SHE WAS CARRYING a large basket on her head, holding it in place with one hand; it must have been quite heavy, but the swing of her walk was not altered by the weight. She was beautifully poised, her walk easy and rhythmical. On her arm were large metal bangles which made a slight tinkling sound, and on her feet were old, worn-out sandals. Her sari was torn and dirty with long use. She generally had several companions with her, all of them carrying baskets, but that morning she was alone on the rough road. The sun wasn’t too hot yet, and high up in the blue sky some vultures were moving in wide circles without a flutter of their wings. The river ran silently by the road. It was a very peaceful morning, and that solitary woman with the large basket on her head seemed to be the focus of beauty and grace; all things seemed to be pointing to her and accepting her as part of there own being. She was not a separate entity but part of you and me, and of that tamarind tree. She wasn’t walking in front of me, but I was walking with that basket on my head. It wasn’t an illusion, a thought-out, wished-for, and cultivated identification, which would be ugly beyond measure, but an experience that was natural and immediate. The few steps that separated us had vanished; time, memory, and the wide distance that thought breeds, had totally disappeared. There was only that woman, not I looking at her. And it was a long way to the town, where she would sell the contents of her basket. Towards evening she would come back along that road and cross the little bamboo bridge on her way to her village, only to appear again the next morning with her basket full.

她头上顶着一个大篮子，用一只手扶着它。 它一定很重，但她走路的幅度并没有被这种重量而改变。 她体态优雅，走路轻快有节奏。 她的胳膊上戴着大号金属手镯，发出轻微的叮叮当当的声音， 她脚上穿着破旧的拖鞋。她的纱丽因穿得太久而开裂和变脏。 她通常有几个同伴，她们都带着篮子， 但那天早上，她独自一人走在崎岖的路上。 太阳还不太热，在蓝天高处， 一些秃鹫以宽阔的圆弧盘旋，翅膀没有颤动。 河水在路边默默地流淌。 这是一个非常平和的早晨， 这个头上顶着大篮子的单独的女人，仿佛是美丽和优雅的焦点。 所有的一切似乎都指向她，并接受她作为自己存在的一部分。 她不是一个独立的实体，而是你和我，以及那棵罗望子树的一部分。 她不是走在我的前面，而是我的头上顶着那个篮子在走路。 这不是一种幻觉，一种深思熟虑的、期盼的、经过培养的认同 —— 它也许是深不可测的丑陋， 而是一种自然而直接的体验。 分开我们的几步路程已经消失了； 时间、记忆、以及思想滋生的宽阔距离，已经完全消失了。 只有那个女人，而不是我在看她。 到镇上还有很长的路要走，在那里她会卖掉篮子里的东西。 到了傍晚，她会沿着那条路回来， 穿过小竹桥，回到她的村庄， 直到第二天早上，她又出现了，顶着被装满的篮子。

He was very serious, and no longer young, but he had a pleasant smile and was in good health. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he explained in somewhat halting English, of which he was rather shy, that he had been to college and taken his M.A., but had not spoken English for so many years that he had almost forgotten it. He had read a great deal of Sanskrit literature and Sanskrit words were frequently on his lips. He had come, he said, to ask several questions about the inward void, the emptiness of the mind. Then he began to chant in Sanskrit, and the room was instantly filled with a deep resonance, pure and penetrating. He went on chanting for some time, and it was a delight to listen. His face shone with the meaning he was giving to each word, and with the love he felt for what the word contained. He was devoid of any artifice, and was much too serious to put on a pose.

他很严肃，不再年轻，但他有一个愉快的笑容，身体健康。 他盘腿坐在地板上，用有些蹩脚的英语解释说， 他很害羞，上过大学，拿到了硕士学位， 但这么多年没有说英语，以至于他几乎忘记了它。 他读过大量的梵文文献，梵文词语经常出现在他的唇边。 他说，他来这里是为了问几个关于内在的虚空、头脑空虚的问题。 然后他开始用梵文吟唱， 房间里瞬间充满了一种深刻的共鸣、纯净而富有穿透力。 他继续吟唱了一段时间，听着真是太高兴了。 他的脸上闪耀着他赋予每个单词的意义， 以及他对这个词所包含的一切的热爱。 他没有任何诡计，而且太认真了，以至于没有一丝造作。

“I am very happy to have chanted those shlokas in your presence. To me they have great significance and beauty; I have meditated upon them for many years, and they have been to me a source of guidance and strength. I have trained myself not to be easily moved, but these shlokas bring tears to my eyes. The very sound of the words, with their rich meaning, fills my heart, and then life is not a travail and a misery. Like every other human being, I have known sorrow; there has been death and the ache of life. I had a wife who died before I left the comforts of my father’s house, and now I know the meaning of voluntary poverty. I am telling you all this merely by way of explanation. I am not frustrated, lonely, or anything of that kind. My heart takes delight in many things; but my father used to tell me something about your talks, and an acquaintance has urged me to see you; and so here I am.

