Confession, the thief on both sides
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पापाची मी राशी । सेवाचोर पायांपाशीं ॥1॥
करा दंड नारायणा । माझ्या मनाची खंडणा ॥ध्रु.॥
जना हातीं सेवा । घेतों लंडपणें देवा ॥2॥
तुझा ना संसार । तुका दोहींकडे चोर ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I am a heap of sin, a thief of devotion lingering at Your feet. Punish me, O Narayana, and break the willfulness of my mind. I take credit for service that was done by others, taking it lazily, O God. I belong neither to You nor to the world. Says Tuka, I am a cheat on both sides.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I am a heap of sin. I am a thief of service, loitering at Your feet. Punish me, Narayana. Break the willfulness of my mind. I take service done by others, and take the credit lazily, O God. I am not Yours, and not the world's. Tuka says: I am a cheat on both sides.
What it means
This is a confession with no excuse offered. Tukaram calls himself a heap of sin and, worse, a thief who steals even the appearance of devotion, claiming as his own the service others actually performed. He does not ask to be spared; he asks to be punished, because what he wants broken is the willful, self-serving mind itself. The sharp final charge is that he belongs nowhere: he has not truly given himself to God, and he has not honestly stayed with the world either, so he is a cheat on both sides at once. The point is the kind of merciless self-examination that real surrender begins with.
Confession and Sin
Raw, unflinching accounts of personal failure, weakness, and the weight of sin.
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