Withdrawal, keep to your own house
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आतां बरें घरिच्याघरीं । आपली उरी आपणापें॥1॥
वाइटबरें न पडे दृष्टी । मग कष्टी होइजेना ॥ध्रु.॥
बोलों जातां वाढे बोल । वांयां फोल खटखट ॥2॥
काकुलती यावें देवा । तो तों सेवा इिच्छतो ॥3॥
हिशोबाचे खटखटे । चढे तुटे घडेना ॥4॥
तुका ह्मणे कळों आलें । दुसरें भलें तों नव्हे ॥5॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Now it is better that each one stays in one's own home, keeping one's own share to oneself. Then neither good nor bad falls before the eyes, and there is no cause for distress. The more one speaks, the more words multiply, all hollow chatter to no end. One should come humbly before God, for He desires true service. The tallying of accounts only leads to disputes that never settle. Says Tuka, I have understood that nothing else is truly good.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Now it is better that each one stays in their own house, keeping their own share to themselves. Then neither good nor bad falls before your eyes, and there is no cause for grief. The more you speak, the more words multiply, all hollow noise to no end. Come humbly before God, for it is true service He wants. Tallying accounts leads only to quarrels that never settle. Tuka says: I have understood that nothing else is truly good.
What it means
Tukaram counsels a quiet drawing-in from the friction of dealings with others. When each person keeps to their own and minds their own share, the eye is spared the sights of others' good and ill, and the heart is spared the grief that follows. Talk only breeds more talk, empty and endless; and reckoning who owes whom only opens disputes that never close. Against all this he sets the one thing that pays: coming low before God, who asks for real service and not chatter or bookkeeping. The poem points the criticism at the restless, comparing, score-keeping habit in oneself, and names devotion as the only good worth keeping.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
More in this theme →