Longing, the complaint of the abandoned
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आह्मी आर्तभूत जिवीं । तुह्मी गोसावी तों उदास॥1॥
वादावाद समर्थाशीं । काशानशीं करावा ॥ध्रु.॥
आह्मी मरों वेरझारीं। स्वामी घरीं बैसले ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे करितां वाद । कांहीं भेद कळेना॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
We are desperate and yearning within us, while You, O Lord, sit in comfortable detachment. What is the point of arguing with the Capable One? We are perishing out in the wilderness while the Master sits comfortably at home. Says Tuka, the more I argue, the less I understand any difference.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
We are aching and desperate inside. You, Lord, sit untouched and at ease. What is the use of arguing with the All-powerful? We are dying out in the wilderness while the Master sits at home. Tuka says: the more I argue, the less I can see any difference it makes.
What it means
Tukaram voices the raw complaint of one who suffers while God seems calm and far off. He sets the burning, desperate heart of the devotee against the Lord who sits in untroubled comfort, and admits how unequal the contest is: what can a helpless soul gain by quarreling with the All-powerful? The image of perishing in the wilderness while the Master stays safe at home gives the grievance its sting. Yet the poem ends in honest exhaustion rather than resolution, confessing that all the arguing changes nothing he can see, which is itself a kind of surrender wrung out of longing.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
More in this theme →