Prayer, untie the knot now
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
मोलाचें आयुष्य वेचतसे सेवे । नुगवतां गोवे खेद होतो ॥1॥
उगवूं आलेति तुह्मीं नारायणा । परिहार या सिणा निमिस्यांत ॥ध्रु.॥
लिगाडाचे मासी न्यायें जाली परी । उरली ते उरी नाहीं कांहीं ॥2॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
My precious life is being spent in service, and when the knot is not resolved, sorrow arises. You have come to untie it, O Narayana; put an end to this suffering in the blink of an eye. Through the long months of entanglement, things have come to pass in their own way; nothing more remains to be said.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
My precious life is being spent in serving You, and when the knot will not come loose, sorrow rises in me. You have come to untie it, Narayana; end this weariness in the blink of an eye. Through long months I have been stuck like a fly in glue. Things have run their own course; nothing more remains.
What it means
Tukaram measures the cost of his devotion in the one currency that cannot be refilled, his lifespan, and grieves that the entanglement binding him still will not release. He turns to Narayana not as a distant judge but as the one who has come precisely to loosen the knot, and he asks for it done at once, in a single instant, because the weariness has gone on too long. The image of a fly caught in sticky glue names his helplessness exactly: the more it struggles the more it is held. He ends by handing the whole tangled matter over, saying it has already played out as it would and there is nothing left for him to add.
Prayers
Direct appeals to God: for protection, guidance, strength, and mercy.
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