Worldly life, Maya the puppeteer
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
धर्म तो न कळे । काय झांकितील डोळे ॥1॥
जीव भ्रमले या कामें । कैसीं कळों येती वर्में ॥ध्रु.॥
विषयांचा माज । कांहीं धरूं नेदी लाज ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे लांसी । माया नाचविते कैसी ॥3॥ ॥2॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Dharma is not understood; people just shut their eyes. Jivas are bewildered by lust; how can they perceive any truth? The intoxication of sense pleasures will not let one hold on to any sense of shame. Says Tuka, see how Maya makes everyone dance like a puppet.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Dharma is not understood. People simply shut their eyes. Living beings are bewildered by lust. How can they perceive any truth? The intoxication of the senses will not let them hold on to any shame. Tuka says: see how Maya makes everyone dance like a puppet.
What it means
Tukaram is naming the condition that keeps people blind to right living. They do not grasp dharma; they close their eyes to it, dazed by craving so that no truth can reach them. Drunk on sense pleasure, they lose even the shame that might check them. He gives the whole spectacle one image: Maya, the world's deluding power, holds the strings and makes everyone dance like puppets. The point is not contempt for any one person but recognition of the force that moves us all when we stop looking.
Worldly Life
The perplexities of action, karma, and navigating life in the world.
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