Confession, shelter in neither world
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
हातीं धरूं जावें । तेणें परतें चि व्हावें ॥1॥
ऐसा कां हो आला वांटा । हीन भाग्याचा करंटा ॥ध्रु.॥
देव ना संसार । दोहीं ठायीं नाहीं थार ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे पीक । भूमि न दे न मिळे भीक ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Whatever I reach for slips away from my hand. What wretched fate is this, the lot of the ill-fortuned? I belong neither to God nor to worldly life; I find no shelter in either place. Says Tuka, the land yields no harvest, and even begging brings nothing.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I go to hold a thing in my hand, and by that very reaching it slips away. Why has such a lot come to me, the empty share of a luckless man? Not God, not the world: in neither place do I find a footing. Tuka says: the land gives no crop, and begging brings nothing either.
What it means
Tukaram speaks from the worst middle place, where nothing holds. Whatever he reaches for slides off, and he calls himself the luckless one whose share has come out empty. The sharp ache is that he fits nowhere: he has not arrived in God, and he has let go of the world, so neither side gives him ground to stand on. The closing images, a field that yields no harvest and a begging bowl that stays empty, name a hunger with no relief from either direction. It is the honest cry of a seeker caught between two worlds, owning the barrenness rather than pretending he is settled.
Confession and Sin
Raw, unflinching accounts of personal failure, weakness, and the weight of sin.
More in this theme →