राम
Abhanga 331Worldly Life

The Impossibility of Escaping Our Past

English Translation · I.P. 331

WHEN pleasures drag away the blind souls of men, who will take compassion on them ? When we enter the scene of mortal life, faith in Narayana is not born along with us. What pleasure is it to cling to wordly life, and to fall into the hands of Death ? The ministers of hell measure their bodies, then they drag them about and torture them. Their state will be piteous in the end, when they are parted from life. Millions IMPOSSIBILITY OP ESCAPING OUR PAST H9 of births they have passed through before, and they have as many more to encounter. Their eyes are bandaged, they are fastened to the mill, they feel the torture of the yoke and the goad. They cannot tell how far they have toiled; they forgot even hunger and thirst in their misery. This is all due to merit or demerit in action and in store; for such as will not with confidence recite Hari’s name. Tuka says, They pay no price and yet say that Vitthala is dear; they will not even spend their voice, which costs them nothing; how vastly to be pitied are they !

Tr. J. Nelson Fraser & K.B. Marathe (1909)

Browse the Original Marathi Gatha →
संसार

Worldly Life

The perplexities of action, karma, and navigating life in the world.

More in this theme →