Experience cannot be told
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
चालावा पंथ तो पाविजे त्या ठाया । ऐकिल्या वांयां वारता त्या ॥1॥
ऐका जी वोजे पडतसें पायां । भावाचि तें जायावाट नव्हे ॥ध्रु.॥
व्याली कुमारीचा अनुभवें अनुभव । सांगतां तो भाव येत नाहीं ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे येथें पाहिजे आरालें । बिंबीं निवळलें तरि भासे ॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
One must walk the path to reach the destination. Merely hearing the news is of no use. Listen, I fall at your feet with all my weight. The path of going is not by feeling alone. A virgin who has given birth: only she knows it from experience. Describing that bhava, it does not come across. Says Tuka, here one must peer closely with strained attention. Only when the image is clear does the reflection appear.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
You must walk the path to reach that place. Just hearing the news of it is useless. Listen, I fall at your feet with all my weight: the way there is not by feeling alone. A virgin who has given birth knows it only by going through it; tell it to another, and that state will not come across. Tuka says: here you must look with close, strained attention. Only when the image is clear does the reflection show.
What it means
Tukaram is saying that the truth he points to has to be lived, not merely heard about. Secondhand report and even inward sentiment cannot carry you to the destination; you have to walk the road yourself. He uses a deliberately impossible image, a virgin who has borne a child, to say that this is an experience no description can transfer to someone who has not had it. The seeing he calls for is exact and effortful: just as a reflection appears only when the mirror or water is perfectly still and clear, the real thing shows itself only to attention that has been made clear. The teaching can point; the experience must be earned.
The Necessity of Experience
Why direct experience of God, not mere learning, is the only path.
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