Nature of God, the divine sleight of hand
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
करिसी लाघवें । तूं हें खेळसी आघवें ॥1॥
केला अहंकार आड । आह्मां जगासी हा नाड ॥ध्रु.॥
यथंभुतें यावें । दावूं लपों ही जाणावें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे हो श्रीपती । आतां चाळवाल किती ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
You perform all this sleight of hand, playing this game in full. You have placed ego as a barrier, deluding both us and the world. Come as You truly are; know also that we see through the hiding. Says Tuka, O Lord, how long will You keep up this charade?.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You do all this sleight of hand. You play this whole game. You set up ego as a wall, and it trips up us and the whole world. Come as you really are. Know that we see through your hiding too. Tuka says: O Lord, O Shripati, how long will you keep fooling us?
What it means
Tukaram accuses God of running the whole illusion: the world is a game of trickery, and ego is the barrier God himself sets up to keep the soul and the world deluded. Having named the trick, Tukaram says he is no longer fooled by it; he can see through the hiding and asks God to drop the disguise and come as he truly is. The closing question to Shripati is half complaint, half intimacy: how long will this charade go on? It treats the veil of Maya as something God is responsible for and can lift the moment the devotee stops being deceived.
The Nature of God
Explorations of God's character, power, grace, and relationship to the world.
More in this theme →