对生活的评注 2-23

THE STORM BEGAN early in the morning with thunder and lightning, and now it was raining very steadily; it had not stopped all day, and the red earth was soaking it up. The cattle were taking shelter under a large tree, where there was also a small white temple. The base of the tree was enormous, and the surrounding field was bright green. There was a railway line on the other side of the field, and the trains would labour up the slight incline, giving a triumphant hoot at the top. When one walked along the railway line one would occasionally come upon a large cobra, with beautiful markings, cut in two by a recent train. The birds would soon get at the dead pieces, and in a short time there wouldn't be a sign of the snake.

暴风雨在清晨开始，挟裹着雷声与闪电，现在，雨下得非常地笃定；一整天都没有停歇，红土正在吸收它。牛群在一棵大树下躲避，那里还有一座白色的小庙宇。树的根部巨大，周围的田野是鲜绿色的。在田野的另一边，有一条铁路线，火车会沿着轻微的斜坡行驶，在顶部发出胜利的嘶吼声。当一个人沿着铁轨行走时，偶尔会遇到一条巨大的眼镜蛇，上面有美丽的标记，被刚开过来的火车切成两截。鸟儿很快就会找到死去的碎片，并在很短的时间内，就不会再有蛇的痕迹。

To live alone needs great intelligence; to live alone and yet be pliable is arduous. To live alone, without the walls of self-enclosing gratifications, needs extreme alertness; for a solitary life encourages sluggishness, habits that are comforting and hard to break. A single life encourages isolation, and only the wise can live alone without harm to themselves and to others. Wisdom is alone, but a lonely path does not lead to wisdom. Isolation is death, and wisdom is not found in withdrawal. There is no path to wisdom, for all paths are separative, exclusive. In their very nature, paths can only lead to isolation, though these isolations are called unity, the whole, the one, and so on. A path is an exclusive process; the means is exclusive, and the end is as the means. The means is not separate from the goal, the what should be. Wisdom comes with the understanding of one's relationship with the field, with the passer-by, with the fleeting thought. To withdraw, to isolate oneself in order to find, is to put an end to discovery. Relationship leads to an aloneness that is not of isolation. There must be an aloneness, not of the enclosing mind, but of freedom. The complete is the alone, and incompleteness seeks the way of isolation.

自在地生活需要极大的智慧；自在地生活，却具有柔韧性，这是艰巨的。自在地生活，没有自我封闭的满足的墙壁，需要极大的警觉；因为孤立的生命鼓励懒散、习惯，这些是令人舒服的，也难以打破。单一的生命鼓励孤立，只有智者才能自在地生活，而又不会伤害自己和他人。智慧是自在的，而在孤独的路径上，却不会遇见智慧。孤立是死亡，智慧不能在枯萎之中找到。没有通往智慧的路径，因为所有的路径都是分散的、排外的。就其本质而言，路径只能导致孤立，尽管这些孤立被称之为‘联合’、‘整体’、‘唯一’，等等。一条路径，即是一个排他性的过程；手段，是排他性的，目的就是手段。手段与所谓的‘目的’ —— ‘应该是什么’，不是分开的。智慧来自于理解 —— 理解自身与田野、与路人、与转瞬即逝的思想之间的关系。退缩，孤立自己，以便于发现，就终结了发现。关系导向一种自在，而并非孤立。必须有一种自在，不是封闭的头脑，而是自由的。完整者，即是自在；而残缺者，却在追求孤立的道路。

She had been a writer, and her books had quite a wide circulation. She said she had managed to come to India only after many years. When she first started out she had no idea where she would end up; but now, after all this time, her destination had become clear. Her husband and her whole family were interested in religious matters, not casually but quite seriously; nevertheless she had made up her mind to leave them all, and had come in the hope of finding some peace. She hadn't known a soul in this country when she came, and it was very hard the first year. She went first to a certain ashrama or retreat about which she had read. The guru there was a mild old man who had had certain religious experiences on which he now lived, and who constantly repeated some Sanskrit saying which his disciples understood. She was welcomed at this retreat, and she found it easy to adjust herself to its rules. She remained there for several months, but found no peace, so one day she announced her departure. The disciples were horrified that she could even think of leaving such a master of wisdom; but she left. Then she went to an ashrama among the mountains and stayed there for some time, happily at first, for it was beautiful with trees, streams, and wild life. The discipline was rather rigorous, which she didn't mind; but again the living were the dead. The disciples were worshipping dead knowledge, dead tradition, a dead teacher. When she left they also were shocked, and threatened her with spiritual darkness. She then went to a very well known retreat where they repeated various religious assertions and regularly practiced prescribed meditations; but gradually she found that she was being entrapped and destroyed. Neither the teacher nor the disciples wanted freedom, though they talked about it. They were all concerned with maintaining the centre, with holding the disciples in the name of the guru. Again she broke away and went elsewhere; again the same story with a slightly different pattern.

