Longing, the silence of God
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
शोकवावा म्यां देहे । ऐसें नेणों पोटीं आहे ॥1॥
तरी च नेदा जी उत्तर । दुःखी राखिलें अंतर ॥ध्रु.॥
जावें वनांतरा। येणें उद्देशें दातारा ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे गिरी । मज सेववावी दरी ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Is it Your wish that I should grieve in this body? I do not know what You hold within. That is why You give me no reply, and You have kept my chitta in distress. Should I then go to the wilderness, O Benefactor, with this intent? Says Tuka, must I make my home in the gorge of a mountain?.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Is it Your wish that I grieve in this body? I do not know what You hold within. That is why You give me no answer; You have kept my heart in pain. Should I go away into the forest, O Giver, with this in mind? Tuka says: must I make the mountain gorge my home?
What it means
Tukaram cries out at God's silence and the ache it leaves in him. He does not know God's hidden intent, so the lack of any reply feels like a deliberate keeping of his heart in distress. He wonders aloud whether the answer is for him to abandon the world, to go into the wilderness, to make a mountain ravine his dwelling. The poem stays in the raw uncertainty of love that is not yet answered, asking the question without resolving it, holding the grief up to the one who gave him this body.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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