Nature of God, the puppet on His strings
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
काय नाहीं माझे अंतरीं वसति । व्यापक हा भूतीं सकळां नांदे ॥1॥
चित्तासी प्रसाद होईल चळण । तें चि तें वळण मनासही ॥ध्रु.॥
सर्व शक्ति जीवीं राहिल्या कुंटित । नाहीं केलें होत आपुलें तें ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे दोरी खांब सूत्र्या हातीं । नाचवी नाचती जडें तैसीं ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Does He not dwell within my own chitta? He is the all-pervading One who lives in every being. Whatever stirs in the mind is His own grace moving it; the mind simply follows that current. All powers of the jiva remain dormant; nothing I do is accomplished by my own effort. Says Tuka, the strings and the puppeteer's rod are in His hands; the lifeless puppets dance only as He moves them.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Does He not dwell within me? He pervades all beings and lives in every one. Whatever stirs in the mind is His grace moving it; the mind only follows that current. All the powers of the living being lie dormant; nothing I do is done by my own effort. Tuka says: the strings and the puppeteer's rod are in His hands. The lifeless puppets dance only as He moves them.
What it means
This poem pushes God's pervasiveness all the way into the question of who is actually acting. Tukaram first locates God within himself and within every being, then draws the hard conclusion: even the movement of his own mind is God's grace, not his initiative. The image of the puppet makes the claim sharp, that what we call our powers and our deeds are dormant on their own and dance only when the hidden hand pulls. Held wrongly this could excuse anything; held as Tukaram means it, it is the end of self-credit and the ground of surrender, since the doer was never the one we took ourselves to be.
The Nature of God
Explorations of God's character, power, grace, and relationship to the world.
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