THE SEA WAS beyond the mountains to the east of the valley, and through the centre of the valley a river made its way leisurely to the sea. The river flowed full all the year round, and it was beautiful even where it passed by the town, which was quite large. The townspeople used the river for everything - for fishing for bathing, for drinking water, for sewage disposal, and the wastes of a factory went into it. But the river threw off all the filth of man, and its waters were once again clear and blue soon after it had passed his habitations.
大海在山谷以东的山脉之外， 穿过山谷的中心，一条河流悠闲地流向大海。 这条河一年四季都流淌着， 即使它经过城镇，它也很美丽，这个城镇相当大。镇民们把这条河用于一切 —— 捕鱼、洗澡、喝水、处理污水， 工厂的废物进入其中。 但是这条河甩掉了人类所有的污秽， 它的水在经过他的居住地后不久又变得清澈湛蓝。
A wide road went along the river to the west, leading up to tea plantations in the mountains; it curved in and out, sometimes losing the river, but most of the time in sight of it. As the road climbed, following the river, the plantations became bigger, and here and there were factories to dry and process the tea. Soon the estates became vast, and the river was noisy with water falls. In the morning one would see brightly-dressed women, their bodies bent, their skin turned dark by the blazing sun, picking the delicate leaves of the tea bushes. It all had to be picked before a certain time in the morning and carried to the nearest factory before the sun became too hot. At that altitude the sun was strong and painfully penetrating, and though they were used to it, some of the women had their heads covered with part of the cloth they wore. They were gay, fast and skilful in their work, and soon that particular task would be over for the day; but most of them were wives and mothers, and they would still have to cook and look after the children. They had a union, and the planters treated them decently, for it would be disastrous to have a strike and allow the tender leaves to grow to their normal size.
一条宽阔的道路沿着河向西延伸，通向山上的茶园。 它曲折地进进出出，有时望不见河流，但大多数时候都在视野中。 随着道路的攀升，沿着河流，种植园变得更宽大， 这里和那里，都是用于干燥和加工茶叶的工厂。 不久，庄园变得广阔，水流下跌而形成的瀑布声响很大。 早上，人会看到衣着鲜艳的女人， 她们的身躯弯曲着，皮肤被炽热的太阳晒得黝黑， 在采摘茶树丛中娇嫩的叶子。 这一切都必须在早上的某个时间之前采摘， 并在太阳变得太热之前被带到最近的工厂。 在那个高度，阳光很强烈，刺得人很痛， 尽管她们已经习惯了， 但有些女人的头上盖着她们所穿的一块布。 他们很欢乐，工作速度快，技术娴熟， 很快，这一天规定的任务就会完成。 但她们中的大多数是妻子和母亲， 她们仍然需要做饭和照顾孩子。 她们是一个联盟，种植园主们对待她们很好， 因为罢工并使得嫩叶长到正常大小 将会是灾难性的。
The road continued up and up, and the air became quite cold. At eight thousand feet there were no more tea plantations, but men were working the soil and cultivating many things to be sent down to the towns along the sea. From that altitude the view over the forests and plains was magnificent, with the river, silver now, dominating everything. Going back another way, the road wound through green, sparkling rice fields and deep woods. There were many palms and mangoes, and flowers were everywhere. The people were cheerful, and along the roadside they were setting out many things, from trinkets to luscious fruit. They were lazy and easygoing, and seemed to have enough to eat, unlike those in the lowland, where life was hard, meagre and crowded.
道路继续向上，空气变得很冷。 在八千英尺处，不再有茶园， 但人们正在耕种土壤， 种植许多东西，送到沿海的城镇。 从那个高度俯瞰森林和平原的景色，是壮丽的， 河流，现在是银色的，主宰着一切。 再往前走，这条路蜿蜒穿过绿油油的、闪光的稻田和茂密的树林。 棕榈树和芒果很多，到处都是花。 人们很开朗，沿着路边，他们摆出很多东西， 从小饰品到甜美的水果。 他们慵懒而随和，似乎有足够的食物， 不像那些生活在低洼处的人们那样艰难、微薄和拥挤。
He was a sannyasi, a monk, but not of any particular order, and he spoke of himself as of a third person. While still young he had renounced the world and its ways and had wandered all over the country, staying with some of the well known religious teachers, talking with them and following their peculiar disciplines and rituals. He had fasted for many a day, lived in solitude among the mountains, and done most of the things that sannyasis are supposed to do. He had damaged himself physically through excessive ascetic practices, and although that was long ago, his body still suffered from it. Then one day he had decided to abandon all these practices, rituals and disciplines as being vain and without much significance, and had gone off into some faraway mountain village, where he had spent many years in deep contemplation. The usual thing had happened, he said with a smile, and he in his turn had become well known and had had a large following of disciples to whom he taught simple things. He had read the ancient Sanskrit literature, and now that too he had put away. Although it was necessary to describe briefly what his life had been, he added, that was not the thing for which he had come.
