Longing, the complaint of the overlooked
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
जिहीं तुझी कास भावें धरियेली । त्यांची नाहीं केली सांड देवा ॥1॥
काय माझा भोग आहे तो न कळे । सुखें तुह्मी डोळे झांकियेले ॥ध्रु.॥
राव रंक तुज सारिके चि जन । नाहीं थोर लहान तुजपाशीं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे मागें आपंगिलें भक्तां । माझिया संचिता कृपा नये ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Those who held fast to Your hem with sincere devotion were never abandoned by You, O God. What my own destiny holds, I do not know. You have peacefully closed Your eyes. Rich and poor are the same to You; there is no great or small in Your sight. Says Tuka, in the past You embraced other devotees, but Your grace has not come to my accumulated karma.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Those who held fast to Your hem with love, You never abandoned them, O God. What my own fate holds, I do not know. You have calmly closed Your eyes. Rich and poor are the same to You. With You there is no great and no small. Tuka says: in the past You took up other devotees. But Your grace has not come to my store of karma.
What it means
Tukaram presses a grievance, but he argues it from God's own record. Others clung to God and were never cast off; God himself is famously even-handed, treating rich and poor, great and small, alike. So why, Tukaram asks, has that grace passed him by? The line that God has calmly closed His eyes is the sharp center: it can mean God is indifferent, or that God is overlooking faults, and Tukaram lets the ache sit there unresolved. He is not denying God's mercy; he is holding God to it, asking why the karma that weighs him down has not yet been met by the grace shown to everyone else.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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