Fear breeds authority
恐惧滋生了权威
One of the most important things in life, perhaps the most important, is freedom. This word has been greatly misused by tyrannical as well as democratic governments, and religions everywhere in the world have abused it. Personal freedom and independence do not exist, except perhaps in the scientific world. It does not exist in the business world or in the religious structures which man has organized through fear and belief; it does not exist in governments or in any field of human activity. But man has consistently asserted that he is free and complained that it is environment that enslaves him. Freedom, which is independence to think for oneself clearly and not to act according to the dictates of society or one's own personal inclinations, is very difficult, but without freedom one cannot possibly dis¬cover or live a life which is totally different from the misery which we all know every day.
生命中最重要的事之一，或许就是最重要的事情，就是自由。暴政也好民主政府也好, 这个词都被他们极大地误用了, 世界各地的宗教也滥用了它。也许除了在科学领域, 个人的自由与独立是不存在的。它不存在于商业世界或是经由恐惧和信仰组建起来的宗教机构中，它不存在于政府或是人类活动的任何领域。但人们却一直坚称他是自由的，抱怨是环境限制了他。自由，也就是自己独立地去想清楚，使自己的行为不屈从于社会的指令或是自身的偏好，这是很难的，但是如果没有自由，一个人便不可能发现或是过上一种完全不同的生活，它完全不同于我们每日所熟知的这种痛苦的生活。
Freedom is not merely freedom from something, but is freedom in itself. This does not mean freedom to do whatever one likes, so one has to understand not merely verbally but factually what that word implies. We are not trying to define what freedom is; each one would interpret it according to his own fancy, inclination or upbringing, and some would even deny that there is such a thing at all. Freedom is to be found not by seeking it, but rather by understanding what it is that imprisons the mind. When these prison walls are broken, then there is freedom naturally, and one does not have to seek it. So what is important is not how to achieve freedom or to ask what freedom is, but rather to ask why the mind—which is the product of time and environment and has had so many experiences of misery and conflict—is not free.
自由不仅仅是从某事某物中解脱，而是自由本身。这不是指任意做他喜欢做的事，所以一个人必须不只是从字面上而是切实地去了解这个词的内涵。我们不是试图去定义自由是什么；每个人都会依据他的想象，偏好或所受的教育来解释它，有些人甚至根本否认有这样一种东西。发现自由，不是通过对它的寻找，而通过领悟是什么禁锢了心灵。当这些禁锢的围墙被打破时，那自然便会有自由，而你不必去寻找它。所以重要的并不是如何达到自由或询问自由是什么，而是去问为什么心灵——它是时间和环境的产物，它有着那么多悲伤而又混乱的经验——是不自由的。
What is important is to inquire into why the mind still remains so heavily conditioned after so many mil lions of years. This is the prison in which it lives. The mind is conditioned by society with its cultures, laws, religious sanctions, economic pressures, and so on. The mind is, after all, the result of the past, and this past is tradition. It lives in this tradition with all its strife, wars and agonies. One must ask if it can be free from its own conditioning. Some have said that it must always remain conditioned and can never be free, and others have said this freedom from conditioning can never be found here but only in some future heaven, or at the end of some long sacrifice, discipline, programme of further conformity to a pattern of so-called religious practice. Without freedom from conditioning, humanity will always remain a prisoner and life will remain a battlefield.
重要的是去探究为什么在经过了几百万年之后心灵依旧深受制约。这正是心灵活在其中的牢狱。心灵被社会以及它的文化，法律，宗教的约束，经济的压力等等所制约。毕竟，心灵是过去的产物，而这个过去就是传统。心灵就活在这个传统中，连同它所有的争斗、战争和伤痛。你必须要问，心灵是否能从它自己的制约中解脱出来。有人说它历来就是受制约的，绝不可能自由；而另一些人则说，这种从制约中解脱是无法在此处找到的，它只能在某个未来的天堂找到，或者在历经长期的自我牺牲、纪律、以及跟随某种所谓宗教修行模式的课程后的终点，才能发现自由。没有从制约中的解脱，人类将永远是囚徒，生活也仍将是战场。
The first thing to understand in this inquiry is the nature of authority. In any community, law and the policeman are necessary, but we have also introduced a policeman into the inner world of thought and feeling. In (his world, obedience has been instilled by tradition, experience and habit—obedience to one's parents, to society, to the priest. But obedience is born of fear—fear of going wrong, of acting independently, of not being secure, of not being part of the community, of standing alone, of making a mistake. So it is fear that breeds authority; one wants to live in a respected, accepted way which society has established. It is this very fear that has conditioned the mind; it is fear that has built the society to which the mind has become a slave. The mind has created this society through its fear, greed, ambition, envy, and so on.
在这个质询中，首先要理解的事情就是权威的本质。在任何社会里，法律和警察都是必需的，但我们也把警察带入了我们思想和感受的内在世界。在这个世界里，服从已被传统、经验和习惯逐步确立——服从父母、社会、牧师。但是，服从源于恐惧——怕走错了，怕独立行事，怕不安全，怕不是社会一分子，怕孤立，怕犯错误。所以，是恐惧滋生了权威；我们想以一种社会已有的，被人尊敬，被人所接受的方式来生活。而正是这恐惧制约了心灵；是恐惧造就了这个社会，心灵便成为其中的一名奴隶。心灵通过它的恐惧、贪婪、野心、嫉妒等等，创造了这个社会。
A discipline which comes naturally, without any conformity, is the simple observation of all these fears, anxieties, and envies; to see your own fears, your own ambitions as you see a tree. This very seeing is that discipline. The word discipline means learning, not conformity, suppression or obedience. Learning about the nature and structure of conditioning brings order, not the order of society which is disorder.
一种没有任何顺从，而自然到来的纪律，就是对所有这些恐惧、焦虑和嫉妒的简单观察；看你自己的恐惧和野心，就像看一棵树那样。这个看本身就是纪律。纪律这个词意味着学习，而不是从众、压抑和顺从服从。学习有关制约的构造和及其本质将会带来秩序，不是那种社会的秩序，因为那实际上是混乱。
So, seeing what the world is, with its wars, hatred, strife, confusions, is to see yourself as you are. And to see yourself as you are is to see the world which you have created from what you are. In this seeing is freedom, lb see a danger is to avoid it. To see the danger of this heavy conditioning of man is to avoid all conditioning. What is important in all this is to see not only with the intellect but also with the actual eye.
所以，观察这个世界以及它的战争，憎恨，争斗，混乱，就是如实地观察自己。而如实地观察自己就是去观察这个你所创造的世界。这个观察就是自由。观察危险就是避免危险。观察人类这沉重的局限的危险性就是避免所有的局限。其中最重要的是，不只用你理智去看，也要用你真正的眼睛去看。
绿草园翻译工作室 |
发表于 2010-8-15 21:19
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