她曾是一名作家，她的书籍发行量，相当地大。她说，她只是在多年后才来到印度。当她刚开始出发时，她不知道她最终会在哪里结束。但现在，经过这么长时间，她的目的地已经变得清晰起来。她的丈夫和她全家都对宗教事务感兴趣，不是随便的，而是相当地认真。然而，她已经下定决心要离开他们所有人，并希望找到一些和平。当她来到这个国家时，还不知道灵魂，在第一个年头，她过得很辛苦。她首先去了她曾经读到过的某个静修室或静修处。那里的上师是一个温和的老人，他在现世有过某些宗教体验，他不断重复一些梵语，他的弟子们都明白那些梵语。她在这次静修中受到了欢迎，她发现很容易适应它的规则。她在那里呆了几个月，但是没有找到和平，所以有一天她宣布离开。弟子们惊恐地发现，她竟然想离开这样一位智慧的大师；但她离开了。然后她去了山中的一个静修处，在那里呆了一段时间，起初很开心，因为它很美，有树木、溪流和野生动物。纪律相当严格，她不介意；但是，仍然活得很憋闷。弟子们崇拜死的知识、死的传统、一个古板的老师。当她离开时，他们也感到震惊，并用精神上的黑暗威胁她。然后，她去了一个非常着名的静修处，在那里他们重复各种宗教主张，并定期练习规定的冥想；渐渐地，她发现自己被困住了，被摧毁了。老师和弟子们都不想要自由，尽管他们谈论自由。他们都关心维护这个中心，用上师的名义来掌控弟子。她又一次挣脱出来，去了别处；接着，又上演出同样的、情节略有不同的故事。

"I assure you, I have been to most of the serious ashramas, and they all want to hold one, to grind one down to fit the pattern of thought which they call truth. Why do they all want one to conform to a particular discipline, to the mode of life laid down by the teacher? Why is it that they never give freedom but only promise freedom?"

“我向你保证，我去过大多数严肃的静修会，而他们都想掌控人，消磨人，以适应他们称之为真理的思想模式。为什么他们都希望一个人去服从一门特定的纪律，符合老师制定的生活方式？为什么他们从不给予自由，而只是承诺自由？”

Conformity is gratifying; it assures security to the disciple, and gives power to the disciple as well as to the teacher. Through conformity there is the strengthening of authority, secular or religious; and conformity makes for dullness, which they call peace. If one wants to avoid suffering through some form of resistance, why not pursue that path, though it involves a certain amount of pain? Conformity anaesthetizes the mind to conflict. We want to be made dull, insensitive; we try to shut off the ugly, and there by we also make ourselves dull to the beautiful. Conformity to the authority of the dead or the living gives intense satisfaction. The teacher knows and you don't know. It would be foolish for you to try to find out anything for yourself when your comforting teacher already knows; so you become his slave, and slavery is better than confusion. The teacher and the disciple thrive on mutual exploitation. You really don't go to an ashrama for freedom, do you? You go there to be comforted, to live a life of enclosing discipline and belief, to worship and in turn be worshipped - all of which is called the search for truth. They cannot offer freedom, for it would be their own undoing. Freedom cannot be found in any retreat, in any system or belief, nor through the conformity and fear called discipline. Disciplines cannot offer freedom; they may promise, but hope is not freedom. Imitations a means to freedom is the very denial of freedom, for the means is the end; copy makes for more copy, not for freedom. But we like to deceive ourselves, and that is why compulsion or the promise of reward exists in different and subtle forms. Hope is the denial of life.

服从是令人满意的；它确保了弟子的安全，并赋予弟子和老师权力。通过服从，可以加强世俗或宗教的权威；服从产生沉闷，他们称之为和平。如果一个人想通过某种形式的抵抗来避免痛苦，为什么不走这条路，尽管其中有某种程度的痛苦？服从，麻醉了头脑的冲突。我们想要变得迟钝、不敏感；我们试图关闭丑，那样，我们也造成了对美的迟钝。服从死者或生者的权威，会带来强烈的满足感。老师知道，而你不知道。当你满意于你这个什么都知道的老师时，试图为亲自去找任何东西的行为，就是愚蠢的；所以你成为他的奴隶，而奴役比困惑更好。老师和弟子在相互剥削中茁壮成长。你真的不是去静修处寻找自由，对吗？你去那里是为了得到舒适，过着封闭纪律和信仰的生活，去崇拜，转过身来被崇拜 —— 所有这些都被称之为‘对真理的追求’。他们无法提供自由，因为那将是他们自己的毁灭。自由不能在任何退缩、任何制度或信仰中找到，也不能通过服从，通过被称为‘纪律’的恐惧而找到。纪律不能提供自由。他们可能会承诺，但希望不是自由。通过模仿一种手段而获取自由，就是对自由的否定，因为手段就是目的；复制是为了更多的复制，而不是为了自由。但我们喜欢欺骗自己，这就是为什么强迫或奖赏的承诺会以不同的、微妙的形式存在。希望，即是对生命的否定。

"I am now avoiding all ashramas like the very plague. I went to them for peace and I was given compulsions, authoritarian doctrines and vain promises. How eagerly we accept the guru promise! How blind we are! At last, after these many years, I am completely denuded of any desire to pursue their promised rewards. physically I am worn out, as you can see; for very foolishly I really did try their formulas. At one of these places, where the teacher is on the rise and very popular, when I told them that I was coming to see you, they threw up their hands, and some had tears in their eyes. That was the last straw! I have come here because I want to talk over something that is gripping my heart. I hinted at it to one of the teachers, and his reply was that I must control my thought. It is this. The ache of solitude is more than I can bear; not the physical solitude, which is welcome, but the deep inner pain of being alone. What am I to do about it? How am I to regard this void?"

