Experience, reading the omens of abandonment
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
शकुनानें लाभ हानि । येथूनि च कळतसे ॥1॥
भयारूढ जालें मन । आतां कोण विश्वास ॥ध्रु.॥
तुका ह्मणे मोकलिलें । कळों आलें बरवें हें॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
By omens one can read profit and loss from the very start. The mind has grown fearful; what trust can remain now? Says Tuka, I have been released. At least this much has become clear.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
By the omens you can read profit and loss from the very start. My mind has grown afraid. What trust is left now? Tuka says: I have been let go. At least this much has become clear.
What it means
Tukaram speaks from a moment when the signs around him all point one way. He says that, like reading omens, you can tell from the outset whether a thing will bring gain or loss, and what he reads has filled his mind with fear and drained his trust. The hard conclusion is that he has been released, abandoned, dropped from the hand he was counting on. Yet even this he takes as a kind of mercy: at least he now sees his situation plainly, with no illusion left to cling to. Clarity, however bleak, is named as the one good he has been given.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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