Spiritual experience, separating truth from self
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
बाहिर पडिलों आपुल्या कर्तव्यें । संसारासि जीवें वेटािळलों ॥1॥
एकामध्यें एक नाहीं मिळों येत । ताक नवनीत निवडीलें ॥ध्रु.॥
जालीं दोनी नामें एका चि मथनीं । दुसरिया गुणीं वेगळालीं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे दाखविल्या मुक्ताफळीं । शिंपले चि स्वस्थळीं खुंटलिया ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
By my own doings I have strayed outside my own self and become entangled in worldly life with all my heart. Yet the two cannot be mixed; buttermilk and butter have been separated. From one single churning two names have arisen, made different by their qualities. Says Tuka, just as shells remain behind when pearls are extracted, so do our deceptions end when the truth is found.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
By my own doing I went outside myself and bound my whole life to the world. The two cannot be mixed; buttermilk and butter have been parted. From one churning two names arose, made separate by their qualities. Tuka says: as shells stay behind when the pearl is taken, so deceptions end once the truth is found.
What it means
Tukaram describes the moment of inward sorting that follows a life spent turned outward. He admits the entanglement was his own work, then says it can now be undone, because the true and the false are no more mixable than butter and the buttermilk left after churning. One process, the churning of a life, yields two distinct things, told apart by their nature. He closes with the image of pearl and shell: when the real thing is found and lifted out, the husk of illusion simply drops away and is left behind. The poem is about discrimination, the labor of separating the self that clung to the world from the self that belongs to God.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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