IN A LARGE enclosure, among many trees, was a church. People, brown and white, were going in. Inside there was more light than in the European churches, but the arrangements were the same. The ceremony was in progress and there was beauty. When it was over, very few of the brown talked to the white, or the white to the brown, and we all went our different ways.
在一个大围墙里，众多的树木之间，有一座教堂。 人们正在朝里走，有棕色人和白人。 里面的光线比欧洲的教堂更多，但布局是一样的。 仪式正在举行，很美。 当它结束时，很少有棕色人与白人交谈，或者白人与棕色人交谈， 而我们，都走在各自不同的道路上。
On another continent there was a temple, and they were singing a Sanskrit chant; the Puja, a Hindu ceremony, was being performed. The congregation was of another cultural pattern. The tonality of Sanskrit words is very penetrating and powerful; it has a strange weight and depth.
在另一个大陆上，有一座寺庙，他们唱着梵文圣歌。 正在举行普阇法会，一种印度教仪式。 会众具有另一种文化模式。 梵语的音调具有非凡的穿透性和力量； 它有一个奇特的重量和深度。
You can be converted from one belief to another, from one dogma to another, but you cannot be converted to the understanding of reality. Belief is not reality. You can change your mind, your opinion, but truth or God is not a conviction: it is an experience not based on any belief or dogma, or on any previous experience. If you have an experience born of belief, your experience is the conditioned response of that belief. If you have an experience unexpectedly, spontaneously, and build further experience upon the first, then experience is merely a continuation of memory which responds to contact with the present. Memory is always dead, coming to life only in contact with the living present.
你可以从一种信仰转换到另一种信仰，从一种教规转换到另一种教规， 但你不能被转换到这个真实的理解。 信仰不是真实。 你可以改变你的想法、你的观念，但真理或上帝不是一种信念： 它是一种不基于任何信仰、教规或以往经历的体验。 如果你有一种源于信仰的体验， 那么你的体验就从属于这种信仰的局限性的回应。 如果你有一种意外地、自发地体验， 并在上一次体验的基础上，建立了进一步的体验， 那么，体验就只不过是一种记忆的延续 —— 它伸出手，去接触现在。 记忆里的一切，早已死亡，它只有与活着的现在接触，才能爬出来。
Conversion is change from one belief or dogma to another, from one ceremony to a more gratifying one, and it does not open the door to reality. On the contrary, gratification is a hindrance to reality. And yet that is what organized religions and religious groups are attempting to do: to convert you to a more reasonable or a less reasonable dogma, superstition or hope. They offer you a better cage. It may or may not be comfortable, depending on your temperament, but in any case it is a prison.
皈依就是从一种信仰到另一种信仰， 从一种仪式到一个更令人满意的仪式的转变，而它，打不开通往真实的大门。 相反，满意是真实的障碍。 然而，这就是组织化的宗教机构，正在尝试的： 使你皈依到一个更合理或更不合理的教规、迷信或希望之中。 他们给你提供一个更好的笼子。 它可能舒适或不舒适，根据您的气质量身定制， 但无论如何，它就是一座监狱。
Religiously and politically, at different levels of culture, this conversion is going on all the time. Organizations, with their leaders, thrive on keeping ma in the ideological patterns they offer, whether religious or economic. In this process lies mutual exploitation. Truth is outside of all patterns, fears and hopes. If you would discover the supreme happiness of truth, you must break away from all ceremonies and ideological patterns.
在宗教和政治上，在不同层次的文化中， 这种皈依一直在发生。 组织机构及其管理团队， 热衷于使他们提倡的理念模式蓬勃发展，无论是宗教的，还是经济上的。 在这个过程中，存在着相互的剥削。 真理超越了所有的模式、恐惧和希望。 如果你要发现真理的至乐， 你必须脱离一切仪式和理念模式。
The mind finds security and strength in religious and political pattern, and this is what gives stamina to the organizations. There are always the die-hards and the new recruits. These keep the organizations, with their investments and properties, going, and the power and prestige of the organizations attract those who worship success and worldly wisdom. When the mind finds the old patterns are no longer satisfying and life-giving, it becomes converted to other more comforting and strengthening beliefs and dogmas. So the mind is the product of environment re-creating and sustaining itself on sensations and identifications; and that is why the mind cling to codes of conducts patterns of thought, and so on. As long as the mind is the outcome of the past, it can never discover truth or allow truth to come into being. In holding to organizations it discards the search for truth.
头脑在宗教和政治模式中，寻找安全和力量， 这就是团队之所以能长久维持的原因。 总是有老兵和新手。 这就使得团队及其资金和财物得以运转， 而团队的权力和声望， 吸引了那些崇拜成功和世俗聪明的人。 当头脑发现旧的模式不再令人满意和有生机的时候， 它就皈依到其它更舒适和更强大的信仰和教规中。 因此，这颗头脑是环境的产品 在感觉和认识层面上，不断地重塑和维系着它自己； 那就是为什么这颗头脑依附于行为准则、思考模式等等的原因。 只要这颗头脑是过时的产物， 它就永远无法发现真理，也不会允许真理现身。 在掌控团队的时候，它就放弃了对真理的追求。
Obviously, rituals offer to the participants an atmosphere in which they feel good. Both collective and individual rituals give a certain quietness to the mind; they offer a vital contrast to the everyday, humdrum life. There is a certain amount of beauty and orderliness in ceremonies, but fundamentally they are stimulants; and as with all stimulants, they soon dull the mind and heart. Rituals become habit; they become a necessity, and one cannot do without them. This necessity is considered a spiritual renewal, a gathering of strength to face life, a weekly or daily meditation, and so on; but if one looks more closely into this process, one sees that rituals are vain repetition which offer a marvellous and respectable escape from self-knowledge. Without self-knowledge, action has very little significance.
显然，仪式为参与者提供了一种使他们感觉良好的氛围。 集体和个人仪式都给头脑带来了一定的安静； 它们与日常的单调生活形成了鲜明的对比。 仪式中有一定程度的美丽和秩序， 但在本质上，它们是兴奋剂； 和所有的兴奋剂一样，它们很快就会使头脑和心灵变得迟钝。 仪式变成习惯； 它们成为必需品，人们离不开它们。 这种必需品被称为一种灵性上的复苏，一种力量的聚集，以面对生活， 每周或每天的冥想，等等。 但是，如果一个人进一步地观察这个过程， 就会发现仪式是徒劳的重复， 它提供了一种奇妙而体面的逃避自我认识的途径。 没有自我认识，行为就没有多大意义。
The repetition of chants, of words and phrases, puts the mind to sleep, though it is stimulating enough for the time being. In this sleepy state, experiences do occur, but they are self-projected.
吟诵、单词和短语的重复，使头脑入睡， 尽管它有时能带来足够的刺激。 在这种睡眠状态中，体验确实会发生，但它们是自我的投影。
However gratifying, these experiences are illusory. The experiencing of reality does not come about through any repetition, through any practice. Truth is not an end, a result a goal; it cannot be invited, for it is not a thing of the mind.
无论多么地令人满意，这些体验都是虚幻的。 真实的体验，并非来自于任何的重复、任何的实践。 真理不是一个终点、一个结果、一个目标； 它不能被邀请，因为它不是属于头脑的某个东西。