Experience, the face that glows with grace
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
नसतों किविलवाणें । कांहीं तुमच्या कृपादानें ॥1॥
हे चि तयाची ओळखी । धालें टवटवित मुखीं ॥ध्रु.॥
वांयां जात नाहीं । वचन प्रीतीचें तें कांहीं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे देवा । सत्य येतें अनुभवा ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
I would not appear so pitiful were it not for Your grace. The mark of Your blessing is this: my face glows with contentment. A word spoken with love never goes to waste. Says Tuka, O God, this truth comes through direct experience.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
I would not be so pitiful but for your gift of grace. This is the sign of it: a face grown bright and content. A word spoken in love is never wasted; nothing of it is lost. Tuka says: O God, this proves true in living experience.
What it means
Tukaram points to a quiet, visible mark of grace rather than to any argument for it. Whatever poverty or helplessness he still wears, he says it would be worse without God's gift, and the gift shows itself plainly in a face turned bright and content. He adds a small certainty: a word spoken in love goes nowhere to waste. The closing line is the whole ground of the poem, that none of this is theory but something tested and found true in his own experience. It is the calm testimony of a man reporting what he has lived.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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