Longing, desire turned toward God
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कामिनीसी जैसा आवडे भ्रतार । इच्छीत चकोर चंद्र जैसा ॥1॥
तैसी हे आवडी विठ्ठलाचे पायीं । लागलिया नाहीं गर्भवास ॥ध्रु.॥
दुष्काळें पीडिल्या आवडे भोजन । आणिक जीवन तृषाक्रांता ॥2॥
कामातुर जैसा भय लज्जा सांडोनि । आवडे कामिनी सर्वभावें ॥3॥
तुका ह्मणे तैसी राहिली आवडी । पांडुरंग थडी पाववील ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
As a wife loves her husband, as the chakor bird longs for the moon, let such longing attach itself to Vitthal's feet, and there shall be no more birth in the womb. As the famished crave food, as the parched crave water, as the lustful abandon all shame and fear, desiring the beloved with every fiber of being, so let longing persist. Says Tuka, Panduranga will carry such a one to the shore.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
As a wife loves her husband, as the chakor bird longs for the moon, let this longing fasten on Vitthal's feet; once it does, there is no more birth in the womb. As the famine-struck crave food, as the thirst-struck crave water, as the lustful one throws off fear and shame and desires the beloved with his whole being, so let the longing stay. Tuka says: when such longing stays, Panduranga will bring you to the far shore.
What it means
Tukaram takes the most consuming human desires and tells you to turn them, whole and undiluted, toward God. The wife's love, the chakor's pining for the moon, the starving man's craving, the thirsty man's thirst, the lover who flings off shame, each is a picture of total, single-minded wanting. He does not soften that intensity; he asks you to fasten exactly that much hunger onto Vitthal's feet. The promise is that longing of this order ends rebirth and that Panduranga himself carries such a one across to the far shore.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
More in this theme →