Lulled to sleep in the Self, grace bestowed
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पांडुरंगें सत्य केला अनुग्रह । निरसोनि संदेह बुिद्धभेद॥1॥
जीवशिवा सेज रचिली आनंदें । औठावे पदीं आरोहण॥2॥
निजीं निजरूपीं निजविला तुका । अनुहाते बाळका हलरु गाती ॥3॥
माझ्या विठोबाचें वर्म आहे दुरी । कैंची तेथें उरी देहभावा ॥ध्रु.॥
यज्ञ याग जप तप अनुष्ठान । राहे ध्येय ध्यान आलीकडे ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे होय उपरति चित्ता । अंगीं सप्रेमता येणें लागें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Panduranga has truly bestowed His grace, dispelling all doubt and confusion of the intellect. A bed of bliss was prepared for the union of the individual jiva and Shiva, an ascent to the eighth state. Tuka was lulled to sleep in his own true nature, as parents sing a lullaby to their infant child. My Vitthoba's secret is beyond reach; how can the sense of body survive there? Sacrifices, chanting, austerities, and rituals all remain on this side, unable to reach where meditation and its object merge. Says Tuka, let the mind turn inward in dispassion; for that, genuine love must arise within.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Panduranga has truly given his grace, clearing away every doubt and the splitting of the mind. A bed of bliss was made for the joining of jiva and Shiva, a climbing to the eighth state. Tuka was put to sleep in his own true nature, while the unstruck sound sang a lullaby to the child. My Vithoba's secret lies far off; what room is there, there, for the sense of being a body? Sacrifice and rite, chanting, penance, and observance, with their goal and their meditation, all stay on the near side. Tuka says: let the mind turn back and rest; for that, true love must rise in you.
What it means
Tukaram says the union he longed for was given, not earned: Panduranga's grace dissolved his doubts and the divided mind. He pictures the joining of the individual soul and Shiva as a bed of bliss and an ascent to the highest state, where he is rocked to sleep in his own true nature while the inner unstruck sound hums a lullaby. In that place the very sense of being a body has no room, and all the outward disciplines, sacrifice, chanting, penance, even meditation and its object, are left behind on the near shore. The final word names the one thing still asked of us: genuine love, which alone lets the mind turn back and rest.
Ecstasy and Joy
Triumphant happiness: poems written from the far side of the struggle.
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