Devotion, the single secret
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
जाणों नेणों काय । चित्तीं धरूं तुझे पाय ॥1॥
आतां हें चि वर्म । गाऊं धरूनियां प्रेम ॥ध्रु.॥
कासया सांडूं मांडूं। भाव हृदयीं च कोंडूं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे देवा । जन्मोजन्मीं मागें सेवा॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Whether I know or not, let me hold Your feet in my chitta. Now this alone is the secret: let me sing, holding fast to love. Why should I abandon or restart? Let me contain my devotion within my own chitta. Says Tuka, O God, birth after birth, I ask only for Your service.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Whether I know or do not know, let me hold Your feet in my chitta. Now this alone is the secret: let me sing, holding fast to love. Why should I drop one thing and take up another? Let me shut my devotion inside my own heart. Tuka says: O God, birth after birth, I ask only for Your service.
What it means
Tukaram sets aside the question of whether he understands anything; understanding is not the point, holding God's feet in the heart is. He has found the one secret worth keeping: to sing while clinging to love. He refuses the restless habit of taking up and abandoning practices, choosing instead to seal his devotion within and guard it. His only request, asked not once but for every future life, is to keep serving God.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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