Devotion, love that dissolves the self
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
प्रेम देवाचें देणें । देहभाव जाय जेणें । न धरावी मनें। शुद्धी देशकाळाची ॥1॥
मुक्त लज्जाविरहित । भाग्यवंत हरिभक्त। जाले वोसंडत । नामकीतिनपवाडे ॥ध्रु.॥
जोडी जाली अविनाश । जन्मोनि जाले हरिसे दास । त्यांस नव्हे गर्भवास । परब्रह्मीं सौरस ॥2॥
हे चि वाहाती संकल्प । पुण्यप्रसंगाचे जप । तुका ह्मणे पाप । गांवीं नाहीं हरिजना ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Love is God's gift; it is that which dissolves body-consciousness. In that state one should not cling to notions of place, time, or purity. Blessed are the devotees of Hari who are freed from shame, overflowing with the glory of the Name. They have gained an imperishable union; having been born, they became servants of Hari. For them there is no return to the womb; they revel in the supreme Brahman. They carry only holy resolves; their chanting is the recitation of auspicious occasions. Says Tuka, sin does not exist in the village of those who belong to Hari.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Love is God's gift; by it the body-feeling falls away. In that state the mind should not cling to purity of place or time. Freed, without shame, the lovers of Hari are blessed; they have overflowed in the songs and glory of the Name. The gain they have won cannot perish; having been born, they became servants of Hari. For them there is no return to the womb; they delight in the supreme Brahman. They carry only holy resolves; their chanting is the telling of sacred things. Tuka says: in the village of those who belong to Hari, sin does not live.
What it means
Tukaram names love as something given by God, not worked up by effort, and its mark is that the body-sense drops away. Once it does, the old anxious bookkeeping about clean places and right times no longer binds the mind. The lovers of Hari lose their shame and overflow into the Name; what they have gained is imperishable, and being born this once, they will not be born into the womb again. The closing claim is radical and meant to stay sharp: where people truly belong to Hari, sin simply has no home.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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