Nature of God, grace over effort
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
काय साधनाच्या कोटी । केल्या आटी होती त्या॥1॥
देव कृपा करी जरी । होय उजरी स्वरूपीं ॥ध्रु.॥
केले होते चिंता श्रम । उपरम न होतां ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे कळों आलें । सर्व जालें आपरूप ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
What use are millions of spiritual practices and strivings? If God is gracious, illumination dawns within the Self. All the anxiety and labor one has endured come to rest only when He grants His grace. Says Tuka, now I understand: everything has become a revelation of the Self.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
What use are millions of practices and strivings? They only wear you out. If God shows grace, the light dawns within the Self. All the worry and the labor went on without rest until then. Tuka says: now I understand. Everything has become the Self's own form.
What it means
Tukaram weighs effort against grace and finds effort, by itself, exhausting and empty. Countless disciplines only grind a person down; the actual opening, the light within, comes when God is gracious. He admits that all his own anxiety and toil never came to rest while he was relying on them. The realization that ends the poem reframes everything: once grace dawns, he sees that all of it, the whole world, was always the Self's own form. The point is not that practice is worthless but that it cannot manufacture what only grace reveals.
The Nature of God
Explorations of God's character, power, grace, and relationship to the world.
More in this theme →