Worldly life, the two ditches
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
एक नेणतां नाडली । एकां जाणिवेची भुली ॥१॥
दोहीं सवा नाड । विहीर एकीकडे आड ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे कर्म । तुझें कळों नेदी वर्म ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Some are ruined by ignorance; others are deluded by their own cleverness. Both paths lead to trouble, like a well on either side of the road. Says Tuka, your karma is such that it never lets you see the essential secret.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Some are ruined by not knowing; some are fooled by their own cleverness. Both ways lead to harm, like a well on one side of the road and a pit on the other. Tuka says: your karma is such that it never lets you see the heart of the matter.
What it means
Tukaram names two ways a person comes to grief, and they look like opposites: blank ignorance on one side, proud cleverness on the other. He gives the image of a road with a well on one edge and a hole on the other, so that veering either way ends in a fall. The trap is that knowing too little and thinking you know too much are both dead ends. He lays the cause at the door of karma, which keeps a person from ever seeing the secret that would let them walk straight between the two.
Worldly Life
The perplexities of action, karma, and navigating life in the world.
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