薄伽梵歌（一）
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
薄伽梵歌（一）
（《新发现》第六卷，第205—207页。参见艾达·安塞尔整理之《全集》第一卷"薄伽梵歌（一）"篇。）
〔弗兰克·罗德哈梅尔整理之《薄伽梵歌》讲演笔记——此讲演于1900年5月26日（星期六）在加利福尼亚州旧金山举行〕
《薄伽梵歌》（Gitā）之于印度教徒，犹如《新约》之于基督徒。此书约有五千年历史，印度教的宗教节庆之日，正是纪念俱卢之野（Kurukshetra）大战的周年纪念——那场大战距今约五千年。如我所言，吠陀（Vedas）分为两大部分：哲学部分与业行篇（Karmakānda），即业行部分。
阐发哲学部分的国王与祭司之间，爆发了激烈的冲突。祭司们拥有民众的支持，因为他们掌握着一切切实有用之物，能够诉诸普通人的实际需求。国王们虽拥有全部的精神性，却毫无经济层面的吸引力；但由于他们势力强大，是国家的统治者，这场斗争便既艰难又激烈。国王们逐渐赢得了一定的优势，然而他们的思想过于高远，难以为大众所接受，因此仪式或业行部分始终拥有广大的民众基础。
请务必记住这一点：每当一种宗教体系在广大民众中扎根，它必定有强健的经济层面。正是宗教的经济层面，得以在广大民众中安身立命；它的精神层面或哲学层面，从来无法做到这一点。若你在街头宣扬最宏大的哲学长达一年，追随者寥寥无几；但若你宣讲最荒诞不经的无稽之谈，只要其中含有经济成分，便能拥有万众归附。
无人知晓吠陀为何人所著；它们太过古老。依正统印度教徒之见，吠陀根本不是书写的文字，而是以确切的发音与声调口口相传的语音本身。这部卷帙浩繁的宗教典籍已被写录下来，卷数以千万计。凡能精准掌握发音与声调者，便是知晓吠陀之人，舍此则无人真正知晓吠陀。古代某些王族是吠陀特定篇章的守护者，一族之长能将其所藏典籍的每一册、每一个字诵出，不遗一字，不差一音。这些人拥有超凡的智识与惊人的记忆力。
严格信守吠陀、信奉业行篇的正统信徒，并不相信梵（Brahman）、真我（Ātman）或任何诸如此类的存在，而认为我们自身便是宇宙中——无论物质层面还是精神层面——唯一的存在。当他们被问及吠陀中诸多关于梵的指涉是何含义时，他们的回答是：毫无含义；只是这些字词以特定方式发音，便具有一种神奇的力量，能够产生特定的结果。除此之外，别无其他意义。
每当你压制一种念头，你不过是将它强行压入意识深处，如同弹簧被压紧，只待时机一至，便会以压抑所积累的全部力量骤然弹出，在极短时间内完成原本需要漫长时间才能完成的事情。
每一分乐趣，都带来数倍的痛苦。苦与乐，本是同一能量的不同显现：此时为乐，彼时为苦。一组感受停止，另一组随即开始。然而在某些情形下，对于较为进化的人而言，一个人或许能在同一时间内使两种，乃至百种不同的念头同时活跃运作。当一种念头被压制，它不过是蜷缩蛰伏，随时准备以积聚的狂烈之力爆发而出。
"心意的本质就是如此。心意的活动意味着创造。念头之后是语言，语言之后是形象。在心意能够映照真我（Ātman）之前，这一切创造——无论精神层面还是物质层面——都必须停止。"
"我的老师〔罗摩克里希纳（Ramakrishna）〕甚至无法正确写出自己的名字。他在书写自己名字时，竟写出了三处错误。"
"然而，正是这样的人，我甘愿坐于其足下聆听教诲。"
"你将打破一次自然之法，而那将是最后一次。此后，自然对你而言将不复存在。"
English
THE GITA — I
(New Discoveries, Vol. 6, pp. 205-7. Cf. Ida Ansell’s notes of “The Gita I”, [6]Complete Works, I.)
[Mr. Frank Rhodehamel’s notes of a Bhagavad-Gitâ lecture delivered Saturday, May 26, 1900, in San Francisco, California]
The Gitâ is to the Hindus what the New Testament is to the Christians. It is about five thousand years old, and the day of religious celebrations with the Hindus is the anniversary of the Battle of Kurukshetra about five thousand years ago. As I said, the Vedas are divided into two great divisions, the philosophical and the Karmakânda, or work portion.
Between the kings, who promulgated the philosophic portion, and the priests a great conflict arose. The priests had the people on their side because they had all the utility which appealed to the popular mind. The kings had all the spirituality and none of the economic element; but as they were powerful and the rulers of the nation, the struggle was a hard and bitter one. The kings gradually gained a little ground, but their ideas were too elevated for the masses, so the ceremonial, or work portion, always had the mass of the people.
Always remember this, that whenever a religious system gains ground with the people at large, it has a strong economic side to it. It is the economic side of a religion that finds lodgement with the people at large, and never its spiritual, or philosophic, side. If you should preach the grandest philosophy in the streets for a year, you would not have a handful of followers. But you could preach the most arrant nonsense, and if it had an economic element, you would have the whole people with you.
None knows by whom the Vedas were written; they are so ancient. According to the orthodox Hindus, the Vedas are not the written words at all, but they consist of the words themselves orally spoken with the exact enunciation and intonation. This vast mass of religion has been written and consists of thousands upon thousands of volumes. Anyone who knows the precise pronunciation and intonation knows the Vedas, and no one else. In ancient times certain royal families were the custodians of certain parts of the Vedas. The head of the family could repeat every word of every volume he had, without missing a word or an intonation. These men had giant intellects, wonderful memories.
The strictly orthodox believers in the Vedas, the Karmakanda, did not believe in God, the soul or anything of the sort, but that we as we are were the only beings in the universe, material or spiritual. When they were asked what the many allusions to God in the Vedas mean, they say that they mean nothing at all; that the words properly articulated have a magical power, a power to create certain results. Aside from that they have no meaning.
Whenever you suppress a thought, you simply press it down out of sight in a coil, like a spring, only to spring out again at a moment's notice with all the pent up force as the result of the suppression, and do in a few moments what it would have done in a much longer period.
Every ounce of pleasure brings its pound of pain. It is the same energy that at one time manifests itself as pleasure and at another time as pain. As soon as one set of sensations stops, another begins. But in some cases, in more advanced persons, one may have two, yes, or even a hundred different thoughts enter into active operation at the same time. When one thought is suppressed, it is merely coiled up ready to spring forth with pent up fury at any time.
"Mind is of its own nature. Mind activity means creation. The thought is followed by the word, and the word by the form. All of this creating will have to stop, both mental and physical, before the mind can reflect the soul."
"My old master (Shri Ramakrishna.) could not write his own name without making a mistake. He made three mistakes in spelling, in writing his own name."
"Yet that is the kind of man at whose feet I sat."
"You will break the law of nature but once, and it will be the last time. Nature will then be nothing to you."
文本来自Wikisource公共领域。原版由阿德瓦伊塔修道院出版。