Parting, the mind stays at his feet
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तुम्हीं जावें निजमंदिरा । आम्ही जातों आपुल्या घरा ॥१॥
विठोबा लोभ असों देई । आम्ही असों तुमचें पाई ॥ध्रु.॥
चित्त करी सेवा । आम्ही जातों आपुल्या गावां ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे दिशा भुलों । फिरोन पायापाशीं आलों ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
You go to your own temple, and I shall go to my own home. O Vitthoba, let there be love between us; let me remain at your feet. My mind performs your service even as I return to my village. Says Tuka, I lost my way in every direction and came right back to your feet.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You go to your own temple, and I will go to my own home. O Vithoba, let there be love between us; let me stay at your feet. My mind keeps up your service even as I go to my own village. Tuka says: I lost my way in every direction, and came back again to your feet.
What it means
This is a song of parting after worship, but the parting is only of the body. The devotee goes home and lets God stay in the temple, asking only that the bond of love between them remain unbroken. He claims that distance changes nothing: his mind goes on serving even as his feet carry him back to his village. The last line is a quiet confession of the whole spiritual journey, that he wandered off in every direction and found that every road led him back to the feet he started from. The feet are home in a way the village is not.
Devotion to Vitthal
Poems of praise, invocation, and intimate address to Lord Vitthal at Pandharpur.
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