Self-inquiry, the Eye behind the eyes
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
हातपाय मिळोनि मेळा । चला ह्मणती पाहों डोळां॥1॥
देखणी नव्हे देखती कैसे । सकळांचा देखणा डोळा चि असे ॥2॥
डोळ्याचा डोळा पाहों गेला । तुका ह्मणे तो पाहों ठेला ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The hands, feet, and all the limbs gathered together and said, "Come, let us go and see with our own eyes." But the eyes are not the true seer; how then do they see? The one who truly sees is the eye behind all eyes. Says Tuka, the eye that went to see the Eye of all eyes was itself absorbed in the seeing.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The hands and feet and the rest gathered together and said, come, let us go and see with our eyes. But the eyes are not the seer; how do they see at all? The one who sees in everyone is the single seeing Eye. Tuka says: the eye that went to look at the Eye of all eyes stood still in the looking.
What it means
Tukaram turns the act of seeing into a riddle about who the real perceiver is. The limbs set out to see God, trusting the eyes, but the eyes are only instruments; they do not see by themselves. Behind every pair of eyes there is one Seeing, the awareness that looks through all of them. When the small eye finally goes to look at that Eye, it cannot stand apart and observe it; it is absorbed, the watcher dissolves into what it was watching. He is pointing past the senses to the witnessing consciousness that no sense can ever turn around and catch.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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