Experience, the drop in the ocean
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
मुसावलें अंग । रंगीं मेळविला रंग ॥1॥
एकीं एक दृढ जालें । मुळा आपुलिया आलें ॥ध्रु.॥
सागरीं थेंबुडा । पडिल्या निवडे कोण्या वाटा ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे नवें । नव्हे जाणावें हें देवें ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
The body has been saturated; color has merged with color. The two have become firmly one, returned to their original source. When a droplet falls into the ocean, by what path can it be separated out again? Says Tuka, know that this is nothing new; God has always known it.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
The body has melted away. Color has mixed into color. The two have become firmly one and returned to their own root. A drop falls into the ocean. After that, by what path can you pick it out again? Tuka says: this is nothing new. Know that God has always known it.
What it means
Tukaram is describing union from the inside, where the seer and the seen stop being two. The separate body dissolves; one color runs into another until they are a single dye, and what seemed like two has gone back to the one source it came from. His test is the drop in the ocean: once it has fallen in, no path remains by which it could ever be lifted out as a separate drop. Then he adds the steadying word, that this oneness is not some new event he has produced; it is how things always were, and God has known it from the start. The merging only reveals what was already true.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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