心理学的重要性
本译文由人工智能辅助工具生成，可能存在不准确之处。如需查阅权威文本，请参考英文原文。
AI-translated. May contain errors. For accurate text, refer to the original English.
中文
心理学的重要性
在西方，心理学的观念已被大大贬低。心理学乃科学中的科学；然而在西方，它被置于与其他一切科学相同的层面——即以同一标准来衡量——实用性。
它能给人类带来多少实际利益？它能为我们迅速增长的幸福增添几何？它能减轻我们日益加剧的痛苦几何？这便是西方用以评判一切的标准。
人们似乎忘记了，就事物的本质而言，我们约百分之九十的知识根本无法以实际方式应用于增进物质幸福或减轻苦难。我们的科学知识中，只有极小一部分能够切实应用于日常生活。之所以如此，是因为我们意识心灵中处于感官层面的仅占极微小的比例。我们只有一丁点感官意识，便想当然地以为那就是我们心灵与生命的全部；然而事实上，它不过是潜意识心灵汪洋大海中的一滴水珠。倘若我们的全部存在只是一堆感官知觉，那么我们所获得的一切知识确实可以用于满足感官享乐。但幸运的是，事实并非如此。当我们越来越远离动物状态时，感官享乐便越来越少；而在对科学知识和心理学知识日益增长的觉知中，我们的喜悦变得愈加深切强烈；"为知识而知识"——不管它能带来多少感官快乐——成为心灵的至高愉悦。
然而，即便以西方的实用标准来衡量，即便依照这样的标准，心理学也是科学中的科学。为何如此？我们都是感官的奴隶，是自己心灵——包括意识与潜意识——的奴隶。一个罪犯之所以成为罪犯，并非因为他渴望如此，而是因为他无法控制自己的心灵，因此沦为自身意识与潜意识心灵以及他人心灵的奴隶。他必须服从自己心灵中占主导地位的趋势；他身不由己；尽管违背自身意愿，违背自己更善良的品性，他仍被迫前行；他不得不服从自己心灵中占统治地位的指令。可怜之人，他无能为力。我们在自身生活中不断看到这一点。我们时常做违背自身善良本性之事，事后又自责不已，不明白当时在想什么，怎么会做出那样的事！然而我们一再重蹈覆辙，一再为此受苦并自我责备。在那个时刻，也许我们以为自己是出于心愿而为之，但我们之所以如此渴望，只是因为我们被迫如此。我们身不由己，无可奈何！我们都是自己和他人心灵的奴隶；无论我们是善是恶，并无分别。我们被牵引至此处彼处，因为我们无法自主。我们说我们在思考、在行动，等等。事实并非如此。我们思考是因为我们不得不思考。我们行动是因为我们不得不行动。我们既是自身的奴隶，也是他人的奴隶。在我们潜意识心灵深处，储存着过去一切的思想和行为，不仅是此生的，也包括我们所经历的一切前生。这片广大无垠的主观心灵汪洋中充满了过去的一切思想和行为。其中每一个都在力求被认知，向外涌现以寻求表达，如浪潮般一波接一波地涌向客观心灵——意识心灵。这些思想，这些储存的能量，被我们当作天然的欲望、才能等等。这是因为我们不了解它们的真正起源。我们盲目地、不加质疑地服从它们；而结果便是奴役——最无助的那种奴役；而我们却称自己是自由的。自由！我们连一刻也无法掌控自己的心灵，甚至不能将心灵集中于一个对象、聚焦于一点而排除其他一切，哪怕只是片刻！然而我们却称自己是自由的。试想一下！我们甚至在极短的时间内也做不到按照所知应该做的去做。某种感官欲望冒出来，我们立刻就服从了。我们的良心因这种软弱而谴责我们，但我们一再如此，始终如此。我们无法按照崇高的生活标准生活，无论如何努力。过去思想、过去生命的幽灵将我们紧紧束缚。世间一切苦难皆因这种对感官的奴役而生。我们无力超越感官生活——对物质享乐的追逐——正是世间一切恐怖与苦难的根源。
正是心理学这门科学教导我们如何遏制心灵的狂乱旋转，将其置于意志的控制之下，从而使我们摆脱其暴虐的支配。因此，心理学是科学中的科学，没有它，一切其他科学和知识都毫无价值。
不受控制、不被引导的心灵将把我们不断拖向深渊——撕裂我们、毁灭我们；而受到控制与引导的心灵则能拯救我们、解放我们。因此，心灵必须被控制，而心理学正教我们如何做到这一点。
研究和分析任何物质科学，都能获得充分的资料。这些事实被研究和分析，从而获得该门科学的知识。但在研究和分析心灵时，没有资料，没有从外部获取的、人人可以平等使用的事实。心灵是由自身来分析自身的。因此，最伟大的科学就是心灵的科学——心理学。
在西方，心灵的力量，尤其是非凡的力量，被视为近乎巫术和神秘主义。高等心理学的研究因被等同于某些所谓的通灵现象而受到阻碍，正如某些故弄玄虚的印度苦行者所为的那样。
物理学家在全世界取得的结果大体相同。他们在一般事实及由这些事实自然推导出的结论上并无分歧。这是因为物理科学的数据人人可以获取且被普遍认可，其结果是基于这些普遍认可事实的逻辑推论。在心灵的领域则不然。这里没有数据，没有物理感官可以观察到的事实，因而也就没有普遍认可的材料可供所有研究心灵的人平等地加以实验，从而建立心理学体系。
