Teaching by analogy, the unpurified heart
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
नाहीं निर्मळ जीवन । काय करील साबण ॥1॥
तैसी चित्तशुिद्ध नाहीं । तेथें बोध करील काई ॥ध्रु.॥
वृक्ष न धरी पुष्पफळ । काय करील वसंतकाळ ॥2॥
वांजे न होती लेकरें । काय करावें भ्रतारें ॥3॥
नपुंसका पुरुषासी । काय करील बाइल त्यासी ॥4॥
प्राण गेलिया शरीर । काय करील वेव्हार ॥5॥
तुका ह्मणे जीवनेंविण । पीक नव्हे नव्हे जाण ॥6॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
If the water is not clean, what can soap do? Likewise, if the chitta is not purified, what can any teaching accomplish? If a tree bears no flowers or fruit, what can the spring season do? If a barren woman has no children, what is the use of a husband? What can a wife do for an impotent man? When the life-breath has departed, what dealings can the body conduct? Says Tuka, know that without the water of devotion, no crop can grow.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
If the water is not clean, what can soap do? In the same way, if the heart is not pure, what can teaching do there? If a tree bears no flower and no fruit, what can spring do for it? If a barren woman has no children, what use is a husband? What can a wife do for an impotent man? When the life-breath has left the body, what business can the body do? Tuka says: know this, without the water of life, no crop grows.
What it means
Tukaram stacks one plain image on another to drive home a single point about readiness. Soap cannot wash in foul water; spring cannot make a dead tree fruit; the things meant to bring life come to nothing when the ground for them is missing. He turns this onto the inner life: if the heart is not yet cleansed, even true teaching lands on it uselessly. The point is not contempt for the unready but an honest naming of order: the inward purification has to come first, or nothing that follows can take root and grow.
Worldly Metaphors
Poems using images from games, occupations, and daily life as spiritual teaching.
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