Inner experience, the untouched Brahman
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
ब्रह्म न लिंपे त्या मेळें । कर्माअकर्मा वेगळें ॥1॥
तो चि एक तया जाणे । पावे अनुभविलें खुणें ॥ध्रु.॥
शोच अशौचाचे संधी । तन आळा तना चि मधीं ॥2॥
पापपुण्यां नाहीं ठाव । तुका ह्मणे सहज भाव ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Brahman is untouched by any association, separate from both action and inaction. Only that one knows It who has experienced It directly and recognized Its signs. The boundary between purity and impurity lies within the body itself. Says Tuka, where sin and merit have no place, there abides the natural state.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Brahman is not stained by any of this. It stands apart from action and from inaction alike. Only the one who has tasted it knows it, reaching it by the sign of his own experience. The line between clean and unclean lies inside the body itself. Tuka says: where sin and merit find no place, there the natural state abides.
What it means
Tukaram is pointing to a reality that none of our usual categories can touch. Brahman is not soiled by company, nor caught by doing or not doing, so it cannot be reached by external acts or abstentions. He insists it is known only from inside, by one who has actually experienced it and recognizes it by its own unmistakable mark, not by argument or hearsay. He then collapses the familiar measures we live by: the divide between pure and impure is something the body draws, not an absolute. Where the whole bookkeeping of sin and merit no longer applies, what remains is the natural, effortless state of being itself.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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