Complaint of love, the unfair distance
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
नाहीं माथां भार । तुह्मी घेत हा विचार ॥1॥
जाणोनियां ऐसें केलें । दुरिल अंगेसी लाविलें ॥ध्रु.॥
आतां बोलावें आवडी । नाम घ्यावें घडी घडी ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे दुरी । देवा खोटी ऐसी उरी ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
You do not take the burden upon Yourself; this is Your deliberate plan. Knowing this, You have placed the difficulty upon my shoulders. Now let me speak with love and take Your name again and again. Says Tuka, O God, this sort of remaining distant is unfair.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You carry no weight on Your head. You arranged it this way on purpose. You knew, and so You did it: You laid the hard part on my shoulders. Now let me call out with love, and take Your name again and again. Tuka says: O God, this staying far off is a wrong thing.
What it means
Tukaram speaks to God like one who has been treated unfairly, and says so plainly. He charges that God keeps Himself free of all burden by design, deliberately placing the difficulty of the search on the devotee instead. He does not let the complaint curdle into despair: in the same breath he turns to calling on the Name with love, over and over. The closing line names the stakes without softening them, that for God to stay at a distance after all this is simply not fair.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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