Abhanga 3707
Fine words and private daydreams count for nothing if your actual practice does not match them, just as calling someone else's cattle your own brings no real gain.
The verse
स्वप्नींच्या सुखें नाहीं होत राजा । तैसा दिसे माझा अनुभव ॥१॥
कासया हा केला जिहुवे अळंकार । पायांसी अंतर दिसतसे ॥ध्रु.॥
आस केली तरी लाळ चि घोंटावी । ठकाठकी तेवीं दिसतसे ॥२॥
तुका म्हणे गुरें राखोनि गोंवारी । माझीं म्हणे परि लाभ नाहीं ॥३॥
Literal translation
By-svapna-sukha-no-rājā — my-anubhava-same. Why-aḷankāra-jihvā — antara-from-pāya-seen. Āsa-just-swallowing-lāḷa — ṭhakā-ṭhakī-deception. Tukā: gōvārī-keeping-cattle-calling-mine — but-no-lābha.
What it means
A striking 3-verse anubhava-petition. Sukha-in-dream doesn't make-a-king — that's what my anubhava looks like; why have I decorated my tongue? — distance from your feet is seen; the longing I make is just swallowing-my-own-saliva — a deception-trick; the cowherd-keeping-cattle-calls-them-mine — but there's no lābha (they're not really his). Two-image cluster: dream-king + cowherd-cattle-not-his.
For someone today
Tukārām confesses that happiness felt only in a dream never makes anyone a real king, and his own experience, he admits, looks just as thin as that. He asks why he has decorated his tongue with fine words, when the distance between his talk and his actual feet, his real practice, is plain to see. Even his own longing, he says, is like swallowing his own saliva, a private trick that fools no one but himself. He compares it to a cowherd who tends someone else's cattle and calls them his own, yet gains nothing real from the claim, a sharp reminder that saying something is yours does not make it so.
मराठी: तुकाराम कबूल करतात की केवळ स्वप्नात अनुभवलेल्या सुखाने कोणी खरा राजा होत नाही, आणि त्यांचा स्वतःचा अनुभवही तितकाच पोकळ भासतो. ते विचारतात की त्यांनी आपल्या जिभेला सुंदर शब्दांचे अलंकार का चढवले, जेव्हा त्यांच्या बोलण्यात आणि त्यांच्या प्रत्यक्ष पावलांत, त्यांच्या खऱ्या साधनेत, अंतर स्पष्ट दिसते. त्यांची स्वतःची आस देखील, ते म्हणतात, स्वतःची लाळ गिळण्यासारखी आहे, स्वतःलाच फसवणारी एक युक्ती. ते याची तुलना अशा गोवाऱ्याशी करतात जो दुसऱ्याची गुरे राखतो आणि त्यांना 'माझी' म्हणतो, पण त्या दाव्यातून त्याला काहीच खरा फायदा मिळत नाही, हे एक ठाम स्मरण आहे की एखादी गोष्ट आपली आहे असे म्हटल्याने ती खरोखर आपली होत नाही.
Where this applies
- When you notice a gap between the fine spiritual talk you give and the actual practice of your daily life
- When you catch yourself chasing a longing that only satisfies you privately, without any real change happening
- When you claim credit for something you tend or manage but do not truly own or benefit from
- When you realize that comforting yourself with imagined success is not the same as achieving anything real