Experience, practice makes the impossible possible
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
साधूनी बचनाग खाती तोळा तोळा । आणिकातें डोळां न पाहवे ॥१॥
साधूनी भुजंग धरितील हातीं । आणिकें कापती देखोनियां ॥२॥
असाध्य तें साध्य करितां सायास । कारण अभ्यास तुका म्हणे ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Those who have practiced can swallow deadly poison by the measure and remain unharmed, while others cannot even bear to look at it. Those who have trained can hold serpents in their hands, while others tremble merely at the sight. Says Tuka, what seems impossible becomes possible through effort; the secret is practice.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Those who have practiced can swallow deadly poison by the measure and stay unharmed, while others cannot even bear to look at it. Those who have trained can hold serpents in their hands, while others shake at the mere sight. What seems impossible is made possible by hard effort. Tuka says: the reason is practice.
What it means
Tukaram uses two extreme images to teach one thing about the spiritual path. A trained person can eat poison by the dose and handle live snakes, things that make ordinary people recoil or tremble. The difference is not magic; it is disciplined practice. The poem then turns the figures into a principle: what looks impossible becomes possible through sustained effort. He names the cause directly, that the secret is abhyasa, steady repeated practice, and so the inner work too is learned the same way.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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