印度教
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中文
印度教
我的宗教在于学习。借助你们圣典之光，我能更深地阅读我自己的圣典；而当我的宗教中那些晦涩的预言与你们先知的预言相互印证时，它们也变得愈发明亮清晰。真理历来都是普遍的。若我一人手上生有六根手指，而你们所有人皆只有五根，你们不会认为我的手才是大自然的本意，反而会认为那是一种畸形与病态。宗教亦复如是。若只有一种信仰是真实的而其余皆为虚妄，你们便有理由说那种宗教是病态的；若一种宗教是真实的，则所有其他宗教也必然是真实的。因此，印度教既是你们的财富，也是我的财富。印度二亿九千万人口之中，基督徒仅有二百万，穆斯林六千万，其余皆为印度教徒。
印度教徒以古老的吠陀（Vedas）为其信仰之基，"吠陀"一词源于梵文词根Vid，意为"知晓"。吠陀是一系列典籍，在我们看来蕴含着一切宗教之精髓；但我们并不认为唯有吠陀才包含真理。吠陀教导我们灵魂不朽。在每一个国度，在每一个人的心中，都有一种寻求稳固平衡的天然渴望——渴望得到某种不变的事物。我们在自然界中找不到它，因为整个宇宙不过是无穷无尽的变化之汇聚。然而，从这一点出发便推断不变者根本不存在，则是陷入了南方佛教学派和顺世论者（Chārvākas）的错误——后者相信一切皆是物质而无心识，一切宗教皆是欺骗，道德与善良皆是无用的迷信。吠檀多（Vedānta）哲学教导我们，人并不受制于五根感官。感官只能认知当下，既不知未来也不知过去；但由于当下同时涵示着过去与未来，而此三者不过是时间的区分，倘若没有某种超越感官、独立于时间之上、能在当下统摄过去与未来的事物，当下本身亦将无从认知。
然而，何者是独立自在的？并非我们的身体，因为它依赖于外部条件；也非我们的心识，因为构成它的种种念头皆有其因。独立自在者，乃是我们的灵魂。吠陀言道，整个世界是独立与依赖、自由与束缚的混合，然而穿透一切的是那独立自在、不朽、纯净、圆满、神圣的灵魂。若它是独立的，便不能消亡，因为死亡不过是一种变化，依赖于条件；若它是独立的，它便必定是圆满的，因为不完美本身亦是一种条件，因而是依赖性的。这不朽而圆满的灵魂，在至高的神明与最卑微的人之间必然是同一的，两者之别仅在于这灵魂在其中彰显的程度不同。
然而，灵魂为何要为自己取一具身体？理由与我取一面镜子相同——为了看见自身。因此，灵魂在身体中得以映照。灵魂即是神，每个人内在皆有圆满的神性，每个人早晚都必须彰显其神性。若我处于黑暗的房间，无论如何声称也不能使房间明亮——我必须擦燃火柴。同样，无论如何抱怨哀叹，也无法使我们不完美的身体变得完美。但吠檀多教导——呼唤你的灵魂，彰显你的神性。教导你的孩子他们是神圣的，宗教是积极而实在之物，而非消极的空谈；它不是在压迫之下呻吟哀鸣的顺从，而是扩展与彰显。
每种宗教都承认，人的现在与未来由过去所塑造，现在不过是过去的效果。然而，为何每个孩子出生时便携带着无法以遗传来解释的经验？为何有人生于善良的父母，接受良好的教育，成为一个好人，而另一个出自酗酒父母，最终走上绞架？若不牵涉神明，你如何解释这种不平等？为何一位慈悲的天父会将祂的孩子置于必然带来苦难的境况之中？说神将来会作出补偿，这并非一种解释——神不以血债来偿还。再者，若此乃是我的初次降生，我的自由又在何处？来到这世界时没有前世的经验，我的独立便已荡然无存，因为我的道路将由他人的经验所标定。若我不能成为自身命运的创造者，我便不是自由的。我承担起这一存在之苦难的责任，并说我将在另一次存在中消除我所造就的恶。这便是我们关于灵魂迁移的哲学。我们带着另一次存在的经验来到今生，而这一存在的幸与不幸，是我们在前世行为的果报，灵魂始终向善进化，直至最终达于圆满。
我们信仰神，宇宙之父，无限而全能。然而，若我们的灵魂最终达于圆满，它也必然变得无限。但两个无限、无条件的存在者不能并立，因此我们信仰人格神（Personal God），而我们自己即是祂。这是每种宗教所经历的三个阶段。首先，我们见神于遥远的彼岸；继而，我们走近祂，赋予祂无所不在，使我们活在祂之中；最终，我们认识到我们即是祂。客观存在之神的观念并非不真实——实际上，关于神的每一种观念，因而每一种宗教，都是真实的，因为每一种都不过是旅途中的不同阶段，而这旅途的目标乃是吠陀所揭示的圆满境界。因此，我们不仅容纳，更是——我们印度教徒接纳每一种宗教：在穆斯林的清真寺中礼拜，在祆教徒的圣火前礼敬，在基督徒的十字架前跪拜，深知一切宗教，从最低等的物灵崇拜到最高深的绝对论，皆是人类灵魂把握与体认无限之物的种种尝试，各由其诞生与成长的条件所决定，各自标示着一个进化的阶段。我们采撷所有这些花朵，以爱的细绳将之束缚，编织出一束奇妙的礼拜花束。
若我即是神，那么我的灵魂便是至高者的殿堂，我的每一举止都应成为礼拜——为爱而爱，为义务而尽义务，不求赏报，不惧惩罚。如此，我的宗教意味着扩展，而扩展意味着最高意义上的体认与觉察——而非喃喃诵念或屈膝礼拜。人将成为神圣的，在无尽的进化中，日日更深地体认神性。
注释
English
The Hindu Religion
My religion is to learn. I read my Bible better in the light of your Bible and the dark prophecies of my religion become brighter when compared with those of your prophets. Truth has always been universal. If I alone were to have six fingers on my hand while all of you had only five, you would not think that my hand was the true intent of nature, but rather that it was abnormal and diseased. Just so with religion. If one creed alone were to be true and all the others untrue, you would have a right to say that that religion was diseased; if one religion is true, all the others must be true. Thus the Hindu religion is your property as well as mine. Of the two hundred and ninety millions of people inhabiting India, only two millions are Christians, sixty millions Mohammedans and all the rest are Hindus.
