The Name, rescue from the senses
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
पडिलों भोवणीं । होतों बहु चिंतवणी ॥1॥
होतों चुकलों मारग । लाहो केला लाग वेगें ॥ध्रु.॥
इंिद्रयांचे संदी । होतों सांपडलों बंदीं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे बरें जालें । विठ्ठलसें वाचे आलें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I had been spinning in circles, lost in too much thinking. I had gone astray, lost the path; quickly I seized the gain. I had been caught in the crevice of the senses, held in their prison. Says Tuka, it is well that the Name of Vitthal has come to my tongue.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I had been spinning in circles, sunk in too much thinking. I had gone off the road, lost the path; then quickly I caught hold of the gain. I had been caught in the gap of the senses, held there as in a prison. Tuka says: it is good, the name of Vitthal has come onto my tongue.
What it means
Tukaram describes a turn from confusion to rescue. He had been going round and round, lost in his own anxious thinking, off the road and trapped in the senses as in a jail. What freed him was not effort or argument but the Name: when Vitthal's name came to his tongue, he seized hold of his real gain. The poem treats the Name as the one thing that breaks the spinning. That it simply arrived on his lips is the whole good news.
The Power of the Name
The supremacy of nama-smarana: God's name as the highest practice.
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