Warning, the company you keep
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
किती सांगों तरि नाइकति बटकीचे । पुढें सिंदळीचे रडतील ॥1॥
नका नका करूं रांडेची संगती । नेवोनी अधोपाती घालिल यम ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे जरी देवीं नाहीं चाड । हाणोनि थोबाड फोडिल यम ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
No matter how much I tell them, the stubborn ones will not listen. In the end they will weep over their own ruin. Do not, do not keep the company of wickedness; Yama will drag you down to the lowest depths. Says Tuka, if there is no longing for God, Yama will smash your face and cast you down.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
However much I tell them, the stubborn ones will not listen. Later the loose ones will weep. Do not, do not keep wicked company; Yama will carry you down and throw you into the lowest place. Tuka says: if there is no longing for God in you, Yama will strike your mouth and break it.
What it means
This is a blunt warning, and Tukaram does not soften it. He has spoken again and again, and the people set in their ways still will not hear, so he says plainly where their course ends: in grief, and in Yama, the lord of death, dragging them down to the lowest place. The harshness is aimed at the pattern, not at scorn for the person: it is the refusal to listen and the clinging to corrupt company that he is striking at. The hinge of the whole poem is its last line, that the real danger is having no longing for God at all. The threat is meant to wake that longing before it is too late, not to consign anyone to contempt.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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