Ecstasy, made mighty by surrender
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बळियाचे अंकित । आम्ही जालों बळिवंत ॥१॥
लाता हाणोनि संसारा । केला षडूर्मीचा मारा ॥ध्रु.॥
जन धन तन । केलें तृणाही समान ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे आतां । आम्ही मुक्तीचिया माथां ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
By surrendering to the Mighty One, we have become mighty ourselves. We have kicked worldly life aside and conquered the six waves of affliction. Wealth, people, and body have all been made equal to a blade of grass. Says Tuka, we now stand upon the very head of liberation.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
We belong wholly to the Mighty One. By that, we ourselves have become mighty. We have kicked worldly life aside. We have struck down the six waves of affliction. Wealth, people, the body: we have made them all equal to a blade of grass. Tuka says: now we stand upon the very head of liberation.
What it means
The whole strength Tukaram boasts of is borrowed: he is mighty only because he belongs entirely to the Mighty One. From that surrender comes a freedom strong enough to kick aside worldly life and beat down the six inner forces, hunger, thirst, grief, delusion, old age, death, that toss a person about. Once those are conquered, the things people crave or fear, money, relations, the body itself, weigh no more than a blade of grass. The final image is daring on purpose: he does not merely reach liberation, he stands on its head, mastering even the goal.
Ecstasy and Joy
Triumphant happiness: poems written from the far side of the struggle.
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