God Makes the Rivers to Flow: An Anthology of the World's Sacred Poetry and Prose (Essential Easwaran Library Book 4)

by Eknath Easwaran

Tukaram In Me Thou Livest When I Lose Myself in Thee The One Thing Needed Think on His Name A Hindu mystic of seventeenth-century India, Tukaram (c. 1598–1650) started out in life as a prosperous peasant farmer and grain seller. A series of devastating personal losses plunged him into a despair so deep it completely purged his worldly aspirations. Turning all his thoughts to God, he began to express his longings in devotional songs of compelling simplicity and beauty – songs that became lyrics of joy when he reached illumination and dedicated his life to teaching the common people to aspire to God-realization. His thousands of compositions in the vernacular are considered the foundation of Marathi literature. He is regarded as an important representative of the Bhakti school of Hindu mysticism, the way of devotion. From John S. Hoyland, An Indian Peasant Mystic: Translations from Tukaram (Allenson & Co., 1932).