Humility, the unneeded servant
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
काय लवण किळकेविण । एके क्षीण सागरा ॥1॥
मां हे येवढी अडचण । नारायणीं मजविण ॥ध्रु.॥
कुबेरा अटाहासे जोडी । काय कवडी कारणें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे काचमणि । कोण गणी भांडारी ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
What is one pinch of salt more or less to the vast ocean? Is my absence such a great difficulty for Narayana? What is a single cowrie to the heaping wealth of Kubera? Says Tuka, who counts a glass bead in a treasury of gems?
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
What is one pinch of salt to the vast ocean? Will the sea grow less by it? Is my absence such a great trouble to Narayana? Does he need me to fill it? What is a single cowrie to the heaped wealth of Kubera? Tuka says: who counts one glass bead in a treasury of gems?
What it means
Tukaram measures his own worth against God's fullness and finds it tiny, and he says so plainly. He is not begging; he is reasoning. The ocean is no smaller for one grain of salt, Kubera's hoard is no greater for one cowrie, a treasury of jewels does not miss one glass bead. By the same logic Narayana lacks nothing if Tukaram is gone. The point is not despair but truth: God is complete in himself, and the devotee comes to him owning that he adds nothing and is welcomed anyway.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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