Nondual surrender, can water wash water
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
ह्मणऊनि नििश्चत राहिलों मनीं । तूं चि सर्वां खाणी देखोनियां ॥1॥
कवणाचें कारण न लगे कांहीं । सर्वांठायीं तूं एक।
जळें जळ काय धोविलें एक । कवण तें पातक हरलें तेथें ।
पापपुण्य हे वासना सकळ । ते तुज समूळ समपिनली ॥2॥
पितरस्वरूपी तूं चि जनादनन। सव्य तें कवण अपसव्य ।
तुका ह्मणे जीत पिंड तुह्मां हातीं। देऊनि नििंश्चती मानियेली ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I have settled my mind with certainty, seeing that You are the source of all. No one else's help is needed for anything; You are the One in all places. Can water wash water? What sin is removed there? All notions of sin and merit, every desire, I have surrendered to You entirely. You Yourself are the ancestor-spirit, O Janardana; what is auspicious and what inauspicious before You? Says Tuka, I have placed the living offering into Your hands and accepted the peace that follows.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
And so I have settled my mind in peace, seeing that you are the source of all. No one else's help is needed for anything; in every place you alone are. Can water wash water? What sin is removed there? All notions of sin and merit, every craving, I have surrendered to you, root and all. You yourself are the ancestor-spirit, Janardana; before you, what is auspicious and what is not? Tuka says: I have placed the living offering into your hands and taken the peace that follows.
What it means
Tukaram reaches stillness by seeing that there is only one source, and it is God. Since God is everything and everywhere, no other agency is needed and no other can help; the seeker has nowhere else to turn and no need to. The image of water washing water is his way of dissolving the whole machinery of ritual purification: if all is one substance, one cannot scrub another clean, and the very ideas of sin and merit lose their footing. He surrenders those ideas and all desire at the root. Because God is even the ancestor to whom rites are offered, the distinctions of auspicious and inauspicious vanish, and Tukaram simply hands over the living self as the offering and rests in the peace that follows.
The Nature of God
Explorations of God's character, power, grace, and relationship to the world.
More in this theme →