Devotion, made into a beggar by God
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तुझा संग पुरे संग पुरे । संगति पुरे विठोबा ॥1॥
आपल्या सारिखें करिसी दासां । भिकारिसा जग जाणे ॥ध्रु.॥
रूपा नाहीं ठाव नांवा । तैसें आमुचें करिसी देवा ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे तोयें आपुलें भेंडोळें । करिसी वाटोळें माझें तैसें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Enough of Your company, O Vitthal, enough. You make Your servants just like Yourself, and the world sees them as beggars. You have no fixed form, no settled name, and You would make our condition the same. Says Tuka, You first wrap Your own bundle in rags, and then You do the same to mine.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Enough of your company, Vithoba, enough. You make your servants just like yourself, and then the world sees them as beggars. You have no fixed form and no settled name, and you would make us the same. Tuka says: you first wrap your own bundle in rags, and then you do the same to mine.
What it means
Tukaram complains to Vithoba with affection and a knowing smile. The complaint is that God remakes his devotees in his own likeness: since God has no fixed form or name and owns nothing, his servants too end up formless, nameless, and looking like beggars to the world. The image of the rag-wrapped bundle is the joke and the point at once: God carries his own goods in rags, and he hands the same lot to his own. Beneath the teasing is praise, that being made poor and unmarked like God is exactly what the devotee has received, even if the world calls it loss.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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