Social criticism, the fraud guru
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
साधक जाले कळी । गुरुगुडीची लांब नळी ॥1॥
पचीं पडे मद्यपान । भांगभुकान हें साधन ॥ध्रु.॥
अभेदाचें पाठांतर । अति विषयीं पडिभर ॥2॥
चेल्यांचा सुकाळ । पिंड दंड भंगपाळ ॥3॥
सेवा मानधन । बरे इच्छेनें संपन्न ॥4॥
सोंगाच्या नरकाडी । तुका बोडोनियां सोडी ॥5॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The seekers of this age have become like the long pipe of a smoking vessel. Their practice is intoxication, cannabis, and liquor. Parading the lesson of non-duality, they are enslaved to sense pleasures. They have a surplus of disciples and a regime of begging-bowl, staff, and cannabis. Their service and honor are merely wages earned for their own desires. Says Tuka, I will shave these frauds bare and drive them out.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The seekers of this age have become like the long pipe of a smoking vessel. Their practice is intoxication, cannabis, and liquor. They parade the lesson of non-duality while they are slaves to the senses. They have a surplus of disciples and a regime of begging bowl, staff, and cannabis. Their service and their honor are only wages earned for their own desires. Tuka says: I will shave these frauds bare and drive them out.
What it means
Tukaram aims his scorn at a hollow kind of religion that was thriving in his time. The man who calls himself a seeker is really living on the smoking pipe, on intoxicants, while mouthing the high doctrine of non-duality to cover a life enslaved to the senses. The marks of the role, the disciples, the begging bowl, the staff, become a business run for the holder's own appetite and honor. The pattern he attacks is the use of spiritual language and trappings as a livelihood for the ego, and his harsh closing image is meant to strip that disguise off it.
Social Criticism
Rebuke of hypocrisy, caste pride, false teachers, greed, and religious pretence.
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