Longing, the God who is everywhere but here
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तुजवीण तीळभरी रिता ठाव । नाहीं ऐसें विश्व बोलतसे ॥1॥
बोलियेले योगी मुनी साधु संत । आहेसि या आंत सर्वांठायीं ॥ध्रु.॥
मी तया विश्वासें आलों शरणागत । पूवाअचें अपत्य आहें तुझें ॥2॥
अनंत ब्रह्मांडें भरोनि उरलासि । मजला जालासि कोठें नाहीं ॥3॥
अंतपार नाहीं माझिया रूपासि । काय सेवकासि भेट देऊं ॥4॥
ऐसें विचारिलें ह्मणोनि न येशी । सांग हृषीकेशी मायबापा ॥5॥
तुका ह्मणे काय करावा उपाय । जेणें तुझे पाय आतुडति ॥6॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
They say there is not a sesame seed's space anywhere without You. Yogis, munis, saints, and sages have all declared that You are present within everything. Trusting their word, I have come as a surrendered one. I am Your child from ages past. You fill infinite universes and remain beyond them, yet for me alone You seem to have vanished. You have no end or limit to Your being. How can You offer a meeting to this servant? Thinking thus, You do not come to me. Tell me then, O Lord, O my Father and Mother. Says Tuka, what remedy can I find by which Your feet may be reached?.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
There is not a sesame seed of space anywhere without you; the whole world says so. Yogis, sages, holy ones and saints have all said you are inside everything, in every place. Trusting that, I have come to you for refuge; I am your child from long ago. You fill endless universes and remain beyond them, yet to me you have become a nowhere. There is no end or limit to your form. So how can you give a meeting to your servant? Thinking like that, you do not come. Tell me, Hrishikesha, my mother and father. Tuka says: what means should I use, so that your feet come within my reach?
What it means
Tukaram presses the teaching of God's all-pervadingness until it turns into an accusation. Everyone, the yogis and the saints, swears God fills every speck of space, and he came to refuge trusting exactly that word. Yet the God who is everywhere has become, for him, a nowhere; the limitless form seems to use its very limitlessness as an excuse not to show up for one small servant. He does not abandon the claim, he holds God to it, calling him mother and father, and asks the practical question that closes the poem: by what means can I actually reach the feet of a God who is supposed to be already here?
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
More in this theme →