Realization, the show and the real
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
तुझें वर्म आह्मां कळों आलें सुखें । संतांचिया मुखें पांडुरंगा ॥1॥
अवघा चि नट वाउगा पसारा । चेईला तूं खरा तूं चि एक ॥ध्रु.॥
ह्मणउनि देहबुिद्ध नासिवंता । नातळे या चित्ता नेदावया ॥2॥
सोय हे लागली पुढिलांची वाट । पावले जे नीट तुजपाशीं ॥3॥
तुका ह्मणे नाहीं कोणासवें काज । बोलायाचें मज अंतरींचें ॥4॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Your secret has become happily known to me through the mouths of the saints, O Panduranga. This entire spectacle is a mere show, a vain display. You alone are the real one who has truly awakened. Therefore I will not let the perishable body-consciousness touch my mind. I have found the path of those who went before, those who reached You directly. Says Tuka, I have no business with anyone else. What I must speak is from the depths of my heart.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Your secret has come to me, happily, through the mouths of the saints, O Panduranga. The whole thing is a stage, an empty display. You are the real one, awake. You alone are the one. So I will not let perishing body-consciousness touch my mind. I will not give it room. I have found the path of those who went before, those who reached straight to You. Tuka says: I have no business with anyone else. What I have to say is from inside my heart.
What it means
Tukaram says the saints handed him the secret, and the secret undoes the world he was taking seriously. He now sees the whole spread of things as a staged show, a vain display, with only one waking reality behind it, which is Panduranga. From this he draws a practical rule: he refuses to let body-consciousness, the sense of being this perishable self, touch his mind at all. Following the straight path the earlier saints walked to God, he renounces every other concern, and the closing line marks that this is not theory borrowed from others but something spoken from his own inner depth.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
More in this theme →