“我很高兴在你面前吟唱了那些诗歌。 对我来说，它们具有重大的意义和美； 多年来，我一直用它们来冥想， 它们对我来说是向导和力量的源泉。 我已经训练自己不轻易被感动，但这些诗歌让我的眼睛流泪。 这些词语的声音，以其丰富的含义，充满了我的心， 然后，生命不再是一场艰辛和痛苦。 像其他人一样，我知道悲伤；有死亡和生命的痛苦。 我有一个妻子，在我离开父亲舒适的房子之前，她就去世了， 现在我知道甘于贫困的含义了。 我告诉你这一切，只是为了解释。 我没有沮丧、孤独、或任何类似的情绪。 我的心在很多事情上感到高兴； 但是我父亲曾经告诉我一些关于你所说的话， 一个熟人催促我去见你；所以我来到了这里。

“I want you to speak to me of the immeasurable void,” he went on. “I have had a feeling of that void, and I think I have touched the hem of it in my wanderings and meditations.” Then he quoted a shloka to explain and to support his experience.

“我想让你跟我说说那不可估量的空无，” 他继续说道。 “我有一种那种空无的感觉， 我想，我在徘徊和冥想中触摸到了它的下摆。 然后，他引用了一段梵文诗歌，来解释和支持他的体验。

If it may be pointed out, the authority of another, however great, is no proof of the truth of your experience. Truth needs no proof by action, nor does it depend on any authority; so let’s put aside all authority and tradition, and try to find out the truth of this matter for ourselves. “That would be very difficult for me, for I am steeped in tradition – not in the tradition of the world, but in the teachings of the Gita, the Upanishads, and so on. Is it right for me to let all that go? Would that not be ingratitude on my part?”

如果可以指出，另一个人的权威，无论多么伟大， 都不能证明你体验的真实性。 真理不需要行动来证明，也不依赖于任何权威； 因此，让我们抛开所有的权威和传统，试着自己找出这件事的真相。 “那对我来说非常困难，因为我沉浸在传统中 —— 不是在世界上的传统中，而是在薄伽梵歌、奥义书等等的教义中。 我扔掉这一切是正确的吗？那难道不是我的忘恩负义吗？”

Neither gratitude nor ingratitude are in any way involved; we are concerned with discovering the truth or the falseness of that void of which you have spoken. If you walk on the path of authority and tradition, which is knowledge you will experience only what you desire to experience, helped on by authority and tradition. It will not be a discovery; it will already be known a thing to be recognized and experienced. Authority and tradition may be wrong, they may be a comforting illusion. To discover whether that void is true or false, whether it exists or is merely another invention of the mind, the mind must be free from the net of authority and tradition.

感恩或忘恩负义，都与之无关。 我们关心的是发现你所讲的那种空无的真假。 如果你走在权威和传统的道路上，也就是通过知识， 你只会体验到你渴望体验的东西，并得到权威和传统的帮助。 它不会是一个发现； 它只会是已经被认识和体验过的东西。 权威和传统可能是错误的，它们可能是一种令人欣慰的幻觉。 去发现这个空无的真假， 无论它是存在，还是仅仅是头脑的另一种发明， 头脑都必须从权威和传统的网络中解脱。

“Can the mind ever free itself from this net?”

“头脑能从这张网中解脱吗？”

The mind cannot free itself, for any effort on its part to be free only weaves another net in which it will again be caught. Freedom is not an opposite; to be free is not to be free from something, it’s not a state of release from bondage. The urge to be free breeds its own bondage. Freedom is a state of being which is not the outcome of the desire to be free. When the mind understands this, and sees the falseness of authority and tradition, then only does the false wither away.

头脑无法解放它自己， 因为它为自由而付出的任何努力，都只回编织出另一张网，它将再次被捕获。 自由不是一个对立面； 自由不是从某物中解脱出来，也不是从束缚中解脱出来的状态。 自由的冲动，滋生了自身的束缚。 自由是一种存在状态，它不是渴望自由的产物。 当头脑理解了这一点，并看到权威和传统的虚假时， 那么虚假就会枯萎。

“It may be that I have been induced to feel certain things by my reading, and by the thoughts based on such reading; but apart from all that, I have vaguely felt from childhood, as in a dream, the existence of this void. There has always been an intimation of it, a nostalgic feeling for it; and as I grew older, my reading of various religious books only strengthened this feeling, giving it more vitality and purpose. But I begin to realize what you mean. I have depended almost entirely on the description of the experiences of others, as given in the sacred Scriptures. This dependence I can throw off, since I now see the necessity of doing so; but can I revive that original, uncontaminated feeling for that which is beyond words?”

