Worldly life, you reap what you sow
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पापांचीं संचितें देहासी दंडण । तुज नारायणा बोल नाहीं ॥1॥
पेरी कडू जिरें मागे अमृतफळ । आकान वृक्षफळें कैसीं येती ॥ध्रु.॥
सुख अथवा दुःख भोग हो देहेचा । नास हा ज्ञानाचा न करावा ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे आतां देवा कां रुसावें । मनासी पुसावें काय केलें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The accumulated sins punish the body; no blame attaches to You, O Narayana. One who sows bitter cumin and expects the fruit of nectar: how can sweet fruit come from a bitter tree? Whether pleasure or pain, it is the body's due experience. Do not let it destroy your wisdom. Says Tuka, why be angry with God now? Ask your own mind what it has done.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The sins you have stored up punish the body. No blame falls on you, O Narayana. If a man sows bitter cumin and then asks for the fruit of nectar, how can sweet fruit come from that? Whether the body meets pleasure or pain, let it be its own experience. Do not let it destroy your wisdom. Tuka says: why be angry with God now? Ask your own mind what it has done.
What it means
Tukaram refuses to let God be blamed for what we suffer. The body is punished by sins we ourselves accumulated, so the fault is not Narayana's. He drives it home with farming: sow bitter cumin and you cannot harvest nectar; a bitter tree gives no sweet fruit. Pleasure and pain are the body's due, and the real danger is letting them wreck your wisdom by turning you resentful. So the poem closes by redirecting the complaint inward: instead of being angry at God, question your own mind about what it has done. It is a teaching on owning the consequences of one's own acts.
Worldly Life
The perplexities of action, karma, and navigating life in the world.
More in this theme →