Experience, every place is enough
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
जन विजन जालें आम्हां । विठ्ठलनामा प्रमाणें ॥१॥
पाहें तिकडे बापमाय । विठ्ठल आहे रखुमाई ॥ध्रु.॥
वन पट्टण एकभाव । अवघा ठाव सरता जाला ॥२॥
आठव नाहीं सुखदुःखा । नाचे तुका कौतुकें ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Populated or solitary, it is the same to us, for the name of Vitthal is the measure of all. Wherever I look, the Father and Mother are there: Vitthal is there, Rakhumai is there. Forest and city hold one feeling; every place has become sufficient. No memory remains of pleasure or pain. Tuka dances in wonder.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Crowded street or empty forest, it is all the same to me now, because the name of Vitthal is the measure of every place. Wherever I look, my father and mother are there: Vitthal is there, and Rakhumai. Forest or city, the feeling is one; every place has become enough. No memory of pleasure or pain stays with me. Tuka dances, lost in wonder.
What it means
For Tukaram the name of God has leveled every difference between places. A busy town and a lonely forest are equal, because God fills both, and wherever he turns he meets the divine parents, Vitthal and Rakhumai. When the whole world has become God's presence, no place is better or worse, and the swings of pleasure and pain leave no mark. What remains is the simplest sign of that freedom: he dances, carried away in wonder, at home everywhere.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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