Longing, the silent Lord
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बोध्यअवतार माझिया अदृष्टा । मौन्य मुखें निष्ठा धरियेली ॥1॥
लोकांचियेसाटीं शाम चतुर्भुज । संतांसवें गुज बोलतसां ॥ध्रु.॥
आलें कलियुग माझिया संचिता । डोळां हाकलितां न पडेसी ॥2॥
म्यां च तुझें काय केलें नारायणा । कां नये करुणा तुका ह्मणे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
By my destiny, this teaching incarnation has sealed its lips in silence. For the sake of the world, You are the dark four-armed Lord, speaking Your secrets with the saints. The Kali Yuga has dawned according to my own past deeds; even when I search with my eyes, You do not appear. What have I done to You, O Narayana? Says Tuka, why does compassion not come?.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
By my own bad fortune, the teaching Lord has gone silent, his mouth shut, holding to stillness. For the rest of the world you are the dark four-armed one, and you speak your secrets with the saints. The Kali age has come because of what I myself have stored up; though I beat my eyes searching, you do not appear to me. What have I done to you, Narayana? Tuka says: why does your compassion not come to me?
What it means
Tukaram complains of a God who answers others but stays silent to him. He turns the blame inward at first: it is his own destiny and his own past deeds that have shut the Lord's mouth and brought on this dark age for him alone. He sees Narayana speaking freely with the saints and showing his form to the world, yet for Tukaram there is only silence and an empty search. The poem is not contempt but a wounded question to a beloved who seems to withhold: I cannot find what I have done to deserve this; why does your mercy not come? It names the stake of all longing, the fear that one is being passed over.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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