Exhortation, guard the mind
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
गति अधोगति मनाची युक्ति । मन लावीं एकांतीं साधुसंगें ॥1॥
जतन करा जतन करा । धांवतें सैरा ओढाळ तें ॥ध्रु.॥
मान अपमान मनाचें लक्षण । लाविलिया ध्यान तें चि करी ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे मन उतरी भवसिंधु । मन करी बंधु चौयाशीचा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Elevation or downfall is the mind's own doing; it is the mind's own skill that governs all. Steady the mind in solitude and the company of the holy. Guard it, guard it carefully. It runs wild, bolting and straying without restraint. Honor and insult are both the mind's own making. Whatever it is trained upon, that is what it produces. Says Tuka, the mind can carry you across the ocean of worldly existence. The same mind can bind you in the cycle of eighty-four lakh births.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Rising up or falling down is the mind's own work; it is the mind's skill that decides. Set the mind in solitude and in the company of the holy. Guard it, guard it well. It bolts and runs wild, straying off like an unruly beast. Honor and insult are both the mind's own making; whatever you fix it on, that is what it produces. Tuka says: the mind can carry you across the ocean of worldly life. The same mind can bind you to the cycle of eighty-four lakh births.
What it means
Tukaram makes the mind the single hinge between liberation and ruin. Whether a person rises or sinks is decided by the mind alone, so he urges steadying it in solitude and in the company of the holy. He repeats the warning to guard it, because by nature it bolts and strays like an animal that will not stay in its pen. Honor and insult, he says, are the mind's own fabrications, and it manufactures whatever it is trained upon. The two-edged close is the lesson: this same mind can ferry you across samsara or chain you to countless rebirths, so everything turns on how you train it.
Appeals and Exhortations
Direct calls to action: wake up, seek God, do not waste this human birth.
More in this theme →