Devotion, love answers love
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आतां हें चि सार हें चि सार । मूळबीज रे आइका॥1॥
आवडीनें आवडी उरे । जें ज्या झुरे तें त्यासी ॥ध्रु.॥
प्रेमाचिया सूत्रदोरी । नाहीं उरी उरवी ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे चिंतन बरें । आहे खरें खयापें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
This alone is essential, this alone is essential. Listen to this root-seed truth. Love begets love; whatever one yearns for, that very thing yearns in return. Along the thread of love, nothing is held back. Says Tuka, contemplation is good; it is a sure and true remedy.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Now this alone is the heart of it, this alone is the heart of it. Listen, this is the root-seed. Love makes love remain. Whatever one yearns for, that very thing yearns back for him. On the thread of love nothing is held back, nothing left over. Tuka says: contemplation is good. It is a true and real remedy.
What it means
Tukaram drops every other teaching to hand over one root-seed truth. Its center is that love is answered in kind: whatever you yearn for yearns back toward you, so devotion is never a one-way reaching into silence. He pictures love as a single thread on which nothing is withheld, the heart and its object fully given to each other. The closing turns this into practice, naming contemplation as the sure remedy, the way the seed is actually planted and the mutual love kept alive.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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