Experience guarded, not preached
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
न संगावें वर्म । जनीं असों द्यावा भ्रम ॥1॥
उगींच लागतील पाठीं । होतीं रितीं च हिंपुटीं ॥ध्रु.॥
सिकविल्या गोटी । शिकोनि धरितील पोटीं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे सीण । होइल अनुभवाविण ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Do not reveal the secret to the crowd; let the world remain in its delusion. Otherwise, the undeserving will simply follow you, remaining empty and helpless. They will memorize the phrases you teach and store them in their bellies. Says Tuka, without actual experience, there will only be weariness.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Do not tell the secret to the crowd. Let the world stay in its delusion. Otherwise the unworthy will simply trail after you, staying empty and helpless. They will memorize the phrases you teach and store them in their bellies. Tuka says: without real experience, there will only be weariness.
What it means
Tukaram counsels keeping the inmost truth from being handed out cheaply to a crowd. If you parade it, the unready merely attach themselves to you and remain as empty as before. Worse, they collect your phrases by heart and carry them around as borrowed words, mistaking memorized teaching for the thing itself. His warning lands on the difference between knowing and parroting: without lived experience, all that learning produces is exhaustion. The point is self-examination, asking whether what we hold is our own or merely stored words.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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