爱的神是自证的
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中文
第八章
爱之神乃其自身的明证
已完全超越自私、讨价还价、且不知恐惧的爱者，其理想是什么？即便面对伟大的神，这样的人也会说："我将把我的一切献给你，我不想从你那里得到任何东西；事实上，没有任何我能称之为我自己的东西。"当一个人获得了这种确信，他的理想便成为一种完美之爱、一种完美的无畏之爱。这样的人的最高理想，没有任何具体特殊性的狭隘；那是普世之爱，没有界限与束缚的爱，爱本身，绝对的爱。这种爱之宗教的宏大理想，无需任何象征或暗示的辅助，被绝对地崇拜和爱着，就其本身而言。这是至上虔信（Para-Bhakti）的最高形式——崇拜这样一个无所不涵的理想作为理想；一切其他形式的虔信（Bhakti），都不过是在通往它的路途上的阶段。
我们在追随爱之宗教的道路上，一切的失败与一切的成功，都在通往那一理想实现的道路上。一个又一个对象被拿起，内在的理想被依次投射于其上；所有这些外部对象都被发现是不足以呈现那不断扩展的内在理想的，并被逐一自然地舍弃。最终，追求者开始思索：试图在外部对象中实现理想，是徒劳的；与理想本身相比，所有外部对象都如同虚无；在一段时间之后，他获得了将那最高而最概括化的抽象理想完全作为一种抽象来实现的能力——而对他而言，那抽象是十分鲜活而真实的。当虔信者到达这一点，他便不再被驱使去追问神能否被证明、祂是否无所不能与无所不知。对他而言，祂只是爱之神；祂是爱的最高理想，而这对他一切的目的而言已绰绰有余。祂作为爱，是不言自明的。对爱者而言，要证明所爱者的存在，无需任何证明。其他形式宗教中的法官般的神，或许需要大量证明来证明祂们的存在，然而虔信者根本没有、也不可能思及这样的神。对他而言，神完全作为爱而存在。"亲爱的，没有人为了丈夫本身而爱丈夫，而是为了存在于丈夫之中的自性（Self）才爱丈夫；亲爱的，没有人为了妻子本身而爱妻子，而是为了存在于妻子之中的自性才爱妻子。"
有人说，自私是一切人类活动的唯一动力。那也是爱被特殊化而降低后的产物。当我将自己视为涵盖了普遍者，我身中自然不可能有自私；然而当我错误地认为我是一个小小的什么，我的爱便被特殊化而收窄。这个错误在于使爱的范围变得狭隘与局促。宇宙中的一切事物都是神圣的来源，都值得被爱；然而必须铭记，对整体的爱涵盖了对部分的爱。这整体便是虔信者的神，而一切其他的神——天上的父、或统治者、或创造者——以及一切理论、教义与经典，对他们而言都没有目的也没有意义，因为他们已通过至上的爱与虔信，完全超越了那一切。当心灵被净化、清洁，被神圣的爱之甘露充满至满溢，关于神的一切其他观念便显得幼稚而被舍弃，被视为不足或不配。至上虔信（Para-Bhakti）或至高之爱的力量确实如此；完满的虔信者不再前往庙宇或教堂去见神；他不知道有什么地方是他找不到祂的。他在庙宇内外都能找到祂；他在圣者的圣洁中找到祂，也在恶人的邪恶中找到祂，因为他已将祂荣耀地安置在自己心中——作为那永远闪耀、永恒临在的唯一全能而不可熄灭的爱之光。
English
CHAPTER VIII
THE GOD OF LOVE IS HIS OWN PROOF
What is the ideal of the lover who has quite passed beyond the idea of selfishness, of bartering and bargaining, and who knows no fear? Even to the great God such a man will say, "I will give You my all, and I do not want anything from You; indeed there is nothing that I can call my own." When a man has acquired this conviction, his ideal becomes one of perfect love, one of perfect fearlessness of love. The highest ideal of such a person has no narrowness of particularity about it; it is love universal, love without limits and bonds, love itself, absolute love. This grand ideal of the religion of love is worshipped and loved absolutely as such without the aid of any symbols or suggestions. This is the highest form of Para-Bhakti — the worship of such an all-comprehending ideal as the ideal; all the other forms of Bhakti are only stages on the way to reach it.
All our failures and all our successes in following the religion of love are on the road to the realisation of that one ideal. Object after object is taken up, and the inner ideal is successively projected on them all; and all such external objects are found inadequate as exponents of the ever-expanding inner ideal and are naturally rejected one after another. At last the aspirant begins to think that it is vain to try to realise the ideal in external objects, that all external objects are as nothing when compared with the ideal itself; and, in course of time, he acquires the power of realising the highest and the most generalised abstract ideal entirely as an abstraction that is to him quite alive and real. When the devotee has reached this point, he is no more impelled to ask whether God can be demonstrated or not, whether He is omnipotent and omniscient or not. To him He is only the God of Love; He is the highest ideal of love, and that is sufficient for all his purposes. He, as love, is self-evident. It requires no proofs to demonstrate the existence of the beloved to the lover. The magistrate-Gods of other forms of religion may require a good deal of proof prove Them, but the Bhakta does not and cannot think of such Gods at all. To him God exists entirely as love. "None, O beloved, loves the husband for the husband's sake, but it is for the sake of the Self who is in the husband that the husband is loved; none, O beloved, loves the wife for the wife's sake, but it is for the sake of the Self who is in the wife that the wife is loved."
It is said by some that selfishness is the only motive power in regard to all human activities. That also is love lowered by being particularised. When I think of myself as comprehending the Universal, there can surely be no selfishness in me; but when I, by mistake, think that I am a little something, my love becomes particularized and narrowed. The mistake consists in making the sphere of love narrow and contracted. All things in the universe are of divine origin and deserve to be loved; it has, however, to be borne in mind that the love of the whole includes the love of the parts. This whole is the God of the Bhaktas, and all the other Gods, Fathers in Heaven, or Rulers, or Creators, and all theories and doctrines and books have no purpose and no meaning for them, seeing that they have through their supreme love and devotion risen above those things altogether. When the heart is purified and cleansed and filled to the brim with the divine nectar of love, all other ideas of God become simply puerile and are rejected as being inadequate or unworthy. Such is indeed the power of Para-Bhakti or Supreme Love; and the perfected Bhakta no more goes to see God in temples and churches; he knows no place where he will not find Him. He finds Him in the temple as well as out of the temple, he finds Him in the saint's saintliness as well as in the wicked man's wickedness, because he has Him already seated in glory in his own heart as the one Almighty inextinguishable Light of Love which is ever shining and eternally present.
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。