Worldly life, the false claim of freedom
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
आपुलिया आंगें तोडी मायाजाळ । ऐसें नाहीं बळ कोणापाशीं ॥1॥
हर्षामर्ष जों हे नाहीं जों जिराले । तोंवरि हे केले चार त्यांनीं ॥2॥
मुक्त जालों ऐसें बोलों जाये मुखें । तुका ह्मणे दुःखें बांधला तो ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
No one has the strength to break Maya's web by one's own effort. As long as joy and sorrow have not been digested, those impulses rule the person. Says Tuka, the one who claims 'I am liberated' with his mouth while still bound by suffering is still in chains.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
No one has the strength to tear Maya's net by his own power. As long as delight and resentment are not yet burned out in him, those forces keep moving him about. A man may say with his mouth, I have become free. Tuka says: while bound by his sorrows, he is still in chains.
What it means
Tukaram punctures the easy claim of liberation. The web of Maya cannot be cut by your own muscle, and as long as the pulls of pleasure and offense are still alive and undigested, they go on steering the person whatever he says. So the man who declares with his mouth, I am liberated, has only made a noise. The test is not the words but the condition: if he is still held fast by his own griefs, he is still bound. The poem turns the listener back to honest self-examination rather than to a flattering verdict.
Worldly Life
The perplexities of action, karma, and navigating life in the world.
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