六月三十日,星期日
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
(由弟子S·E·瓦尔多小姐记录)
一八九五年六月三十日,星期日。
试图不借助任何心象来进行思维,无异于使不可能成为可能。我们无法在没有具体实例的情况下思考"哺乳动物"这一概念。对于上帝的观念亦是如此。
世间一切观念中最伟大的抽象,便是我们所称的上帝。
每一个思想都包含两个部分——思维本身与表达它的语词;二者缺一不可。唯心论者与唯物论者都不完全正确;我们必须同时兼顾观念与表达。
一切知识都是反映出来的,正如我们只能在镜中看到自己的面容。没有人能够真正认识自己的真我(Atman)或上帝;然而我们本身就是那个真我,我们本身就是上帝。
在涅槃之中,当你不存在时,你便存在了。佛陀说:"当你不存在时,你才是最好的、最真实的"——当那个小我消失之后。
内在的神圣之光在大多数人身上都被遮蔽了。它就像一盏灯被关在铁桶之中,没有一丝光芒能够透出。通过纯净与无私,我们可以逐渐使这遮蔽的介质越来越稀薄,直到最终它变得如玻璃般透明。室利·罗摩克里希纳(Ramakrishna)就好比那铁桶已经化为玻璃桶,内在之光可以如实地透射出来。我们所有人都在走向成为玻璃桶的道路上,并将达到越来越高的映照。只要"桶"还在,我们就必须借助物质媒介来思考。急躁之人永远不会成功。
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伟大的圣者是那个原则的活生生的示范。然而弟子们却将圣者本人当作了原则,于是在崇拜其人的过程中忘却了原则本身。
佛陀不断反对人格化上帝的结果,是偶像崇拜在印度的兴起。在吠陀(Vedas)时代,人们并不知道偶像,因为他们处处都看到上帝;但是失去了作为创造者和朋友的上帝之后,反弹便是制造偶像,佛陀本人也成了偶像——耶稣亦然。偶像的范围从木石延伸到耶稣和佛陀,但我们必须有偶像。
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激烈的改革尝试总是以阻碍改革而告终。不要说"你很坏";只需说"你很好,但要更好。"
在每个国家,祭司阶层都是一种祸害,因为他们只会谴责和批评,拉扯一根绳子去修补,结果却弄乱了另外两三根。爱从不谴责,只有野心才会那样做。世间不存在所谓"正义的"愤怒或正当的杀戮。
如果你不让一个人成为狮子,他就会变成狐狸。女性是一种力量,只是目前这种力量更多地用于消极方面,因为男性压迫女性;她成了狐狸。但当她不再受压迫时,她就会成为狮子。
一般而言,灵性追求应当以理智来平衡;否则就可能退化为纯粹的感伤主义……
所有有神论者都同意,在变化之物的背后存在着一个不变者,尽管他们对于这个"终极"的概念各有不同。佛陀完全否定了这一点。他说:"没有梵(Brahman),没有真我(Atman),没有灵魂。"
作为一个人格,佛陀是世上前所未有的最伟大者;紧随其后的是基督。然而,薄伽梵歌(Gita)中克里希纳(Krishna)的教导,是世上所知的最为宏伟的思想。写下那部不朽诗篇的人,是那些罕见的灵魂之一,他们的生命向世界发出了复兴的浪潮。人类再也不会见到像写出薄伽梵歌(Gita)之人那样的头脑了。
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力量只有一种,无论它以善或恶的形式显现。上帝与魔鬼是同一条河流,只是水流的方向相反而已。
English
(RECORDED BY MISS S. E. WALDO, A DISCIPLE)
SUNDAY, June 30, 1895.
To try to think without a phantasm is to try to make the impossible possible. We cannot think "mammalia" without a concrete example. So with the idea of God.
The great abstraction of ideas in the world is what we call God.
Each thought has two parts — the thinking and the word; and we must have both. Neither idealists nor materialists are right; we must take both idea and expression.
All knowledge is of the reflected, as we can only see our face in a mirror. No one will ever know his own Self or God; but we are that own Self, we are God.
In Nirvana you are when you are not. Buddha said, "You are best, you are real, when you are not" — when the little self is gone.
The Light Divine within is obscured in most people. It is like a lamp in a cask of iron, no gleam of light can shine through. Gradually, by purity and unselfishness we can make the obscuring medium less and less dense, until at last it becomes as transparent as glass. Shri Ramakrishna was like the iron cask transformed into a glass cask through which can be seen the inner light as it is. We are all on the way to become the cask of glass and even higher and higher reflections. As long as there is a "cask" at all, we must think through material means. No impatient one can ever succeed.
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Great saints are the object-lessons of the Principle. But the disciples make the saint the Principle, and then they forget the Principle in the person.
The result of Buddha's constant inveighing against a personal God was the introduction of idols into India. In the Vedas they knew them not, because they saw God everywhere, but the reaction against the loss of God as Creator and Friend was to make idols, and Buddha became an idol — so too with Jesus. The range of idols is from wood and stone to Jesus and Buddha, but we must have idols.
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Violent attempts at reform always end by retarding reform. Do not say, "You are bad"; say only, "You are good, but be better."
Priests are an evil in every country, because they denounce and criticise, pulling at one string to mend it until two or three others are out of place. Love never denounces, only ambition does that. There is no such thing as "righteous" anger or justifiable killing.
If you do not allow one to become a lion, he will become a fox. Women are a power, only now it is more for evil because man oppresses woman; she is the fox, but when she is not longer oppressed, she will become the lion.
Ordinarily speaking, spiritual aspiration ought to be balanced through the intellect; otherwise it may degenerate into mere sentimentality. . . .
All theists agree that behind the changeable there is an Unchangeable, though they vary in their conception of the Ultimate. Buddha denied this in toto. "There is no Brahman, no Atman, no soul," he said.
As a character Buddha was the greatest the world has ever seen; next to him Christ. But the teachings of Krishna as taught by the Gita are the grandest the world has ever known. He who wrote that wonderful poem was one of those rare souls whose lives sent a wave of regeneration through the world. The human race will never again see such a brain as his who wrote the Gita.
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There is only one Power, whether manifesting as evil or good. God and the devil are the same river with the water flowing in opposite directions.
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。