Leave-taking, fed from God's own plate
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पावला प्रसाद आतां विटोनि जावें । आपला तो श्रम कळों येतसे जीवें ॥१॥
आतां स्वामी सुखें निद्रा करा गोपाळा । पुरले मनोरथ जातों आपुलिया स्थळा ॥ध्रु.॥
तुम्हांसि जागवूं आम्ही आपुलिया चाडा । शुभाशुभ कर्में दोष वाराया पीडा ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे दिलें उच्छिष्टाचें भोजन । आम्हां आपुलिया नाहीं निवडिलें भिन्न ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The consecrated offering has been received; now you may depart satisfied. I know in my heart how much labor this has cost you. Now sleep in peace, O Gopala; all desires are fulfilled, and we go to our own places. It is for our own needs that we kept you awake, to remove the afflictions of our good and bad deeds. Says Tuka, you fed us from your own plate and made no distinction between yourself and us.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The offering has been received; now you may go satisfied. I know in my heart how much this cost you. Now sleep in peace, O Gopala; every wish is fulfilled, and we go to our own places. We kept you awake for our own sake, to take away the harm of our good deeds and our bad. Tuka says: you fed us from your own plate, and made no difference between yourself and us.
What it means
The worship is over and the devotee is taking leave, but he speaks first to God's tiredness, not his own. He admits a strange honesty: it was for his own need that he kept the Lord awake all night, to have his merits and sins alike wiped away. So the service was never charity offered to God; it was the devotee's own rescue. The last line names the wonder of it: God fed them from his own plate, ucchishta, the leftovers from his own mouth, drawing no line between himself and his people. That shared plate is the whole intimacy of bhakti.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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