他是一个桑雅生，一个僧侣，但没有任何特别的等级， 他把自己说成是第三者。 当他还年轻的时候，他就放弃了世俗及其生活方式， 在全国各地游荡， 与一些著名的宗教教师住在一起， 与他们交谈，并遵循他们独特的纪律和仪式。 他斋戒了很多天，在山中孤独地生活， 做了桑雅生应该做的大部分事情。 他利用过度的苦行，损害了自己的身体， 虽然那是很久以前的事了，但他的身体仍然受到它的折磨。 然后，有一天，他决定放弃所有的修行、仪式和纪律， 这些徒劳的、无意义的东西， 并进入一个遥远的山村， 在那里，他度过了很多年的深思。 平常的事情发生了，他笑着说， 相反的是，他已经变得众所周知， 并且有一大批门徒，他教他们简单的事情。 他读过古代梵文文献，现在他也收起了。 他补充说，虽然有必要简要描述一下他的生活， 但这不是他来的目的。
"Above all virtue, sacrifice, and the action of dispassionate help, is meditation," he stated. "Without meditation, knowledge and action become a wearisome burden with very little meaning; but few know what meditation is. If you are willing, we must talk this over. In meditation it has been the experience of the speaker to reach different states of consciousness; he has had the experiences that all aspiring human beings sooner or later go through, the visions embodying Krishna, Christ, Buddha. They are the outcome of one's own thought and education, and of what maybe called one's culture. There are visions, experiences and powers of many different varieties. Unfortunately, most seekers are caught in the net of their own thought and desire, even some of the greatest exponents of truth. Having the power of healing and the gift of words, they become prisoners to their own capacities and experiences. The speaker himself has passed through these experiences and dangers, and to the best of his ability has understood and gone beyond them - at least, let us hope so. What then is meditation?"
“最重要的是美德、牺牲和冷静的帮助行动，是冥想，”他说。 “没有冥想，知识和行动就会成为一种令人厌倦的负担，意义不大； 但很少有人知道冥想是什么。如果你愿意，我们必须谈谈这个问题。 在冥想中， 讲话者的体验达到了不同的意识状态； 他已经经历了所有有抱负的人迟早都会经历的体验， 这些异象具化为克里须那、基督、佛陀。 它们是一个人的思想和教育的结果，也是所谓的文化的结果。 有许多不同种类的异象、体验和力量。 不幸的是，大多数寻求者都陷入了自己思想和欲望的网罟中， 甚至是一些最伟大的真理代表。 有了医治的力量和言语的恩赐， 他们就成了自己能力和体验的囚徒。 讲话者本人也经历了这些经历和危险， 并且尽其所能地理解和超越这些经历和危险 —— 至少，让我们希望如此。那么，什么是冥想呢？”
Surely, in considering meditation, effort and the maker of effort must be understood. Good effort leads to one thing, and bad to another, but both are binding, are they not? "It is said that you have not read the Upanishads or any of the sacred literature, but you sound like one who has read and knows."
当然，在考虑冥想时，必须理解努力和努力的制造者。 好的努力会导致一件事，坏的会导致另一件事，但两者都受束缚，不是吗？ “据说你没有读过奥义书或任何神圣的文献， 但你听起来像一个读过并知道的人。”
It is true that I have read none of those things, but that is not important. Good effort and wrong effort are both binding, and it is this bondage that must be understood and broken. Meditation is the breaking of all bondage; it is a state of freedom, but not from anything. Freedom from something is only the cultivation of resistance. To be conscious of being free is not freedom. Consciousness is the experiencing of freedom or of bondage, and that consciousness is the experiencer, the maker of effort. Me ditation is the breaking down of the experiencer, which cannot be done consciously. If the experiencer is broken down consciously, then there is a strengthening of the will, which is also a part of consciousness. Our problem, then, is concerned with the whole process of consciousness, and not with one part of it, small or great, dominant or subservient.
