Do not judge the saints
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
संतांचे गुण दोष आणितां या मना । केलिया उगाणा सुकृताचा ॥१॥
पिळोनियां पाहे पुष्पाचा परिमळ । चिरोनि केळी केळ गाढव तो ॥ध्रु.॥
तुका म्हणे गंगे अग्नीसि विटाळ । लावी तो चांडाळ दुःख पावे ॥२॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
When one tries to weigh the virtues and faults of saints in the mind, one only exhausts one's own merit. It is like someone who squeezes a flower to find its fragrance, or a fool who slices open a banana tree to examine it. Says Tuka, whoever tries to taint the Ganga or the sacred fire with impurity is a wretch who brings suffering upon himself.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
When you bring the virtues and faults of the saints into your mind to weigh them, you only burn up your own good merit. It is like squeezing a flower to find its fragrance. It is like a donkey slicing open a banana tree to inspect it. Tuka says: whoever tries to stain the Ganga or the sacred fire with impurity is a wretch, and he brings the suffering down on himself.
What it means
Tukaram warns against the habit of sitting in judgment over holy people, tallying their good points and bad. The cost is not theirs but yours: the very act spends down your own merit. The flower crushed for its scent and the banana tree hacked apart by a fool show how the inspecting mind destroys the thing it claims to examine. The Ganga and the fire cannot actually be defiled; the one who tries only proves himself the wretch and reaps his own grief. The teaching points at the impulse to appraise the pure, and at where that impulse lands.
The Saints
The character and service of true saints: softer than butter, harder than diamond.
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