Experience, the middle past speech
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
वचनें ही नाड । न बोले तें मुकें खोड ॥1॥
दोहीं वेगळें तें हित । बोली अबोलणी नीत ॥ध्रु.॥
अंधार प्रकाशी । जाय दिवस पावे निशी ॥2॥
बीज पृथिवीच्या पोटीं । तुका ह्मणे दावी दृष्टी ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Speech can bring ruin, and silence can be a defect. True welfare lies apart from both, between speaking and not speaking. Darkness ends when light comes; the day departs when night arrives. Says Tuka, the seed lies hidden in the belly of the earth, yet in time it shows itself to the eye.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Words can ruin you. To say nothing, to stay mute, is a fault too. The good thing lies apart from both. It is a speaking that is also a not speaking. Darkness goes when light comes. The day leaves when night arrives. The seed lies in the belly of the earth. Tuka says: in time it shows itself to the eye.
What it means
Tukaram is pointing at something that does not fit the choice between speaking and keeping silent. Reckless speech brings ruin, but stubborn muteness is a defect of its own; the welfare he wants sits in neither. He calls it a speech that is also a silence, a way of being that the ordinary pair cannot hold. The images press the same point: light and dark, day and night, follow each other and pass, while the seed hidden in the earth keeps its life and shows itself in its own time. What is real is not the visible move from one opposite to the other but the quiet thing underneath that finally surfaces.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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