Longing, do not hide your form
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
जये ठायीं आवडी ठेली । मज ते बोली न संडे॥1॥
पुरवावें जीवींचें कोड । भेटी गोड तुज मज ॥ध्रु.॥
आणिलें तें येथवरी । रूप दुरी न करावें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे नारायणा । सेवाहीना धिग वृित्त ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Wherever my love has taken root, that speech will never leave me. Fulfill the desire of my chitta; let our meeting be sweet, Yours and mine. You have brought me this far; do not push Your form away now. Says Tuka, O Narayana, without Your service, life itself is a disgrace.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Wherever my love has settled, that word will never leave me. Fulfill the longing in my heart. Let our meeting be sweet, yours and mine. You have brought me this far. Do not push your form away now. Tuka says: O Narayana, a life without your service is a disgrace.
What it means
Tukaram speaks from the place where love has already taken root and cannot be talked out of it; the word it gives him will not leave his mouth. His prayer is direct and a little possessive: bring me the sweet face-to-face meeting my heart aches for. He reminds God of the obligation already begun, you carried me this far, so do not now pull your visible form away and leave me halfway. The closing line raises the stakes past mere wanting: for him, a life that gets no chance to serve Narayana is not a quiet loss but an open disgrace, a life not worth the name.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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