“我现在正在避免所有的静修林，就像避免瘟疫一样。我去找他们寻求和平，我被赋予了强迫、专制教义和徒劳的承诺。我们多么热切地接受上师的应允！我们是多么的盲目！终于，经过这么多年，我完全失去了追求他们承诺的回报的愿望。正如你所看到的，在身体上，我疲惫不堪；因为非常愚蠢，我真的尝试了他们的模式。在其中一个地方，老师正在崛起并且非常受欢迎，当我告诉他们我来见你时，他们举起了手，有些人眼里含着泪水。那是最后一根稻草！我来到这里，是因为我想谈一些紧紧抓住我心灵的事情。我向其中一位老师暗示了这一点，他的回答是我必须控制我的思想。就是这个。孤独的痛苦超出了我的承受能力。不是身体上的孤独，这是受欢迎的，而是孤独的内心深处的痛苦。我该怎么办？我该如何对待这个空虚？”

When you ask the way, you become a follower. Because there is this ache of solitude, you want help, and the very demand for guidance opens the door to compulsion, imitation and fear. The 'how' is not at all important, so let us understand the nature of this pain rather than try to overcome it, avoid it, or go beyond it. Till there is complete understanding of this ache of solitude, there can be no peace, no rest, but only incessant struggle; and whether we are aware of it or not, most of us are violently or subtly trying to escape from its fear. This ache is only in relation to the past, and not in relation to what is. What is has to be discovered, not verbally, theoretically, but directly experienced. How can there be discovery of what actually is if you approach it with a sense of pain or fear? To understand it must you not come to it freely, denuded of past knowledge concerning it?

当你问路时，你就会成为一个追随者。因为有这种孤独的痛苦，你需要帮助，而对指导的需求，就打开了强迫、模仿和恐惧的大门。 ‘如何’根本不重要，所以让我们理解这个痛苦的本质，而不是试图克服它，避免它，或超越它。除非完全理解这种孤独的痛苦，否则就不会有和平，没有止息，只有无休止的斗争；无论我们是否意识到这一点，我们大多数人都在暴力地或微妙地试图逃离它的恐惧。这种痛苦只与过去有关，与真实无关。必须发现它，不是口头上，理论上，而是直接被体验。如果你带着痛苦或恐惧的感觉接近它，怎么能发现它到底是什么呢？为了理解它，你难道不能自由地看它，丢掉关于它的、过时的知识吗？

Must you not come with a fresh mind, unclouded by memories, by habitual responses? please do not ask how the mind is to be free to see the new, but listen to the truth of it. Truth alone liberates, and not your desire to be free. The very desire and effort to be free is a hindrance to liberation.

难道你不必带着一个鲜活的、没有被记忆笼罩、被习惯性的反应所笼罩的头脑吗？请不要问头脑如何自由地看到新的，而是听它的真实性。唯有真实才能解放，而不是你对自由的渴望。渴望自由、努力实现自由，是解放的拦路虎。

To understand the new, must not the mind, with all its conclusions, safeguards, cease its activities? Must it not be still, without seeking a way of escape from this solitude, a remedy for it? Must not the ache of solitude be observed, with its movement of despair and hope? Is it not this very movement that makes for solitude and its fear? Is not the very activity of the mind a process of isolation, resistance? Is not every form of relationship the mind a way of separation, withdrawal? Is not experience itself a process of self-isolation? So the problem is not the ache of solitude, but the mind which projects the problem. The understanding of the mind is the beginning of freedom. Freedom is not something in the future, it is the very first step. The activity of the mind can be understood only in the process of response to every kind of stimulation. Stimulation and response are relationship at all levels. Accumulation in any form, as knowledge, as experience, as belief, prevents freedom; and it is only when there is freedom that truth can be.

为了理解新的，头脑，连同它的所有结论、安保措施，难道不必停下它的活动吗？难道它不必静止，不寻求摆脱这种孤独的方法和补救措施吗？难道不必观看孤独的痛苦及其绝望和希望的运动吗？难道这种运动没有造成孤独和自身的恐惧吗？难道头脑的活动本身不是一个孤立的、抵抗的过程吗？难道头脑中的每一种关系不都是一种分裂的、退缩的方式吗？难道体验本身不就是一个自我隔离的过程吗？因此，问题不在于孤独的痛苦，而在于头脑投影出的问题。理解头脑，即是自由的开端。自由不是未来的东西，它是第一步。要理解头脑的活动只有在它对每一种刺激的反应过程中。刺激和反应，是所有层面上的关系。任何形式的积累，作为知识，作为经验，作为信仰，都阻碍了自由；唯有自由之时，真实才能存在。