Devotion, cling and never let go
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आतां येणें पडिपाडें । रस सेवूं हा निवाडें । मुंगी नेली गोडें । ठेविलिये अडचणी ॥1॥
तैसें होय माझ्या जीवा । चरण न सोडीं केशवा । विषयबुिद्ध हेवा । वोस पडो सकळ ॥ध्रु.॥
भुकेलिया श्वाना । गांठ पडे सवें अन्ना । भुकों पाहे प्राणा । परि तोंडिंची न सोडी ॥2॥
काय जिंकियेलें मन । जीवित्व कामातुरा तृण । मागे विभिचारिण । भक्ती तुका ये जाती ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Now, with firm resolve, let me drink this nectar of devotion. Just as an ant carries away the sweetness stored in the narrowest crevice, so may my jiva cling to Your feet, O Keshava, and never let go. Let all desire for sense objects become desolate and barren. A hungry dog, once it finds food, may risk its very life, but it will not release what is in its mouth. Says Tuka, as a lover consumed by passion counts life as a blade of grass, and as an unfaithful woman pursues her desire, so I pursue devotion of that very intensity.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Now, with my mind made up, let me drink this nectar. An ant carries off the sweetness stored in the narrowest crack; let my jiva cling like that to Your feet, Keshava, and never let go. Let every hunger for sense objects fall barren and waste. A hungry dog will risk its life over its food, but it will not let go of what is in its mouth. What victory is there over the mind? To a man burning with desire, his own life is a blade of grass; an unfaithful woman chases what she wants. Tuka says: with that same hunger, I come for devotion.
What it means
Tukaram is praying for a single-minded, gripping devotion and reaching for the bluntest images he can find to measure it. He wants to hold Krishna's feet the way an ant holds onto sweetness in a crevice, the way a hungry dog will not drop the food in its mouth even on pain of death. To make room for it he asks that every craving for sense objects go barren. Then he names the stakes without flinching: the lover who counts his life as worthless grass, the unfaithful woman who chases her desire past all shame. He turns even those reckless hungers into a yardstick, asking that his pursuit of God be at least that fierce.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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