Surrender, the Name as whole dharma
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
सकळ धर्म मज विठोबाचें नाम । आणीक त्यां वर्म नेणें कांहीं ॥1॥
काय जाणों संतां निरविलें देवें । करिती या भावें कृपा मज ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे माझा कोण अधिकार । तो मज विचार कळों यावा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The Name of Vithoba is my entire dharma. I know no other secret. Perhaps God has entrusted me to the saints; by their grace they show me mercy. Says Tuka, what qualification do I have? Let that discernment come to me.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
All dharma, for me, is Vithoba's Name. I know no other secret than this. Perhaps God has handed me over to the saints, and out of this feeling they show me mercy. Tuka says: what qualification do I have? Let that discernment come to me.
What it means
Tukaram is reducing the whole of religious duty to a single thing: the Name of Vithoba. He claims no esoteric method and no learning; the Name is the only secret he knows. He guesses that God has entrusted him to the saints, and that their kindness to him flows from that, not from anything he has earned. The poem ends not in confidence but in an honest question about his own worthiness; he asks for the clear seeing that would let him understand by what right such grace is given to him at all.
Surrender and Acceptance
The conditions of spiritual receptivity and the letting go of the separate self.
More in this theme →