Moral counsel, peace and the far shore
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
शांतीपरतें नाहीं सुख । येर अवघें ची दुःख ॥१॥
म्हणउनी शांति धरा । उतराल पैल तीरा ॥ध्रु.॥
खवळलिया कामक्रोधीं । अंगी भरती आधिव्याधी ॥२॥
म्हणे त्रिविध ताप । जाती मग आपेंआप ॥३॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
There is no happiness greater than peace; everything else is only suffering. Therefore hold fast to peace, and you will reach the far shore. When lust and anger are inflamed, the body fills with affliction and disease. Says Tuka, the three kinds of suffering then vanish on their own.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
There is no happiness beyond peace; everything else is only suffering. So hold on to peace, and you will cross to the far shore. When lust and anger flare up, the body fills with worry and disease. He says: then the three kinds of suffering leave you on their own.
What it means
Tukaram names peace as the one real happiness and everything else as disguised pain, then gives a plain instruction: hold fast to peace, and that is what carries you across. He points to the cost of the opposite, when lust and anger are stirred up, they do not stay in the mind but settle into the body as worry and sickness. Calm the inner fires and the threefold suffering, of body, of circumstance, of fate, falls away by itself. The teaching is practical, not abstract: peace is both the goal and the means of crossing.
The Moral Ideal
Purity, sincerity, truthfulness, humility, peacefulness, and service.
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