的确，我没有读过这些东西，但这并不重要。 良好的努力和错误的努力都受束缚， 必须理解和打破这种束缚。 冥想是打破一切束缚；它是一种自由状态，却不是来自于任何的东西。 从某个东西中解脱，只是在培养抵抗。 意识到自由，就不是自由。 意识是对自由或束缚的体验， 而这种意识是体验者，是努力的制造者。 冥想是体验者的崩溃，它无法有意识地做到。 如果体验者被有意识地摧毁， 那么意志就会得到强化，而意志从属于意识的一部分。 因此，我们问题的关注点在于意识的整个过程， 而不是意识的某一部分，不论小大，支配或服从。
"What you say seems to be true. The ways of consciousness are profound, deceptive and contradictory. It is only through dispassionate observation and careful study that this tangle can be unravelled and order can prevail."
“你说的似乎是真的。 意识的方式是深刻的、欺骗性的和矛盾的。 只有通过冷静的观察和仔细的研究， 才能解开这种纠结，秩序才能占上风。”
But, sir, the unraveller is still there; one may call him the higher self, the atman, and so on, but he is still part of consciousness, the maker of effort who is everlastingly trying to get somewhere. Effort is desire. One desire can be overcome by a greater desire, and that desire by still another, and so on endlessly. Desire breeds deception, illusion, contradiction, and the visions of hope. The all-conquering desire for the ultimate, or the will to reach that which is nameless, is still the way of consciousness, of the experiencer of good and bad, the experiencer who is waiting, watching, hoping. Consciousness is not of one particular level, it is the totality of our being.
但是，先生，理解者依然存在。 人们可以称他为更高的自我，阿特曼，等等， 但他仍然是意识的一部分， 是努力的制造者，他一直在试图到达某个地方。 努力即是欲望。一个欲望可以被一个更伟大欲望所克服， 而那个欲望可以被另一个欲望所克服，如此地纠缠不清。 欲望滋生欺骗、幻觉、矛盾和希望的景象。 对终极的无所不能的渴望，或达到无名的意志， 仍然是意识的方式，是好与坏的体验者， 是那个在等待、观察、希望的体验者。 意识不是一个特定的层次，而是我们存在的整体。
"What has been heard so far is excellent and true; but if one may inquire, what is it that will bring peace, stillness to this consciousness?"
“迄今为止所听到的是极好的和真实的； 但是，如果人可以问，是什么能给这个意识带来和平和宁静呢？”
Nothing. Surely, the mind is ever seeking a result, a way to some achievement. Mind is an instrument that has been put together, it is the fabric of time, and it can only think in terms of result, of achievement, of something to be gained or avoided. "That is so. It is being stated that as long as the mind is active, choosing, seeking, experiencing, there must be the maker of effort who creates his own image, calling it by different names, and this is the net in which thought is caught."
什么都没有。当然，头脑总在寻求一个结果，一个通往成就的方法。 头脑是一种被聚拢的工具，它的肌理是时间， 它只能从结果、成就、要获取或避免的东西的角度来思考。 “就是那样。有人说，只要头脑是活跃的， 处于选择、寻求、体验之中， 就必定有努力的制造者，在制造自己的形象， 用不同的名字来称呼它，就是这张网把思想抓住了。”
Thought itself is the maker of the net; thought is the net. Thought is binding; thought can only lead to the vast expanse of time, the field in which knowledge action virtue, have importance. However refined or simplified, thinking cannot breakdown all thought. Consciousness as the experiencer, the observer, the chooser, the censor, the will, must come to an end, voluntarily and happily, without any hope of reward. The seeker ceases. This is meditation. Silence of the mind cannot be brought about through the action of will. There is silence when will ceases. This is meditation. Reality cannot be sought; it is when the seeker is not. Mind is time, and thought cannot uncover the measureless.
思想本身就是网络的制造者；思想就是网。 思想即是束缚；思想只能导致时间无限的膨胀， 在这个领域里，知识践行美德，受到重视。 无论多么地精致或简化，思考都无法突破所有的思想。 被称之为‘体验者’、‘观察者’、‘选择者’、‘审查者’、‘意志’的意识， 必须自愿地、快乐地消亡，不乞求任何奖励的希望。 寻找者消逝了。这，就是冥想。 头脑的静，无法通过意志的行动来实现。 当意志停止时，就有静。这，就是冥想。 真实是无法寻求的；当寻求者消逝时，它就存在。 头脑是时间，而思想无法揭开无量。