给学校的信，1978年12月15日 - 根本的转变
教育要培养完全的责任感In one of the past letters we said that total responsibility is love. This responsibility is not for a particular nation or a particular group, community, or for a particular deity, or some form of political programme or for your own guru, but for all mankind. This must be deeply understood and felt and this is the responsibility of the educator.
我们在前面的信中曾经说过，完全的责任感就是爱。这个责任不是对于一个特定的国家、团体或社会，或对于一个特定的神，或某种形式的政治纲领，或你自己的古鲁，而是对全人类的。拥有这种深刻的理解和感受，是教育者的责任。
Almost all of us feel responsible for our family, children and so on, but do not have the feeling of being wholly concerned and committed to the environment around us, to nature, or totally responsible for our actions.This absolute care is love. Without this love there can be no change in society. The idealists, though they may love their ideal or their concept, have not brought about a radically different society. The revolutionaries, the terrorists, have in no way fundamentally changed the pattern of our societies. The physically violent revolutionaries have talked about freedom for all men, forming a new society, but all the jargons and slogans have further tortured the spirit and existence. They have twisted words to suit their own limited outlook. No form of violence has changed society in its most fundamental sense. Great rulers through the authority of a few have brought about some kind of order in society. Even the totalitarians have superficially established through violence and torture a semblance of order. We are not talking about such an order in society.
几乎我们所有人都会觉得对家庭和孩子负有责任，但是对于全然地关怀和投入周围的环境、自然，或者对我们的行为完全地负责，我们却没有感觉。这种无条件的关心就是爱。没有这种爱，社会就不可能发生改变。尽管理想主义者们可能热爱他们的理想或观念，但他们并没有带来一个完全不同的社会。革命者和恐怖主义者也没有从根本上改变我们的社会模式。暴力革命者谈论普遍的自由，以及构建一个新的社会，但是所有的套话和口号只会进一步折磨心灵和生活。他们玩弄辞藻来附和自己有限的观点。没有哪种暴力形式从最根本的意义上改变过社会。伟大的统治者通过少数人的权威带来某种社会秩序，即使是极权主义者也能通过暴力和刑罚建立一个表面的秩序，但我们在谈论的不是这样的社会秩序。
We are saying very definitely and most emphatically that it is only the total responsibility for all mankind - which is love - that can basically transform the present state of society. Whatever the existing system may be in various parts of the world it is corrupt, degenerate and wholly immoral. You have only to look around you to see this fact. Millions upon millions are spent on armaments throughout the world and all the politicians talk about peace while preparing for war. Religions have declared over and over again the sanctity of peace, but they have encouraged wars and subtle kinds of violence and torture. There are innumerable divisions and sects with their rituals and all the nonsense that goes on in the name of god and religion. Where there is division there must be disorder, struggle, conflict - whether religious, political, economic. Our modern society is based on greed, envy and power.
我们非常明确和肯定地说，只有对整个人类拥有完全的责任感，也就是爱，才能从根本上改变社会现状。世界各地现有的制度都是腐化、衰败和完全不道德的。你只要环顾四周就会看到这个事实。全世界有无数的钱被花在武器装备上，政治家们一边谈论着和平，一边在为战争做准备。宗教一再宣称和平的神圣，却在鼓励战争以及微妙的暴力和折磨。伴随着仪式和所有那些废话，无数教派在以上帝和宗教的名义继续着。有分裂的地方一定有混乱、斗争和冲突，不管这个分裂是宗教的、政治的还是经济的。我们的现代社会就建立在贪婪、嫉妒和权力的基础上。
When you consider all this as it actually is - this overpowering commercialism - all this indicates degeneration and basic immorality. To radically change the pattern of our life, which is the basis of all society, is the educator's responsibility. We are destroying the earth and all the things on it are being destroyed for our gratification.
当你把所有这些作为事实看待的时候，这种强大的商业主义标志着退化和根本性的不道德。为了满足自己，我们正在破坏地球和它上面的一切。从根本上改变我们的这种生活方式，也就是整个社会的基础，是教育者的责任。
Education is not merely the teaching of various academic subjects, but the cultivation of total responsibility in the student. One does not realize as an educator that one is bringing into being a new generation. Most schools are only concerned with imparting knowledge. They are not at all concerned with the transformation of man and his daily life, and you - the educator in these schools - need to have this deep concern and the care of this total responsibility.
