The simple folk, devotion within reach
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कोण आमचीं योगतपें । करूं बापें जाणावीं ॥1॥
गीत संतसंगें गाऊं । उभीं ठाऊं जागरणीं ॥ध्रु.॥
आमुचा तो नव्हे लाग । करूं त्याग जावया ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे इंिद्रयांसी । ये चि रसीं रंगवूं ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
What yoga or austerities are within our reach, we who are simple folk? We will sing in the company of saints and stand awake at the night vigil. Such rigorous striving is not our way, nor can we renounce everything and depart. Says Tuka, we will color all our senses in this one flavor of devotion.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
What yoga or austerities are within our reach, we plain people? We will sing the song in the company of saints, and stand awake through the night vigil. Hard striving is not our way; nor can we renounce everything and go off. Tuka says: we will color all our senses in this one flavor.
What it means
Tukaram refuses the path of yoga and severe austerity as something beyond ordinary people like himself. In its place he names what such people can actually do: sing with the saints, keep the night vigil, stay together in company. He admits plainly that they cannot renounce the world and walk away into solitude. So instead of starving the senses, he turns them: every sense gets dyed in the single flavor of devotion, which becomes the whole practice.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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