Moral ideal, the fault is in the seer
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
देव तीर्थ येर दिसे जया ओस । तोचि तया दोष जाणतिया ॥1॥
तया बरें फावे देवा चुकवितां । संचिताची सत्ता अंतराय ॥ध्रु.॥
शुद्धाशुद्धठाव पापुण्यबीज । पाववील दुजे फळभोग ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे विश्वंभराऐसें वर्म । चुकविल्या धर्म अवघे मिथ्या ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
He who sees God and holy places as empty and meaningless, that fault belongs to the one who sees. He who manages to avoid God is ruled by the power of his own past karma. Pure and impure grounds, the seeds of sin and merit, will each bring their respective fruit of experience. Says Tuka, when one bypasses the essential truth of the all-sustaining Lord, all dharma becomes false.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
If a man sees God and holy places as empty and meaningless, that fault is his own, the seer's. The man who manages to dodge God is ruled by the power of his own past deeds. Pure ground and impure ground, the seeds of sin and of merit, each will bring its own fruit to be tasted. Tuka says: when you bypass the heart of it, the all-sustaining Lord, every duty you keep is false.
What it means
Tukaram turns a complaint into a mirror. When someone declares God and pilgrimage empty, he refuses to grant the verdict; the emptiness is in the one who sees, not in what is seen. He explains the dodge as the working of past karma, and he insists the moral ledger is exact, that pure and impure ground each yield their own harvest. The closing claim is the radical one, that ritual and duty are worthless if they skip the living center, the all-sustaining Lord, so the test is not how much dharma you perform but whether you have kept your eye on Him.
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