Longing, devotion without the inner feeling
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बोलविसी तैसें आणीं अनुभवा । नाहीं तरी देवा विटंबना ॥१॥
मिठेंविण काय करावें मिष्टान्न । शव जीवेंविण शृंगारिले ॥ध्रु.॥
संपादणीविण विटंबिले सोंग । गुणेंविण चांग रूप हीन ॥२॥
कन्यापुत्रेंविण मंगळदायकें । वेचिलें हें फिके द्रव्य तरी ॥३॥
तुका म्हणे तैसी होते मज परी । न देखे अंतरीं प्रेमभाव ॥४॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
O God, bring what you speak of into actual experience, otherwise it is only humiliation. What good is a feast without salt? What use adorning a corpse without life? Without fulfillment the whole display is wasted, like spending wealth on celebrations when there is no son or daughter to bless. Says Tuka, such is my own condition: I find no love within.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
O God, bring what you speak of into real experience. If you do not, then it is only mockery. What is a feast worth without salt? It is like dressing up a corpse that has no life. Without the real thing, the whole show is wasted. Beauty with no goodness in it is no beauty. It is like blessings for a wedding when there is no son or daughter to receive them, like spending money that tastes of nothing. Tuka says: this is exactly my state. I look inside and find no love there.
What it means
Tukaram is praying for the inner reality behind the words, and he is honest that he does not yet have it. He asks God to turn the promise into lived experience, because devotion that stays on the surface is, he says, a kind of mockery. He piles up images of empty forms: a feast with no salt, a corpse dressed in finery, a wedding blessing with no child to bless, money spent that brings no taste. Each one is right on the outside and dead on the inside. Then he turns the test on himself: he looks into his own heart and finds the love is not there, and that absence is the very thing he is begging God to fill.
Prayers
Direct appeals to God: for protection, guidance, strength, and mercy.
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