“也许，我被我的阅读和基于这种阅读的思想所诱导而去感受某些事物； 但除此之外，我从小就隐约地感受到，就像在梦中一样，这种空无的存在。 一直有一种暗示，一种对它的怀旧感； 随着年龄的增长，我对各种宗教书籍的阅读只会加强这种感觉， 赋予它更多的活力和目的。但我开始意识到你的意思。 我几乎完全依赖于别人对体验的描述， 正如神圣的圣经所给出的那样。 这种依赖我可以摆脱，因为我现在看到了这么做的必要性； 但是，我能还原那种原始的、未受污染的、文字之外的感觉吗？

What is revived is not the living, the new; it is a memory, a dead thing, and you cannot put life into the dead. To revive and live on memory is to be a slave to stimulation, and a mind that depends on stimulation, conscious or unconscious, will inevitably become dull and insensitive. Revival is the perpetuation of confusion; to turn to the dead past in the moment of a living crisis is to seek a pattern of life which has its roots in decay. What you experienced as a youth, or only yesterday, is over and gone; and if you cling to the past, you prevent the quickening experience of the new.

能够还原的东西不是活的、新的； 而是一种记忆，一种死的东西，你不能把生命放进死去的东西里面。 还原并活在记忆之中，就是成为刺激的奴隶， 而依赖于刺激的头脑，无论它是有意识的还是无意识的， 都不可避免地会变得迟钝和不敏感。 还原是困惑的延续； 在鲜活的危急时刻，转向死去的过去， 就是寻求一种根源已经腐朽的生命模式。 你年轻时的体验，或者昨天的体验，已经结束了，消失了。 如果你紧紧抓住过去，你就会阻止活跃的、全新的体验。

“As I think you will realize, sir, I am really in earnest, and for me it has become an urgent necessity to understand and to be of that void. What am I to do?”

“我想你会意识到，先生，我真的很认真， 对我来说，理解和保持这种空无已成为当务之急。我该怎么办？”

One has to empty the mind of the known; all the knowledge that one has gathered must cease to have any influence on the living mind. Knowledge is ever of the past, it is the very process of the past, and the mind must be free from this process. Recognition is part of the process of knowledge, isn’t it? “How is that?”

一个人必须清空这个已知的头脑； 要对活泼的头脑产生任何影响，一个人所收集的所有知识必须消亡。 知识永远是过去的，它是过去的流转， 而头脑必须从这个漩涡中解脱。 认知是知识运转的一部分，不是吗？“那怎么会？”

To recognize something, you must have known or experienced it previously, and this experience is stored up as knowledge, memory. Recognition comes out of the past. You may have experienced, once upon a time, this void, and having once experienced it, you now crave for it. The original experience came about without your pursuing it; but now you are pursuing it, and the thing that you are seeking is not the void, but the renewal of an old memory. If it is to happen again, all remembrance of it, all knowledge of it, must disappear. All search for it must cease, for search is based on the desire to experience.

要认识某个东西，你必须以前知道或体验过它， 而这种体验被储存为知识，记忆。认知来源于这个过去。 你可能曾经体验过，曾经经历过这种空无， 由于已经体验过它，你现在渴望它。 最初的体验，是在你没有去追求它的情况下产生的； 但现在的你，在追求它，你所寻求的不是空无， 而是过往的记忆的复现。 如果它要再次发生，那么对它的所有记忆，对它的所有知识，都必须消逝。 所有对它的寻找都必须停止，因为寻找是基于对体验的渴望。

“Do you really mean that I must not search it out? This seems incredible!”

“你真的是说，我不能把它找回来吗？这似乎不可思议！”

The motive of search is of greater significance than the search itself. The motive pervades, guides and shapes the search. The motive of your search is the desire to experience the unknowable to know the bliss and the immensity of it. This desire has brought into being the experiencer who craves for experience. The experiencer is searching for greater, wider and more significant experience. All other experiences having lost their taste, the experiencer now longs for the void; so there is the experiencer, and the thing to be experienced. Thus conflict is set going between the two, between the pursuer and the pursued.

搜索的动机比搜索本身更重要。 动机渗透、指引和塑造搜索。 你寻找的动机是渴望经历未知的事物， 去认识它的幸福和浩瀚。 这种欲望源于体验者渴望去体验。 体验者正在搜索更大、更广泛、更重要的体验。 所有其他的体验都失去了他们的味道，体验者现在渴望空无； 所以，存在着体验者，以及要体验的东西。 因此，冲突在两者之间，在追求者和被追求者之间发生了。

“This I understand very well, because it is exactly the state I am in. I now see that I am caught in a net of my own making.”

