my life and livelihood. Let no one say this was my doing; the order was given by God Himself. Having freed me, He released me as a beggar, yet He has stood behind me all along. A gourd for water, leaves for a plate: this is what God has given us. Says Tuka, He has no mercy; but His ways of stripping us bare are well known to me.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
What can I do now about my own fate? It has traded away my life and all I had. Let no one say this was my doing; the order came from God himself. He set me free and let me go a beggar, yet he has stood behind me all along. A gourd for water, leaves for a plate: this is what God has handed us. Tuka says: he has no pity; but his way of stripping us bare is well known to me.
What it means
Tukaram surrenders his ruin to God instead of blaming himself or fate. He owns that his life and livelihood are gone, then insists the doing was not his: God gave the order. The poverty is stark, a gourd to drink from and leaves to eat off, the kit of a beggar. He even says God shows no mercy. But the sting is also the teaching: this stripping bare is God's known method, the deliberate emptying of a devotee, and Tukaram names it rather than recoiling from it.
Surrender and Acceptance
The conditions of spiritual receptivity and the letting go of the separate self.
More in this theme →