Love as instinct, experience speaks
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
वत्स पळे धेनु धांवे पाठीलागीं । प्रीतीचा तो अंगीं आयुर्भाव ॥1॥
शिकविलें काय येईल कारणा । सूत्र ओढी मना आणिकांच्या ॥ध्रु.॥
सांडिलें तें नाहीं घेत मेळवितां । ह्मणऊनि लाता मागें सारी ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे आग्रह करावा न लगे । सांगतसे अंगें अनुभव ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
When a calf runs, the cow chases after it. The natural impulse of love is in her very being. Can what is taught ever serve the same purpose? The inner thread pulls the minds of all beings. What has been truly abandoned cannot be reclaimed by force; therefore she kicks away the pretender. Says Tuka, there is no need to insist; direct experience speaks for itself.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
When the calf runs off, the cow runs after it. That love is born in her very body. Can anything taught do the same work? An inner thread pulls the minds of all beings. What she has truly let go of she will not take back when you try to give it again; so she kicks away the pretender. Tuka says: there is no need to insist. Direct experience tells you itself, in your own body.
What it means
Tukaram contrasts learned behavior with love that rises on its own. The cow chasing her calf shows a love that is not instructed but native, born in the body itself; an inner thread draws every creature without being told. Real devotion is like this: it cannot be installed by teaching, and once the heart has genuinely let something go, no force can press it back, the way the cow kicks off a calf that is not her own. The point is that you do not have to argue or insist about God; lived experience makes its own case in you directly.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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