Confession, only You can pull me out
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
स्मरणाचे वेळे । व्हावें सावध न कळे ॥1॥
पडिलों विषयांचे ओढीं । कोणी न दिसेसें काढी ॥ध्रु.॥
भांडवल माझें । वेच जालें भूमी ओझें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे कळे । तूं चि धावें ऐसें वेळे॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
At the moment of remembrance, one should be alert, yet I do not know how. I have fallen into the pull of sense-pleasures, and I see no one who will pull me out. My capital is spent; it has become a useless burden upon the earth. Says Tuka, I know that only You can rush to my aid at such a time.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
At the moment of remembrance, I should be awake and alert; I do not know how. I have fallen into the pull of the senses, and I see no one who will drag me out. My capital is spent; what is left has become a useless weight on the earth. Tuka says: I know that at such a time it is You alone who can come running.
What it means
Tukaram speaks here as one who has failed at the one thing he wanted, to stay awake and remember God, and he confesses he does not even know how to do it. He pictures himself dragged off by the pull of the senses with no rescuer in sight. The image of spent capital is bleak self-accounting: the resource he was given is wasted, and what remains of him is dead weight on the ground. Yet the confession turns at the end into its only hope, that the very God he could not remember is the one who can come running to him at exactly such a moment.
Confession and Sin
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