Devotion, the Name preferred to liberation
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
सांडुनि सुखाचा वांटा । मुक्ति मागे तो करंटा ॥1॥
कां रे न घ्यावा जन्म । प्रेम लुटावें नाम ॥ध्रु.॥
येथें मिळतो दहीं भात । वैकुंठीं ते नाहीं मात ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे आतां । मज न लगे सायुज्यता ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
One who abandons the share of happiness and begs for liberation is a wretch. Why not take birth again and again, and revel in the Name with love? Here one gets curd and rice, while even Vaikuntha cannot match this feast. Says Tuka, I have no desire now for the state of final union.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The man who throws away his share of happiness and begs instead for liberation is a wretch. Why not take birth again and again, and loot the Name with love? Here you get curd and rice; even Vaikuntha has no such feast to speak of. Tuka says: now I have no use for final union with God.
What it means
Tukaram inverts the usual goal, prizing loving devotion over liberation itself. He calls the man who trades away present joy to beg for release a poor fool, because the real happiness is here, in the Name. He would rather be born over and over if each birth lets him plunder the Name with love, and he says the simple feast of devotion, curd and rice, outshines anything in Vaikuntha. The closing line states it flatly: he wants no sayujya, no merging into God, because the relationship of love is sweeter to him than the dissolving of it. The bhakta's bond, not its ending, is what he holds dear.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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