“我非常理解这一点，因为这正是我所处的状态。 我现在看到我陷入了自己编织的网罟之中。”

As every seeker is, and not just the seeker after truth, God, the void, and so on. Every ambitious or covetous man who is pursuing power, position, prestige, every idealist, every worshipper of the State, every builder of a perfect Utopia – they are all caught in the same net. But if once you understand the total significance of search, will you continue to seek the void? “I perceive the inward meaning of your question and I have already stopped seeking.”

正如每个追求者，而不仅仅是追求真理、上帝、空无等等的人。 每一个野心勃勃或贪婪的人，追求着权力、地位、威望， 每一个理想主义者，每一个国家的崇拜者，每一个完美乌托邦的建设者 —— 他们都陷入了同一张网。 但是，如果你一旦理解了搜索的全部意义，你会继续寻找空无吗？ “我察觉到你问题的内在含义，我已经停止了寻找。”

If this be a fact, then what is the state of the mind that is not seeking? “I do not know; the whole thing is so new to me that I shall have to gather myself and observe. May I have a few minutes before we go any further?”

如果这是一个事实，那么不寻求的头脑是什么状态？ “我不知道；整个情景对我来说是如此之新，以至于我必须聚集自己并观察。 在我们进一步讨论之前，能给我几分钟吗？”

After a pause, he continued. “I perceive how extraordinarily subtle it is; how difficult it is for the experiencer, the watcher, not to step in. It seems almost impossible for thought not to create the thinker; but as long as there is a thinker, an experiencer, there must obviously be separation from, and conflict with, that which is to be experienced. And you are asking, aren’t you, what is the state of the mind when there is no conflict?”

暂停了一会儿，他继续说道。 “我感觉到它是多么地微妙； 对于体验者，观察者来说，不去介入是多么地困难。 思想似乎几乎不可能不创造思想者； 但是，只要有一个思考者，一个体验者， 显然，必定有分离，以及与所体验的东西之间的冲突。 你在问，不是吗，当没有冲突时，头脑的状态是什么？”

Conflict exists when desire assumes the form of the experiencer and pursues that which is to be experienced; for that which is to be experienced is also put together by desire. “Please be patient with me, and let me understand what you are saying. Desire not only builds the experiencer, the watcher, but also brings into being that which is to be experienced, the watched. So desire is the cause of the division between the experiencer and the thing to be experienced, and it is this division that sustains conflict. Now, you are asking, what is the state of the mind which is no longer in conflict, which is not driven by desire? But can this question be answered without the watcher who is watching the experience of desirelessness?”

当欲望以体验者的形式出现，并追求曾经体验过的东西时， 冲突就存在； 因为要去体验的东西，也是由欲望捏合在一起的。 “请耐心地等待我，让我理解你在说什么。 欲望不仅建立了体验者，观察者， 而且还引出了将要被体验、被观察的东西。 因此，是欲望分割出体验者和要体验的东西， 正是这种割裂维持了冲突。现在，你问： 不再处于冲突，不受欲望驱使的头脑的状态是什么？ 但是，没有了观察者，是谁在观察这种没有欲望的体验呢？ 这个问题还能回答吗？”

When you are conscious of your humility, has not humility ceased? Is there virtue when you deliberately practise virtue? Such practice is the strengthening of self-centred activity, which puts an end to virtue.

当你意识到你的谦卑，谦卑不就消逝了吗？ 当你刻意修行美德时，有美德吗？ 这种实践就是强化以自我为中心的活动，从而终止了美德。

The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy. What is the state of the mind which is not caught in the conflict of desire? The urge to find out is part of the desire which has brought into being the experiencer and the thing to be experienced, is it not? “That’s so. Your question was a trap for me, but I am thankful you asked it. I am seeing more of the intricate subtleties of desire.”

一旦你意识到你是快乐的，你就不再是快乐的了。 没有陷入欲望的冲突的头脑是什么状态？ 追寻的冲动，是欲望的一部分， 这种欲望带来了体验者和要体验的东西，不是吗？ “就是这样。你的问题对我来说是一个陷阱，但我感谢你问了这个问题。 我看见欲望里面有更多的、盘根错节的、微妙的性质。”

It was not a trap, but a natural and inevitable question which you would have asked yourself in the course of your inquiry. If the mind is not extremely alert, aware, it is soon caught again in the net of its own desire. “One final question: is it really possible for the mind to be totally free of the desire for experience, which sustains this division between the experiencer and the thing to be experienced?”

它不是一个陷阱，而是一个自然而不可避免的问题 —— 当你在调查的过程中，就会问自己这个问题。 如果头脑没有高度地警觉、清醒， 很快，它就会再次陷入自己的欲望的网罟之内。 “最后一个问题：头脑真的有可能完全摆脱对体验的欲望， 这个维持着体验者和要体验的东西之间的分裂性的欲望吗？”

Find out, sir. When the mind is entirely free of this structure of desire, is the mind then different from the void?

找出来，先生。 当头脑完全摆脱了这种欲望的结构时，头脑是否与空无不同？