教育不仅要传授各种学术课程，还要培养学生完全的责任感。人们并没有认识到，教育者正在创造新的一代。大多数学校只关心传授知识，根本不关心人的转变和他的日常生活。你们，这些学校里的教师，需要深切地关心这种完全的责任感。
In what manner then can you help the student to feel this quality of love with all its excellence? If you do not feel this yourself profoundly, talking about responsibility is meaningless. Can you as an educator feel the truth of this?
那么，你如何帮助学生感受到这种爱的品质以及它所有的美好呢？如果你自己没有深切地感受到它，谈论责任是没有意义的。作为教育者，你能感受到它的真实吗？
Seeing the truth of it will bring about naturally this love and total responsibility. You have to ponder it, observe it daily in your life,in your relations with your wife, your friends, your students. And in your relationship with the students you will talk about this from your heart, not pursue mere verbal clarity.The feeling for this reality is the greatest gift that man can have and once it is burning in you, you will find the right word, right action and correct behaviour. When you consider the student you will see that he comes to you totally unprepared for all this. He comes to you frightened, nervous, anxious to please or on the defensive, conditioned by his parents and the society in which he has lived his few years. You have to see his background, you have to be concerned with what he actually is and not impose on him your own opinions, conclusions and judgements. In considering what he is it will reveal what you are, and so you will find the student is you.
看到它的真实自然会带来这种爱和完全的责任感。你必须在每天的生活中，在和你的妻子、朋友、学生的关系中，对它进行深入地思考和观察。然后，你就会在和学生的交流中，发自内心地谈论它，而不是只追求语言的清晰。感受到这种真实是人能够拥有的最好的礼物。一旦它在你心中燃烧，你就会找到正确的语言、行动和表达。当你开始关心学生的时候，你会看到，他对这一切是毫无准备的。他来到你面前时，是恐惧的，紧张的，急于取悦你或者是有戒心的，被他的父母以及他所处的社会所局限。你必须看到他的背景，你必须关心他实际是怎样的，而不是把自己的观点、结论和评判强加给他。关心他实际的样子会透露出你实际的样子，于是你会发现，学生就是你。
And now can you in the teaching of mathematics, physics, and so on - which he must know for that is the way of earning a livelihood - convey to the student that he is responsible for the whole of mankind? Though he may be working for his own career, his own way of life, it will not make his mind narrow. He will see the danger of specialization with all its limitations and strange brutality. You have to help him to see all this. The flowering of goodness does not lie in knowing mathematics and biology or in passing examinations and having a successful career. It exists outside these and when there is this flowering, career and other necessary activities are touched by its beauty. Now we lay emphasis on one and disregard the flowering entirely.
那么，你能不能在传授数学、物理等他需要了解的知识——那是谋生的手段——的过程中，向学生传达，他对整个人类是负有责任的？这样，尽管他会为了自己的职业和生活方式而工作，却不会让他的心变得狭隘，而且他会看到专业化特有的野蛮和局限性带来的危险。你必须帮助他看清这一切。善的绽放不在于懂得数学和生物学，或者通过考试，拥有一个成功的职业，它和那些完全没有关系。当这种绽放发生时，职业和其它必要的活动都会被它的美所触动。现在我们只强调职业，而完全忽略了善的绽放。
In these schools we are trying to bring these two together, not artificially, not as a principle or pattern you are following, but because you see the absolute truth that these two must flow together for the regeneration of man.
在这些学校里，我们试图让这两者和谐共存，不是人为地，不是把它当成一个让你遵循的原则或模式，而是因为你看到了这个绝对的事实——为了人类的重建，这两者必须和谐共同发展。
Can you do this? Not because you all agree to do it after discussing and coming to a conclusion, but rather see with an inward eye the extraordinary gravity of this: see for yourself.Then what you say will have significance.Then you become a centre of light not lit by another. As you are all of humanity - which is an actuality, not a verbal statement - you are utterly responsible for the future of man.
你能这样去做吗？不是因为你们在讨论之后得出一个结论，大家都同意这么做，而是因为你从内心深处看到了这件事非同寻常的重要——你亲自看到的。那么你说的话就会有意义。那么你就成了一个光明的源头，而不是被别人照亮。因为你就是整个人类，这是事实，不是一个口头的说法，所以你对人类的未来负有完全的责任。
Please do not consider this as a burden. If you do, that burden is a bundle of words without any reality. It is an illusion. This responsibility has its own gaiety, its own humour, its own movement without the weight of thought.
请不要把这看成一个负担。如果你这样看，它就成了一堆不真实的话，一个幻觉。这种责任感有它自身的乐趣和幽默，有着它不带任何思想负担的自身运动。
绿草园翻译工作室
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