The Hindus found their creed upon the ancient Vedas, a word derived from Vid, "to know". These are a series of books which, to our minds, contain the essence of all religion; but we do not think they alone contain the truths. They teach us the immortality of the soul. In every country and every human breast there is a natural desire to find a stable equilibrium — something that does not change. We cannot find it in nature, for all the universe is nothing but an infinite mass of changes. But to infer from that that nothing unchanging exists is to fall into the error of the Southern school of Buddhists and the Chârvâkas, which latter believe that all is matter and nothing mind, that all religion is a cheat, and morality and goodness, useless superstitions. The Vedanta philosophy teaches that man is not bound by his five senses. They only know the present, and neither the future nor the past; but as the present signifies both past and future, and all three are only demarcations of time, the present also would be unknown if it were not for something above the senses, something independent of time, which unifies the past and the future in the present.
But what is independent? Not our body, for it depends upon outward conditions; nor our mind, because the thoughts of which it is composed are caused. It is our soul. The Vedas say the whole world is a mixture of independence and dependence, of freedom and slavery, but through it all shines the soul independent, immortal, pure, perfect, holy. For if it is independent, it cannot perish, as death is but a change, and depends upon conditions; if independent, it must be perfect, for imperfection is again but a condition, and therefore dependent. And this immortal and perfect soul must be the same in the highest God as well as in the humblest man, the difference between them being only in the degree in which this soul manifests itself.
But why should the soul take to itself a body? For the same reason that I take a looking-glass — to see myself. Thus, in the body, the soul is reflected. The soul is God, and every human being has a perfect divinity within himself, and each one must show his divinity sooner or later. If I am in a dark room, no amount of protestation will make it any brighter — I must light a match. Just so, no amount of grumbling and wailing will make our imperfect body more perfect. But the Vedanta teaches — call forth your soul, show your divinity. Teach your children that they are divine, that religion is a positive something and not a negative nonsense; that it is not subjection to groans when under oppression, but expansion and manifestation.
Every religion has it that man's present and future are modified by the past, and that the present is but the effect of the past. How is it, then, that every child is born with an experience that cannot be accounted for by hereditary transmission? How is it that one is born of good parents, receives a good education and becomes a good man, while another comes from besotted parents and ends on the gallows? How do you explain this inequality without implicating God? Why should a merciful Father set His child in such conditions which must bring forth misery? It is no explanation to say God will make amends; later on — God has no blood-money. Then, too, what becomes of my liberty, if this be my first birth? Coming into this world without the experience of a former life, my independence would be gone, for my path would be marked out by the experience of others. If I cannot be the maker of my own fortune, then I am not free. I take upon myself the blame for the misery of this existence, and say I will unmake the evil I have done in another existence. This, then, is our philosophy of the migration of the soul. We come into this life with the experience of another, and the fortune or misfortune of this existence is the result of our acts in a former existence, always becoming better, till at last perfection is reached.
We believe in a God, the Father of the universe, infinite and omnipotent. But if our soul at last becomes perfect, it also must become infinite. But there is no room for two infinite unconditional beings, and hence we believe in a Personal God, and we ourselves are He. These are the three stages which every religion has taken. First we see God in the far beyond, then we come nearer to Him and give Him omnipresence so that we live in Him; and at last we recognise that we are He. The idea of an Objective God is not untrue — in fact, every idea of God, and hence every religion, is true, as each is but a different stage in the journey, the aim of which is the perfect conception of the Vedas. Hence, too, we not only tolerate, but we Hindus accept every religion, praying in the mosque of the Mohammedans, worshipping before the fire of the Zoroastrians, and kneeling before the cross of the Christians, knowing that all the religions, from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism, mean so many attempts of the human soul to grasp and realise the infinite, each determined by the conditions of its birth and association, and each of them marking a stage of progress. We gather all these flowers and bind them with the twine of love, making a wonderful bouquet of worship.
If I am God, then my soul is a temple of the Highest, and my every motion should be a worship — love for love's sake, duty for duty's sake, without hope of reward or fear of punishment. Thus my religion means expansion, and expansion means realisation and perception in the highest sense — no mumbling words or genuflections. Man is to become divine, realising the divine more and more from day to day in an endless progress.
Notes
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。