The Name, our only strength
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
हें आह्मां सकळा । तुझ्या नामाचें चि बळ ॥1॥
करूं अमृताचें पान । दुजें नेणों कांहीं आन ॥ध्रु.॥
जयाचा जो भोग । सुख दुःख पीडी रोग ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे देवा । तुझे पायीं माझा हेवा॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
All our strength comes from Your Name alone. We drink this nectar and know nothing else besides. Whatever one's lot may be, joy or sorrow or the pain of disease, each receives accordingly. Says Tuka, O God, my sole longing rests at Your feet.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
For all of us, the strength comes from Your Name alone. We drink this nectar; we know nothing else besides. Whatever a person's lot, joy or sorrow or the pain of disease, each receives his own. Tuka says: O God, my one longing rests at Your feet.
What it means
Tukaram is saying that the only real power he and his fellow devotees have is the Name, which he calls a nectar they drink to the exclusion of everything else. He sets this against the ordinary lottery of life, where each person simply receives his own portion of pleasure, pain, and sickness. Against that uncertain lot, the Name is the one thing he chooses and holds to. His single desire, he says, is fixed at God's feet, and he wants nothing outside that.
The Power of the Name
The supremacy of nama-smarana: God's name as the highest practice.
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