灵性证悟：虔信瑜伽的目标
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中文
第三章
灵性实现：虔信瑜伽的目标
对虔信者而言，这些枯燥的细节，只是为了强固其意志所必需；除此之外，对他而言毫无用处。因为他正行走在一条很快便能将他带离理性那朦胧动荡之域的道路上——将他引入实现的领域。他很快，通过主的慈悲，到达一个平面：在那里，迂腐而无力的理性被远远地抛在身后；在那里，对黑暗的单纯理智摸索，让位于直接感知的日光。他不再推理与信仰，他近乎于感知。他不再争辩，他体验。难道这种看见神、感受神、享受神，不比一切更高吗？不，曾有虔信者主张，这甚至高于解脱（Moksha）本身。难道这不也是最高的实用价值吗？世界上有一些人——而且数量不少——深信唯有能给人带来物质安逸的事物才具有用处与价值。即便是宗教、神、永恒、灵魂，这些对他们来说也毫无用处，因为它们既不带来金钱，也不带来肉体上的舒适。对这些人而言，一切不能满足感官、平息欲望的事物，皆无实用价值。在每一个心灵中，实用性都由其自身特有的需求所决定。因此，对那些从未超越饮食、生育与死亡这些事的人来说，唯一的收获在于感官的享受；他们必须等待，经历更多的生死轮回，才能学会哪怕是最微弱地感受到对更高事物的需求。但对那些视灵魂的永恒利益远高于尘世生命的短暂利益、视感官的满足不过是婴儿懵懂之戏的人来说，神与对神的爱，构成了人类存在的最高、也是唯一的实用价值。感谢神，在这个过于世俗的世界上，还有一些这样的人。
如我们所言，虔信瑜伽（Bhakti-Yoga）分为初阶（Gauni，预备阶段）与高阶（Para，最高阶段）。随着我们的深入，我们将发现，在预备阶段，我们不可避免地需要许多具体的助缘，才能前进；确实，所有宗教中的神话与象征的部分，都是自然生长的，早早环绕着渴慕的灵魂，助其趋向神性。同样显著的事实是，唯有在那些具有丰富神话与仪轨的宗教体系中，才涌现出灵性的巨人。那些枯燥狂热的宗教形式，企图根除一切诗意，一切美丽与崇高，一切给那在趋神之路上蹒跚而行的幼稚心灵以坚实把握的事物——这些形式，企图推倒灵性屋顶的大梁，并在其无知与迷信的真理观中，驱逐一切赋予生命的事物、一切为生长于人类灵魂中的灵性植株提供成形材料的事物——这样的宗教形式，很快便会发现，留给它们的不过是一个空洞的外壳：一个充斥着文字与诡辩的无内容框架，或许带着一点所谓"社会清扫工作"或所谓"改革精神"的气息。
那些持有这样宗教观的绝大多数人，是有意或无意的唯物主义者——他们今生与来世的终极目标是享乐，享乐确实对他们来说是人类生命的阿尔法与欧米伽，是他们的"祈愿与布施"（Ishtapurta）；诸如清扫街道之类、旨在为人类提供物质舒适的工作，在他们看来，是人类存在的唯一目的与归宿；这种无知与狂热奇异混合的追随者，越早以其真面目出现，加入到他们理当归属的无神论者与唯物主义者的行列，对世界就越为有益。一盎司的正义践行与灵性自我实现，胜过数以吨计的空洞言辞与无聊情操。请给我们展示一位，哪怕只是一位，从这种无知与狂热的干燥尘土中生长出来的灵性巨人；若你们做不到，就请闭上你们的嘴，打开你们心灵的窗户，迎接清明真理之光，像孩子一样坐在那些知晓自己所言之物的人——印度的圣哲——的脚下。让我们专注地聆听他们的话语。
English
CHAPTER III
SPIRITUAL REALISATION, THE AIM OF BHAKTI-YOGA
To the Bhakta these dry details are necessary only to strengthen his will; beyond that they are of no use to him. For he is treading on a path which is fitted very soon to lead him beyond the hazy and turbulent regions of reason, to lead him to the realm of realisation. He, soon, through the mercy of the Lord, reaches a plane where pedantic and powerless reason is left far behind, and the mere intellectual groping through the dark gives place to the daylight of direct perception. He no more reasons and believes, he almost perceives. He no more argues, he senses. And is not this seeing God, and feeling God, and enjoying God higher than everything else? Nay, Bhaktas have not been wanting who have maintained that it is higher than even Moksha — liberation. And is it not also the highest utility? There are people — and a good many of them too — in the world who are convinced that only that is of use and utility which brings to man creature-comforts. Even religion, God, eternity, soul, none of these is of any use to them, as they do not bring them money or physical comfort. To such, all those things which do not go to gratify the senses and appease the appetites are of no utility. In every mind, utility, however, is conditioned by its own peculiar wants. To men, therefore, who never rise higher than eating, drinking, begetting progeny, and dying, the only gain is in sense enjoyments; and they must wait and go through many more births and reincarnations to learn to feel even the faintest necessity for anything higher. But those to whom the eternal interests of the soul are of much higher value than the fleeting interests of this mundane life, to whom the gratification of the senses is but like the thoughtless play of the baby, to them God and the love of God form the highest and the only utility of human existence. Thank God there are some such still living in this world of too much worldliness.
Bhakti-Yoga, as we have said, is divided into the Gauni or the preparatory, and the Parâ or the supreme forms. We shall find, as we go on, how in the preparatory stage we unavoidably stand in need of many concrete helps to enable us to get on; and indeed the mythological and symbological parts of all religions are natural growths which early environ the aspiring soul and help it Godward. It is also a significant fact that spiritual giants have been produced only in those systems of religion where there is an exuberant growth of rich mythology and ritualism. The dry fanatical forms of religion which attempt to eradicate all that is poetical, all that is beautiful and sublime, all that gives a firm grasp to the infant mind tottering in its Godward way — the forms which attempt to break down the very ridge-poles of the spiritual roof, and in their ignorant and superstitious conceptions of truth try to drive away all that is life-giving, all that furnishes the formative material to the spiritual plant growing in the human soul — such forms of religion too soon find that all that is left to them is but an empty shell, a contentless frame of words and sophistry with perhaps a little flavour of a kind of social scavengering or the so-called spirit of reform.
The vast mass of those whose religion is like this, are conscious or unconscious materialists — the end and aim of their lives here and hereafter being enjoyment, which indeed is to them the alpha and the omega of human life, and which is their Ishtâpurta; work like street-cleaning and scavengering, intended for the material comfort of man is, according to them, the be-all and end-all of human existence; and the sooner the followers of this curious mixture of ignorance and fanaticism come out in their true colours and join, as they well deserve to do, the ranks of atheists and materialists, the better will it be for the world. One ounce of the practice of righteousness and of spiritual Self-realisation outweighs tons and tons of frothy talk and nonsensical sentiments. Show us one, but one gigantic spiritual genius growing out of all this dry dust of ignorance and fanaticism; and if you cannot, close your mouths, open the windows of your hearts to the clear light of truth, and sit like children at the feet of those who know what they are talking about — the sages of India. Let us then listen attentively to what they say.
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。