Exhortation, the wasted life
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बहुतें गेलीं वांयां । न भजतां पंढरीराया ॥1॥
करिती कामिकांची सेवा । लागोन मागोन खात्या देवा ॥ध्रु.॥
अवघियांचा धनी । त्यासी गेलीं विसरोनि ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे अंतीं । पडती यमाचिया हातीं ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
So many have wasted their lives by not worshiping the Lord of Pandhari. They serve petty deities, grasping and clinging to consuming gods. They have forgotten the master of all. Says Tuka, in the end they fall into the hands of Yama.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
So many lives have gone to waste, lived without worshiping the Lord of Pandhari. They serve petty gods, begging and clinging, gods who only consume. They forget the master of all. Tuka says: in the end they fall into the hands of Yama.
What it means
Tukaram warns that a life can be spent and still come to nothing. The waste he names is the failure to worship the Lord of Pandhari, while energy goes instead to smaller deities approached for what they can give. He calls this serving gods who only take and never save, and he says it amounts to forgetting the one master of all. The cost falls due at death, when such a person is handed over to Yama, the lord of the dead.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
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