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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
722
Ātman and Moksa
and sugar in grains; this is a difference of names only; if you try to distinguish their sweetness at table, you find they are the same essentially. Tell us, O, Pānluranga, whether you and we are different; the world is cheated by the words "I" and "mine"".? Thus, Tukārāma holds that the unity of God and the world is more fundamental; and the differences have only secondary and phenomenal reality. Māyā is so indistinguishably mixed with the Brahman that they are inseparable. Most eloquently Tukārāma describes their union and identity in the following way — "Brahman and Māyā exist together, as the shadow follows the body. If you try to cut it off, you fail; if you try to destroy it, it has an existence of its own; if you cover it up beneath you, it is there, out of sight. When it is inseparable, why should you persist in calling it separate? We lead ourselves into a confusion of mind. Tukā says-- The taller you grow, the taller it is; the shorter, the shorter; it varies with yourself."2 Thus, Máyä exists for a person who is under ignorance and it ceases to exist for him who obtains the knowledge of God. Such God is the Self of a person and exists in his soul.3 He hides Himself in the innermost recesses of the mind." He is not contaminated by the evil qualities of the world; just as the Sun draws : Fraser J. N. and Marathe K. B. (Tr.): The Poems of Tukarāma, Vol. II, 1671, p. 160.
2 Ibid. Vol. I, 177, p. 66. 3 Ibid. Vol. II, 1698, p. 168. 4 Ibid. 1758, p. 185.
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