Awakening, the dream of bondage
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
स्वप्नीचिया गोष्टी । मज धरिलें होतें वेठी । जालिया सेवटीं । जालें लटिकें सकळ ॥१॥
वायां भाकिली करुणा । मूळ पावावया सिणा । राव रंक राणा । कैंचे स्थानावरि आहे ॥ध्रु.॥
सोसिलें तें अंगें । खरें होतें नव्हतां जागें । अनुभव ही सांगे । दुःखें डोळे उघडीले ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे संतीं । सावचित केलें अंतीं । नाहीं तरि होती । टाळी बैसोनि राहिली ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The affairs of a dream had pressed me into bonded labor, but when it ended, everything was revealed as false. In vain I had cried out for mercy, laboring to reach the root of my suffering. King, beggar, or queen: none remain where they were. What I endured in the body felt real only until I awoke; experience itself opened my eyes through pain. Says Tuka, the saints finally made me alert; otherwise I would have sat there forever, hands folded, lost in delusion.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The affairs of a dream had pressed me into forced labor; when it ended, all of it was shown to be false. I had cried out for mercy in vain, laboring to reach the root of my suffering. King, beggar, queen: none stay where they stood. What I endured felt real only while I was not awake; experience itself opened my eyes through pain. Tuka says: at the end the saints made me alert; otherwise I would have stayed sitting there forever, hands folded, lost.
What it means
Tukaram treats this whole worldly life as a dream that held him in bonded labor, suffering and begging for mercy over things that proved false the moment he woke. He shows that the roles we cling to, king, beggar, queen, are all temporary; none holds its place. The pain itself was instructive, since it was through suffering that his eyes finally opened to the unreality of it all. The decisive turn is that he did not wake on his own: the saints roused him at last, and without them he would have sat on in the dream forever, hands folded in helpless delusion.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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