在深处——最深处——是灵魂，是本质的人，是真我（Atman）。将心灵转向内在，与之合一；从那个稳定的立足点上，便能观察心灵的旋转运动，观察到存在于一切人中的事实。这样的事实、这样的数据，唯有深入到足够深度的人才能发现，也只有这样的人才能发现。在全世界那一大批自称为神秘主义者的人中，对于心灵及其本质、力量等存在着极大的意见分歧。这是因为这些人没有深入到足够的深度。他们注意到了自己和他人心灵的一些微小活动，在对这些肤浅表象的真实性质一无所知的情况下，便将其作为具有普遍适用性的事实发表出来；每一个宗教和神秘学狂热者都有事实、数据等等，他声称这些是可靠的研究标准，但实际上不过是他自己的臆想罢了。
如果你打算研究心灵，就必须接受系统的训练；你必须通过修行将心灵置于自己的控制之下，达到那种意识状态，从而能够研究心灵而不被其任何狂乱波动所扰。否则，所观察到的事实将不可靠；它们不能适用于所有人，因而根本算不上真正的事实或数据。
在那些深入研究心灵的人中间，无论他们身处世界何方，信奉何种宗教，所观察到的事实都是相同的。所有深入心灵到足够深度的人所获得的结果都是一样的。
心灵通过感知和冲动来运作。例如，光线通过眼睛进入，由神经传导到大脑，但此时我仍未看到光。大脑随后将冲动传达给心灵，但我仍未看到光；然后心灵做出反应，光才在心灵中闪现。心灵的反应就是冲动，其结果是眼睛感知到了对象。
要控制心灵，你必须深入潜意识心灵，将储存在那里的各种印象、思想等加以分类和整理，并控制它们。这是第一步。通过控制潜意识心灵，你便获得了对意识心灵的控制。
English
THE IMPORTANCE OF PSYCHOLOGY
The idea of psychology in the West is very much degraded. Psychology is the science of sciences; but in the West it is placed upon the same plane as all other sciences; that is, it is judged by the same criterion—utility.
How much practical benefit will it do to humanity? How much will it add to our rapidly growing happiness? How much will it detract from our rapidly increasing pain? Such is the criterion by which everything is judged in the West.
People seem to forget that about ninety per cent of all our knowledge cannot, in the very nature of things, be applied in a practical way to add to our material happiness or to lessen our misery. Only the smallest fraction of our scientific knowledge can have any such practical application to our daily lives. This is so because only an infinitely small percentage of our conscious mind is on the sensuous plane. We have just a little bit of sensuous consciousness and imagine that to be our entire mind and life; but, as a matter of fact, it is but a drop in the mighty ocean of subconscious mind. If all there is of us were a bundle of sense-perceptions, all the knowledge we could gain could be utilised in the gratification of our sense-pleasures. But fortunately such is not the case. As we get further and further away from the animal state, our sense-pleasures become less and less; and our enjoyment, in a rapidly increasing consciousness of scientific and psychological knowledge, becomes more and more intense; and "knowledge for the sake of knowledge", regardless of the amount of sense-pleasures it may conduce to, becomes the supreme pleasure of the mind.
