Ecstasy, the bitterness gone from the fruit
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पिकलिये सेंदे कडुपण गेलें । तैसें आह्मां केलें पांडुरंगें ॥1॥
काम क्रोध लोभ निमाले ठायीं चि । सर्व आनंदाची सृिष्ट जाली ॥ध्रु.॥
आठव नाठव गेले भावाभाव । जाला स्वयमेव पांडुरंग ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे भाग्य या नांवें ह्मणीजे । संसारीं जन्मीजे या चि लागीं ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
As the bitterness leaves a ripened wood-apple, so has Panduranga transformed us. Lust, anger, and greed have perished where they stood; all creation has become nothing but bliss. Memory and forgetfulness, like and dislike, have all dissolved; Panduranga Himself has become everything. Says Tuka, this is what true fortune means; it is for this alone that one should take birth in this world.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
As the bitterness leaves the wood-apple once it ripens, so Panduranga has done with us. Lust, anger, and greed died on the spot. Everything became a world of pure bliss. Remembering and forgetting are gone, and liking and disliking with them. Panduranga himself has become everything. Tuka says: this is what should be called good fortune. It is for this alone that one should be born into this world.
What it means
Tukaram describes the change God has worked in him through one homely image: the wood-apple that is bitter while green turns sweet of itself once it ripens. So with him, lust, anger, and greed did not have to be fought down one by one; they simply died where they stood as everything turned to bliss. The pairs the mind lives by, remembering and forgetting, liking and disliking, fall away too, and Panduranga alone remains as all that is. Tukaram names this state the only thing that truly deserves to be called good fortune. A human birth, he says, is worth taking for this and nothing less.
Ecstasy and Joy
Triumphant happiness: poems written from the far side of the struggle.
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