Exhortation, a life wasted without devotion
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
देवाचें भजन कां रे न करीसी । अखंड हव्यासीं पीडतोसी ॥1॥
देवासी शरण कां रे न वजवे तैसा । बक मीना जैसा मनुष्यालागीं ॥ध्रु.॥
कां रे नाहीं तैसी देवाची हे गोडी । नागवूनी सोडी पत्नी तैसी ॥3॥
कां रे नाहीं तैसे देवाचे उपकार । माया मिथ्या भार पितृपूजना ॥4॥
कां रे भय वाहासी लोकांचा धाक । विसरोनि एक नारायण ॥5॥
तुका ह्मणे कां रे घातलें वांयां। अवघें आयुष्य जाया भक्तिविण ॥6॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Why do you not worship God? You are tormented endlessly by cravings. Why can you not surrender to God the way a crane pursues a fish with single-minded focus? Why is there no such sweetness for God in you as there is for the wife who strips you bare and leaves? Why do you not feel the debt to God as you feel obliged to honor parents through hollow rituals? Why do you carry the fear of people's opinions, forgetting the one Narayana? Says Tuka, why have you thrown away your entire life without devotion?
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Why do you not worship God? You are tormented without rest by your cravings. Why will you not surrender to God the way a crane fixes on its fish, the way a man fixes on what he wants? Why is there no such sweetness in you for God as there is for the wife who strips you bare and then leaves? Why do you not feel your debt to God, when you feel bound to honor your forefathers with hollow rites? Why do you carry the fear of what people will say, and forget the one Narayana? Tuka says: why have you thrown it all away, your whole life gone to waste without devotion?
What it means
Tukaram interrogates a person who pours intensity into everything except God. He turns the listener's own appetites into a mirror: the single-minded focus you give to desires, to a faithless spouse, to social ritual and reputation, why is none of it spared for God? The crane watching its fish is a stock image of total concentration, and he asks why that same concentration never lands on the divine. Each question exposes a misplaced devotion, energy already present but aimed at things that strip you and leave. The closing line names the stake plainly: a whole human life can be spent and wasted, and the loss is the failure to turn that ready intensity toward Narayana before it runs out.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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