Surrender, the debt repaid
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
ॠणाच्या परिहारा जालों वोळगणा । द्यावी नारायणा वासलाती ॥1॥
जालों उतराई शरीरसंकल्पें । चुकों द्यावीं पापें सकळ ही ॥ध्रु.॥
आजिवरि होतों धरूनि जिवासी । व्याजें कासाविसी बहु केलें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे मना आणिला म्यां भाव । तुमचा तेथें ठाव आहे देवा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
To repay my debt, I have entered Your service; grant me relief, O Narayana. Through the offering of this body I have become free of obligation; let all past sins be forgiven. Until now I was clinging to life, and that usurious grip caused me great distress. Says Tuka, I have brought devotion into my chitta; Your place is right there, O God.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
To clear my debt I have entered Your service; grant me release, O Narayana. I have settled what I owe by giving up my claim on this body; let all my sins be cancelled. Until now I clung to my life, and that grasping, like interest on a loan, kept me in great distress. Tuka says: I have brought devotion into my mind, and Your place is right there, O God.
What it means
Tukaram frames his life as a debt owed to God and surrender as the way to settle it. By offering up the body and his claim to it, he declares himself square and asks that the whole account of sin be wiped clean. He confesses that holding tight to his own life was the source of his suffering, like a loan whose interest only deepens the trouble. The poem ends inward: he has set devotion in his own mind, and that is exactly where God already dwells, so the place of meeting was never far off.
Surrender and Acceptance
The conditions of spiritual receptivity and the letting go of the separate self.
More in this theme →