Nondual fearlessness, no bondage was ever real
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
मुक्त कासया ह्मणावें । बंधन तें नाहीं ठावें ॥1॥
सुखें करितों कीर्तन । भय विसरलें मन ॥ध्रु.॥
देखिजेना नास । घालूं कोणावरी कास ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे साहे । देव आहे तैसा आहे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Why should one be called liberated when bondage was never real? I perform kirtan in joy; the mind has forgotten all fear. No destruction is visible anywhere; on whom should I lean for support? Says Tuka, God endures; He is as He always was.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Why call anyone liberated? The bondage was never even there. I do my kirtan in joy; my mind has forgotten fear. I see no destruction anywhere. On whom, then, would I lean for support? Tuka says: God endures. God is just as God always is.
What it means
Tukaram pushes past the usual talk of liberation. To be freed, there must first have been a real chain; but he says the bondage was never real, so the word liberated has nothing to grip. From that seeing, fear simply drops out of the mind and he sings. He looks for destruction and finds none, and therefore finds no need to clutch at any prop or support. What remains is the one thing that does not come and go: God abides, unchanged, exactly as God has always been.
Ecstasy and Joy
Triumphant happiness: poems written from the far side of the struggle.
More in this theme →