WE WERE WAITING for the train, and it was late. The platform was dirty and noisy, the air acrid. There were many people waiting, like us. Children were crying, a mother was suckling her baby, the vendors were shouting their wares, tea and coffee were being sold, and it was an altogether busy and clamorous place. We were walking up and down the platform, watching our own footsteps and the movement of life about us. A man came up to us and began to talk in broken English. He said he had been watching us, and felt impelled to say something to us. With great feeling he promised he would lead a clean life, and that from this moment he would never smoke again. He said he was not educated, as he was only a rickshaw boy. He had strong eyes and a pleasant smile.
火车晚点了，我们在等候。 站台肮脏而嘈杂，空气刺鼻。 和我们一样，很多人都在等候。 有小孩子在哭泣，一位母亲在给她的宝宝喂奶， 小商贩们吆喝着他们的商品，售卖茶和咖啡， 这一切，构成了一个非常繁忙和喧哗的场景。 我们在站台上走来走去， 瞧着自己的脚步和我们生活中的活动。 一个男人走了过来，开始用蹩脚的英语说话。 他说他一直在看着我们，并感到有必要和我们聊聊。 他怀着极大的感情，承诺它会度过清白的一生， 从这一刻起，他再也不会抽烟了。 他说他没有受过教育，因为他只是一个拉人力三轮车的男孩。 他有一双坚强的眼睛和愉快的笑容。
Presently the train came. In the carriage a man introduced himself. He was a well-known scholar; he knew many languages and could quote freely in them. He was full of years and knowledge, well-to-do and ambitious. He talked of meditation, but he gave the impression that he was not speaking from his own experience. His god was the god of books. His attitude towards life was traditional and conformatory; he believed in early, prearranged marriage and in a strict code of life. He was conscious of his own caste or class and of the differences in the intellectual capacity of the castes. He was strangely vain in his knowledge and position.
这时，火车来了。在车厢内，一个男人做了自我介绍。 他是一位著名的学者。他懂多种语言，可以自由地引用这些语言。 他历经了岁月和知识的沉淀、富裕和雄心勃勃。 他谈到冥想， 但他给人的印象是，他不是根据自己的亲身体验而说话。 他的神是书本上的神。 他对生活的态度是传统的和服从的； 他相信早先的、预先安排好的婚姻和严格的生活准则。 他意识到自己的种姓或阶级 以及种姓上的智力差异。 他在知识和地位上有一种奇怪的虚荣。
The sun was setting, and the train was passing through lovely country. The cattle were coming home, and there was golden dust. There were huge, black clouds on the horizon, and the crack of distant thunder. What joy a green field holds, and how pleasant is that village in the fold of a curving mountain! Darkness was setting in. A big, blue deer was feeding in the fields; he did not even look up as the train roared by.
太阳落山了，火车经过可爱的乡村。 牛儿走在回家的路上，地上扬起金黄色的尘土。 地平线上出现巨大的乌云，远处传来雷鸣声。 这片绿色的田野，洋溢着多少欢乐， 坐落于群山叠翠的村庄，多么的令人愉快！ 夜幕降临。一只硕大的蓝鹿在田野里觅食。 当火车呼啸而过的时候，他甚至没有抬头。
Knowledge is a flash of light between two darknesses; but knowledge cannot go above and beyond that darkness, Knowledge is essential to technique, as coal to the engine; but it cannot reach out into the unknown. The unknown is not to be caught in the net of the known. Knowledge must be set aside for the unknown to be; but how difficult that is!
知识是两片黑暗之间的火花； 但知识不能超越黑暗， 知识对技术至关重要，就像燃油对发动机一样； 但它无法触及未知。 未知不能被已知之网捕获。 知识必须放在一旁，未知才能出现； 但是，那有多么地困难！
We have our being in the past, our thought is founded upon the past. The past is the known, and the response of the past is ever overshadowing the present, the unknown. The unknown is not the future, but the present. The future is but the past pushing its way through the uncertain present. This gap, this interval, is filled with the intermittent light of knowledge, covering the emptiness of the present; but this emptiness holds the miracle of life.
我们所拥有的，是过往；我们思想的根基，在过去。 ‘过去’就是已知， 过去的余音永远缠缚着现在，覆盖着未知。 未知不是‘未来’，而是现在。 ‘未来’什么都不是，它只不过是 ‘过去’的前途 —— 而不确定的‘现在’，变成了它的过道。 这条缝隙，这段空白， 被知识的间断性闪光所填充，覆盖了现下的虚无； 但是，这虚无，蕴含着生命的奇迹。
Addiction to knowledge is like any other addiction; it offers an escape from the fear of emptiness, of loneliness, of frustration, the fear of being nothing. The light of knowledge is a delicate covering under which lies a darkness that the mind cannot penetrate. The mind is frightened of this unknown, and so it escapes into knowledge, into theories, hopes, imagination; and this very knowledge is a hindrance to the understanding of the unknown. To put aside knowledge is to invite fear, and to deny the mind, which is the only instrument of perception one has, is to be vulnerable to sorrow, to joy. But it is not easy to put aside knowledge. To be ignorant is not to be free of knowledge. Ignorance is the lack of self-awareness; and knowledge is ignorance when there is no understanding of the ways of the self. Understanding of the self is freedom from knowledge.
对知识上瘾，就像对任何其它致瘾物一样； 它提供了一种逃避恐惧的方式：对虚无、孤独、挫折的恐惧， 对什么都没有的恐惧。 知识之光，是一张微妙而精致的覆盖物， 在它下面，隐藏着头脑无法穿透的黑暗。 头脑，恐惧这个未知， 所以，它逃逸到知识、理论、希望、想象之中； 而这种知识，正是理解未知的障碍。 抛开知识，就是邀请恐惧和拒绝头脑， —— 头脑是人唯一所拥有的感知工具，它轻易地受到悲伤和欢乐的影响。 但是，把知识扔在一边，并不容易。 无知不是从知识中解脱。 无知是自我意识的匮乏； 如果不理解自我的方式，知识就是无知。 理解自我，即是从知识中解脱。
There can be freedom from knowledge only when the process of gathering, the motive of-accumulation, is understood. The desire to store up is the desire to be secure, to be certain. This desire for certainty through identification, through condemnation and justification, is the cause of fear, which destroys all communion. When there is communion, there is no need for accumulation. Accumulation is self-enclosing resistance, and knowledge strengthens this resistance. The worship of knowledge is a form of idolatry, and it will not dissolve the conflict and misery of our life. The cloak of knowledge conceals but can never liberate us from our ever increasing confusion and sorrow. The ways of the mind do not lead to truth and its happiness. To know is to deny the unknown.
要从知识中解放， 只能去理解它的积累过程、积累的动机。 积累的欲望，就是想要安全的欲望，对确定性的渴求。 这种通过认同、谴责和辩解，以获取确定性， 导致了恐惧，摧毁了所有的交融。 在交融中，不需要积累。 积累，是自我封闭的抵抗，而知识则加强了这种抵抗。 崇拜知识，是崇拜偶像的一种形式， 它不会化解我们生活中的冲突与悲痛。 知识的外衣隐藏着日益增加的困惑与悲伤， 却永远无法将我们从中解放。 头脑的方式不会导向真理和至乐。 知道，即是拒绝未知。