Devotion, only the chosen are truly pure
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
सोवळा तो जाला । अंगीकार देवें केला ॥1॥
येर करिती भोजन । पोट पोसाया दुर्जन ॥ध्रु.॥
चुकला हा भार । तयाची च येरझार ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे दास । जाला तया नाहीं नास॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
He alone is pure whom God has accepted. All others merely eat to sustain their bellies, the wretches. The one who has missed this opportunity keeps going back and forth in vain. Says Tuka, the one who became God's servant never faces destruction.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
He alone is pure whom God has taken as His own. The rest only eat to fill their bellies, poor wretches. The one who missed this gift just keeps going back and forth in vain. Tuka says: the one who has become God's servant never comes to ruin.
What it means
Tukaram redefines purity, taking it away from ritual and giving it to God's choosing. The truly clean person is not the one who keeps the outward rules but the one God has accepted; everyone else, however busy, is merely feeding a body and going nowhere. Whoever lets that one chance slip is trapped in the round of birth and death, coming and going to no purpose. The blessing falls on the servant of God, who alone is beyond destruction. The point of self-examination: am I living to fill the belly, or have I given myself to be His?
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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