Longing, to see his face among the cowherds
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कैसा तीं देखिला होसील गोपाळीं । पुण्यवंतीं डोळीं नारायणा ॥1॥
तेणें लोभें जीव जालासे बराडी । आह्मी ऐशी जोडी कई लाभों ॥ध्रु.॥
असेल तें कैसें दर्शनाचें सुख । अनुभवें श्रीमुख अनुभवितां ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे वाटे देसी आलिंगन । अवस्था ते क्षणाक्षणां होते ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
How must those blessed ones have seen You among the cowherds, O Narayana, with their fortunate eyes? That longing makes my jiva cry out: when will we ever attain such a treasure? What must be the joy of that divine vision, experiencing Your radiant face through direct experience? Says Tuka, it seems You would give an embrace, and the state of longing changes moment to moment.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
How those blessed ones must have seen you among the cowherds, O Narayana, seen you with their fortunate eyes. That longing has made my soul cry out like a beggar: when will I ever come into such wealth? What must that joy of seeing be, to taste your blessed face in living experience? Tuka says: it seems you would give me an embrace, and the longing rises and falls in me moment after moment.
What it means
Tukaram is aching over a sight he did not get to share. He imagines the cowherds and the blessed ones of old who saw Krishna with their own fortunate eyes, and the thought turns his soul into a beggar pleading for the same wealth. He cannot stop wondering what that direct vision of God's face would actually feel like to taste. The poem stays in the unsteady middle of longing: at one breath it seems God is about to step close and embrace him, and at the next the certainty drops away, so the state swings back and forth moment by moment. It is the honest restlessness of one who has not yet seen but cannot stop wanting to.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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