I'm ashamed of my past and my background — can I ever be worthy of grace?
Every great saint had an irregular past — Hari does not remember yours.
There is a particular shame that follows you quietly: the things you did, the family or caste or class you came from, the years you would rather no one ever knew about. It can feel like a locked door — as if grace is for the clean, the well-born, the people with nothing to hide, and you arrived too late and too stained to be let in.
Tukaram meets this exactly where it hurts, and his answer is almost startling in how directly it overturns the premise. He does not tell you to clean yourself up first. He says: look at the saints themselves. Run down the list — the courtesan, the bandit-turned-poet, the low-caste devotee, the sages born outside marriage — and ask honestly whose past was ever pure? Worthiness was never about a spotless origin. It is about anutāpa (heartfelt repentance, the inner heat of contrition) joined to remembering God. And crucially, he says, Hari does not remember your past — that is the whole point of the name Patita-pāvana, "purifier of the fallen."
He goes further still. The flawed are not merely tolerated; in his Vrindavan scene they are the most beloved — the bent and the lisping have more real feeling to offer than the polished. And the Name itself, he insists, has no price and no caste-gate: "no varṇa, no dharma, no jāti — all are included in the Name." Your background is not a fee you failed to pay. The door was never locked.
Abhang 258 — Whose past was ever pure?
वाल्हा विश्वामित्र वसिष्ठ नारद । यांचे पूर्व शुद्ध काय आहे ॥५॥ न व्हावी तीं जालीं कर्में नरनारी । अनुतापें हरी स्मरतां मुक्त ॥६॥
This is Tukaram's most radically democratic answer to exactly this question. He recites a long roll of the holy — Valmiki the former bandit, Vishvamitra, the courtesan, Ajamil, Vidura, Pingala — and asks plainly: what pure past do any of them have? "That which should not have happened, happened — in men and women; with anutāpa, remembering Hari, they were freed." The mechanism of grace is not a clean record but repentance plus remembrance. And the closing rule lands on the person who would shame you: Hari does not recall the past; he who keeps dredging it up is the one who goes to hell. If their irregular pasts did not disqualify them, yours cannot disqualify you.
Abhang 320 — The background you resent may have saved you
बरा कुणबी केलों । नाहीं तरि दंभेंचि असतों मेलों ॥१॥ भलें केलें देवराया । नाचे तुका लागे पायां ॥ध्रु.॥
Here Tukaram speaks of his own "low" background — a mere kuṇabī, a farmer — and instead of apologizing for it he thanks God for it: "Good thing I was made a farmer; otherwise I'd have died choking in dambha (pretense, self-display)." Had he been given high status and learning, he says, he'd have fallen into pride and missed the company of the saints entirely. The abhang reframes the very background you are ashamed of as a possible gift — the thing that kept you humble enough to need grace at all. Notice his closing warning runs the other way from your fear: it is greatness with pride that breeds hell, not lowliness.
Abhang 148 — The bent and the lisping are loved most
वांकडे बोबडे । खुडे मुडे एक लुडे । कृष्णा आवडती पुढें । बहु भाविक ते ॥६॥ एक एकाचें उच्छिष्ट । खातां न मानिती वीट । केलीं लाजतां ही धीट । आपुलिया संगें ॥७॥
In this Vrindavan feast, Krishna mixes everyone's food into one shared kālā and hands it back — and the ones he loves most are "the bent, the lisping, the broken, the wobbly," because they carry the most bhāva, the most real feeling. The polished have less to offer precisely because they feel less need. The lesson is blunt and freeing: stop hiding your bentness before approaching God. What once felt shameful becomes bold in good company. The gods themselves stand watching, envious — having it too good is its own kind of poverty.
Abhang 2381 — The Name has no caste and no price
नाम घेतां न लगे मोल । नाममंत्र नाहीं खोल ॥१॥ नाहीं वर्णाधमयाती । नामीं अवघीं चि सरतीं ॥२॥
If your shame is about background — birth, caste, the group you came from — this is Tukaram's most direct release. Taking the Name costs nothing and requires no esoteric initiation; it is just two letters, "Rāma Rāma." And then the famous line: "no varṇa (caste), no dharma (religious station), no jāti (birth-group) — all are included in the Name." There is no entrance fee of pedigree. The path that the priestly systems gated behind Sanskrit and lineage, Tukaram throws wide open: the Name itself transcends every social division, so no background can lock you out.
Abhang 1547 — Purifier of the fallen, Lord of the lowly
पतितपावना । दिनानाथा नारायणा ॥१॥ तुझें रूप माझे मनीं । राहो नाम जपो वाणी ॥ध्रु.॥
The simplest answer is in the name you call. Tukaram's stotra opens with three epithets stacked deliberately: Patita-pāvana — purifier of the fallen; Dīna-nātha — lord of the lowly; Nārāyaṇa. God is not described here as the rewarder of the worthy but as the one whose very nature is to lift the fallen and the lowly. That is not a loophole for you — it is the job description. To be fallen, to be low, is precisely to be the one this God came for. So the prayer that follows asks for almost nothing: just let your form stay in my mind and your name on my tongue.
Abhang 43 — Set the burden down; it isn't yours to carry
करिसी अंगीकार । तरी काय माझा भार ॥२॥ मज सोडवीं दातारा । कर्मापासूनि दुस्तरा ॥ध्रु.॥
Even once you believe grace is possible, you may keep carrying the past — the regret, the weight of old mistakes. Tukaram's logic is gentle but uncomfortable: "Sin and virtue are in your hand... if you take charge, what burden is mine?" If you have truly handed it over, you are no longer carrying it; if you are still carrying it, you have not yet handed it over. The cure is not more pleading or better self-reproach — it is actually setting the thing down. God, in his framework, is structurally ready to take what you give. The only bottleneck is the giving.
In one breath
Your past and your background were never the entrance fee — the saints themselves all had irregular ones, and Hari, the purifier of the fallen, simply does not remember yours. Bring your bentness instead of hiding it, repent honestly, take the Name that has no caste and no price, and then set the old weight down — because the one who keeps dredging up the past is not God, and need not be you.