Complaint as theology, God's restless game
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
उगें चि हें मन राहातें निश्चळ । तरि कां तळमळ साट होती ॥1॥
काय तुमचीं नेणों कवतुक विंदानें । सवाौत्तमपणें खेळतसां ॥ध्रु.॥
नानाछंदें आह्मां नाचवावें जीवां । वाढवाव्या हांवा भलत्यापुढें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे तुह्मी आपुली प्रतिष्ठा । वाढवावया चेष्टा करीतसां ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
If this mind were to remain still and unmoving, why would torment and restlessness arise as exchange? Who knows what playful devices are Yours? You play with supreme excellence. You make us jivas dance in various compulsions, inflating desires before all manner of things. Says Tuka, You are busy with the sport of enlarging Your own prestige and glory.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
If this mind would simply stay still and unmoving, why would all this torment and churning arise instead? Who knows what playful tricks are yours? You play, and you play supremely well. With one device after another you make us living souls dance, swelling our cravings in front of every kind of thing. Tuka says: you are busy with this sport, enlarging your own prestige and glory.
What it means
Tukaram throws the blame for human restlessness back onto God, half in accusation and half in awe. If the mind could just be still, there would be no torment; since it cannot, he reasons that the unrest must be God's own doing. He pictures God as a master player who makes the living souls dance through their cravings, dangling desire before them at every turn. The sharp last line says God does all this to magnify his own glory, naming the suspicion that the whole restless world is the Lord's game while keeping it inside the relationship of devotee and Lord.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
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