Renunciation, only Your feet hold still
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
करूं जातां सन्निधान । क्षणि जन पालटे ॥1॥
आतां गोमटे ते पाय । तुझे माय विठ्ठले ॥ध्रु.॥
हें तों आलें अनुभवा । पाहावें जीवावरूनि ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे केला त्याग । सर्वसंग ह्मणऊनि ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
When you try to get close to people, they change in an instant. Therefore, O Mother Vitthal, Your feet alone are beautiful. This truth has come through experience; one must test it at the cost of one's life. Says Tuka, that is why I have renounced all worldly attachments.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
When you try to draw close to people, they change in an instant. Now Your feet alone are beautiful, O Mother Vitthal. This has come to me through experience; it must be tested at the cost of one's life. Tuka says: that is why I have renounced every attachment.
What it means
Tukaram has learned the unreliability of people the hard way: get close and they turn on you in a moment. Against that shifting ground he sets the one thing that does not change, the feet of Vitthal, whom he addresses tenderly as Mother. He insists this is not a borrowed idea but a truth proven through lived experience, the kind one tests with one's whole life. That proof is the reason he gives for letting go of every worldly attachment and resting only there.
Renunciation
The case for letting go of worldly attachments and turning wholly to God.
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