Nature of God, the mother's hard mercy
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पुढिलिया सुखें निंब देतां भले । बहुत वारलें होय दुःख ॥1॥
हें तों वर्म असे माउलीचे हातीं । हाणी मारी प्रीती हितासाठीं ॥ध्रु.॥
खेळतां विसरे भूक तान घर । धरूनियां कर आणी बळें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे पाळी तोंडऴिचया घांसें । उदार सर्वस्वें सर्वकाळ ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
A mother gives bitter medicine for the sake of future health, and much suffering is averted. This is the secret in a mother's hands: she strikes and scolds out of love, for the child's own good. When the child, lost in play, forgets hunger, thirst, and home, she takes its hand and pulls it back by force. Says Tuka, she feeds it mouthful by mouthful, generous with everything she has at all times.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
A mother gives the bitter neem for the sake of health to come, and much suffering is turned away. This is the secret held in a mother's hands: she strikes and scolds out of love, for the child's own good. When the child, lost in play, forgets hunger, thirst, and home, she takes its hand and pulls it back by force. Tuka says: she feeds it mouthful by mouthful, giving everything she has, at every hour.
What it means
Tukaram answers the fear that God's harshness means rejection by pointing to a mother. She forces bitter medicine and scolds and even drags the child home, and every one of these hard acts is done out of love and for the child's welfare. The blows are not the opposite of her care; they are the form her care takes when the child, absorbed in play, has forgotten what it needs. So apparent punishment from God is read here as the same tending hand. The poem closes on the gentler side of that same love: a mother who also feeds the child by hand, mouthful by mouthful, holding back nothing, always.
The Nature of God
Explorations of God's character, power, grace, and relationship to the world.
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