The gopis, stealing away to God
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
धन्य बा हएा ऐशा नारी । घरीं दारीं नांदती ॥1॥
चोरूनिया तुजपाशीं । येतां त्यांसी न कळतां ॥ध्रु.॥
दोन्हीं ठायीं समाधान । सम कठीण बहुतचि ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे जीवासाठीं । दुर्लभ भेटी ते देवा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Blessed are those women who live as wives and householders, yet manage to steal away to You without their families knowing. To keep both spheres content at once is exceedingly difficult. Says Tuka, for the sake of the jiva, the meeting with God is the rarest of all.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Blessed are those women. They live in their homes as wives and keep their households. Yet they steal away to You, and their families never know they have gone. To keep both worlds content at once is very hard. Tuka says: for the sake of the soul, the meeting with God is the rarest thing of all.
What it means
Tukaram blesses the gopis, who run two lives at once. In the house they are faithful wives and mothers; in secret they slip out to be with Krishna, and the household never finds out. He marks how hard this is, to keep the world satisfied and still keep the tryst. Then he names the stakes: of everything a soul could want, the meeting with God is the rarest. The hidden love is worth the difficulty, because nothing else is this scarce.
Krishna Leela
Poems celebrating Krishna's birth, childhood, and divine play.
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