Experience over hearsay
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
होईल जाला अंगें देव जो आपण । तयासी हे जन अवघे देव ॥1॥
येरांनीं सांगावी रेमट काहाणी । चित्ता रंजवणी करावया ॥ध्रु.॥
धाला आणिकांची नेणे तान भूक । सुखें पाहें सुख आपुलिया ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे येथें पाहिजे अनुभव । शब्दाचें गौरव कामा नये ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
One who has truly become God in one's own being sees all people as God. Others should simply tell their worn-out tales to entertain the mind. One who is satisfied does not feel another's hunger and thirst; one who is happy looks at the world through the eyes of one's own happiness. Says Tuka, what is needed here is direct experience. The grandeur of mere words is of no real use.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
One who has truly become God in his own being sees all people as God. The rest only tell their tired stories to amuse the mind. A full man does not feel another's hunger and thirst; a happy man looks at the world through his own happiness. Tuka says: what is needed here is direct experience. The grandeur of mere words is of no use.
What it means
Tukaram is drawing a hard line between realization and talk. The one who has actually become God sees God in everyone; everyone else is just retelling worn-out tales to entertain the mind. He names the danger of secondhand spirituality with a homely image: a man whose own belly is full cannot feel your hunger, and a man comfortable in his own happiness reads the whole world through it, blind to what he has not lived. The point lands on the listener: weigh teachings by lived experience, not by the splendor of the words, and ask whether your own knowing is tasted or merely borrowed.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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