But even taking the Western idea of utility as a criterion by which to judge, psychology, by such a standard even, is the science of sciences. Why? We are all slaves to our senses, slaves to our own minds, conscious and subconscious. The reason why a criminal is a criminal is not because he desires to be one, but because he has not his mind under control and is therefore a slave to his own conscious and subconscious mind, and to the mind of everybody else. He must follow the dominant trend of his own mind; he cannot help it; he is forced onward in spite of himself, in spite of his own better promptings, his own better nature; he is forced to obey the dominant mandate of his own mind. Poor man, he cannot help himself. We see this in our own lives constantly. We are constantly doing things against the better side of our nature, and afterwards we upbraid ourselves for so doing and wonder what we could have been thinking of, how we could do such a thing! Yet again and again we do it, and again and again we suffer for it and upbraid ourselves. At the time, perhaps, we think we desire to do it, but we only desire it because we are forced to desire it. We are forced onward, we are helpless! We are all slaves to our own and to everybody else's mind; whether we are good or bad, that makes no difference. We are led here and there because we cannot help ourselves. We say we think, we do, etc. It is not so. We think because we have to think. We act because we have to. We are slaves to ourselves and to others. Deep down in our subconscious mind are stored up all the thoughts and acts of the past, not only of this life, but of all other lives we have lived. This great boundless ocean of subjective mind is full of all the thoughts and actions of the past. Each one of these is striving to be recognised, pushing outward for expression, surging, wave after wave, out upon the objective mind, the conscious mind. These thoughts, the stored-up energy, we take for natural desires, talents, etc. It is because we do not realise their true origin. We obey them blindly, unquestioningly; and slavery, the most helpless kind of slavery, is the result; and we call ourselves free. Free! We who cannot for a moment govern our own minds, nay, cannot hold our minds on a subject, focus it on a point to the exclusion of everything else for a moment! Yet we call ourselves free. Think of it! We cannot do as we know we ought to do even for a very short space of time. Some sense-desire will crop up, and immediately we obey it. Our conscience smites us for such weakness, but again and again we do it, we are always doing it. We cannot live up to a high standard of life, try as we will. The ghosts of past thoughts, past lives hold us down. All the misery of the world is caused by this slavery to the senses. Our inability to rise above the sense-life—the striving for physical pleasures, is the cause of all the horrors and miseries in the world.
It is the science of psychology that teaches us to hold in check the wild gyrations of the mind, place it under the control of the will, and thus free ourselves from its tyrannous mandates. Psychology is therefore the science of sciences, without which all sciences and all other knowledge are worthless.
The mind uncontrolled and unguided will drag us down, down, for ever—rend us, kill us; and the mind controlled and guided will save us, free us. So it must be controlled, and psychology teaches us how to do it.
To study and analyse any material science, sufficient data are obtained. These facts are studied and analysed and a knowledge of the science is the result. But in the study and analysis of the mind, there are no data, no facts acquired from without, such as are equally at the command of all. The mind is analysed by itself. The greatest science, therefore, is the science of the mind, the science of psychology.
In the West, the powers of the mind, especially unusual powers, are looked upon as bordering on witchcraft and mysticism. The study of higher psychology has been retarded by its being identified with mere alleged psychic phenomena, as is done by some mystery-mongering order of Hindu fakirs.
Physicists obtain pretty much the same results the world over. They do not differ in their general facts, nor in the results which naturally follow from such facts. This is because the data of physical science are obtainable by all and are universally recognised, and the results are logical conclusions based upon these universally recognised facts. In the realm of the mind, it is different. Here there are no data, no facts observable by the physical senses, and no universally recognised materials therefore, from which to build a system of psychology after their being equally experimented upon by all who study the mind.
Deep, deep within, is the soul, the essential man, the Âtman. Turn the mind inward and become united to that; and from that standpoint of stability, the gyrations of the mind can be watched and facts observed, which are to be found in all persons. Such facts, such data, are to be found by those who go deep enough, and only by such. Among that large class of self-styled mystics the world over, there is a great difference of opinion as to the mind, its nature, powers, etc. This is because such people do not go deep enough. They have noticed some little activity of their own and others' minds and, without knowing anything about the real character of such superficial manifestations, have published them as facts universal in their application; and every religious and mystical crank has facts, data, etc., which, he claims, are reliable criteria for investigation, but which are in fact nothing more or less than his own imaginings
If you intend to study the mind, you must have systematic training; you must practice to bring the mind under your control, to attain to that consciousness from which you will be able to study the mind and remain unmoved by any of its wild gyrations. Otherwise the facts observed will not be reliable; they will not apply to all people and therefore will not be truly facts or data at all.
Among that class who have gone deeply into the study of the mind, the facts observed have been the same, no matter in what part of the world such persons may be or what religious belief they may have. The results obtained by all who go deep enough into the mind are the same.
The mind operates by perception and impulsion. For instance, the rays of the light enter by eyes, are carried by the nerves to the brain, and still I do not see the light. The brain then conveys the impulse to the mind, but yet I do not see the light; the mind then reacts, and the light flashes across the mind. The mind's reaction is impulsion, and as a result the eye perceives the object.
To control the mind you must go deep down into the subconscious mind, classify and arrange in order all the different impressions, thoughts, etc., stored up there, and control them. This is the first step. By the control of the subconscious mind you get control over the conscious.
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。