Renunciation, freed of attachment
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बाईल मेली मुक्ती जाली । देवें माया सोडविली ॥1॥
विठो तुझें माझें राज्य । नाहीं दुसयाचें काज ॥ध्रु.॥
पोर मेलें बरें जालें । देवें मायाविरहित केलें ॥2॥
माता मेली मज देखतां । तुका ह्मणे हरली चिंता ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
My wife has died and liberation has come; God has released Maya. O Vitthal, now Yours and mine is one kingdom; there is no need for anyone else. My child has died, and that is well; God has made me free of attachment. My mother died before my eyes. Says Tuka, with that, all anxiety was removed.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
My wife has died, and liberation came; God has released me from Maya. Vitho, now the kingdom is Yours and mine; there is no business with anyone else. The child has died, and that is well; God has cut me free of attachment. The mother died before my eyes. Tuka says: with that, the anxiety was gone.
What it means
This is a hard, deliberately shocking abhanga, and it must be heard as being about attachment, not about contempt for the dead. Tukaram takes the losses that ordinarily break a person, wife, child, mother, and reads each one as God prying his grip off the things that bound him to Maya. The strong line, Vitho, the kingdom is now Yours and mine alone, names what is left when every other claim on the heart has fallen away: God and the soul, with no third. He is not saying he is glad the people died; he is saying the bond that tied his anxiety to them has been broken, and what remains is rest in Vitthal. Read against oneself, it asks how much of our fear is simply our clutching at what we cannot keep.
Renunciation
The case for letting go of worldly attachments and turning wholly to God.
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