Realization, the world is God
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
ज्याचा ऐसा अनुभव । विश्व देव सत्यत्वें ॥1॥
देव तया जवळी असे । पाप नासे दरुषणें ॥ध्रु.॥
कामक्रोधा नाहीं चाली । भूतीं जाली समता ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे भेदाभेद । गेले वाद खंडोनि ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
He whose experience is this, that the world is truly God: God dwells near to that one, and sins are destroyed by his very sight. Lust and anger lose their footing, and equality toward all beings is established. Says Tuka, all debates of difference and non-difference have been cut through and gone.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The one whose experience is this, that the whole world is truly God: God lives near to him, and sins fall away at the sight of him. Lust and anger lose their hold in him. He sees all beings as equal. Tuka says: for him the quarrels of difference and non-difference are cut through and gone.
What it means
Tukaram describes the person in whom realization has actually landed, not as theory but as lived experience: he sees the entire world as nothing other than God. Such a person carries God so close that even seeing him destroys the onlooker's sins. In him the two great drivers, lust and anger, have lost their footing, and every being looks equal to his eye. And the long philosophical war over whether the soul is different from God or one with it simply ends for him; he has cut through it, not by winning the debate but by passing beyond the need for it.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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