As a Human Being
I AM HERE, AN ORDINARY HUMAN BEING. I have not read a thing. I want to know. Where am I to begin? I have to work: in a garden, as a cook, in a factory, an office; I have to work. And also there are the wife and children: I love them, I hate them, I am a sexual addict because that is the only escape offered to me in life. Here I am. That is my map of life and I start from here. I cannot start from over there; I start here and I ask myself what it is all about.
此刻，我就在这里，我是一个常人。我没读过什么，可我想明白事理。我该从哪里下手？我必须工作，当园丁，当厨师，进工厂，进办公室，必须工作。我有太太、孩子，我爱他们，我恨他们。我沉迷于性，因为那是生活赋予我的唯一逃避方式……此刻，我就在这里，这是我的生活版图，我就从这里出发，不能跳到别处出发。我就从这里起步，我扪心自问：生活的意义究竟是什么？
I know nothing about God. You can invent, pretend; I have a horror of pretending. If I do not know, I do not know. I am not going to quote Shankara, Buddha, or anybody. So I say: this is where I start. Can I bring about order in my life?—order, not invented by me or by them, but order that is virtue. Can I bring it about? And to be virtuous there must be no battle, no conflict in me or outside. Therefore, there must be no aggressiveness, no violence, no hate, no animosity. And I find out I am afraid. I must be free of fear. To be conscious of it is to be aware of all this, aware of where I am.
对于神灵，我是一无所知。你们虚构神灵，装模作样地信。而我反感假装，如果我不知神灵，那就是不知。我不会张口闭口商羯罗、佛陀，云云。所以，我说：这就是我的起点。我能不能活出生命的秩序？不是由我自拟或由别人虚构的秩序，而是生命的至善之境。我能做到吗？欲止于至善，我的内心、我与外界不能有矛盾，不能有冲突。所以，我不能咄咄逼人，不得有暴力，不能憎恨，不能有敌意。我发现了内心的恐惧，我必须摆脱恐惧。意识到这一点，就是明白了一切，看清了我身在何处。
And then I find out I can be alone—not carry all the burdens of memory. I can be alone because I have understood order in my life; and I have understood order because I have denied disorder, because I have learned about disorder. Disorder means conflict, acceptance of authority, complying, imitation, all that. That is disorder, the social morality is disorder. Out of that I will bring order in myself; not myself as a petty little human being in a backyard, but as a Human Being.
Every human being is going through this hell. So if I, as a human being, understand this, I have discovered something that all human beings can discover. 12
12. The Awakening of Intelligence, part 4, chapter 1 (lst conversation with Swami Venkatesananda, Saanen, 25 July 1969).
此时，我发现我已进入独立状态，不再有任何的记忆重负。我的心能寂然独立，因为我领悟了生活的秩序。我领悟了秩序，是因为我已经抛弃了混乱。混乱，意味着冲突、接受权威、顺从、模仿，等等。那就是生命的乱局，社会道德就是一场乱局。从那混乱中，我为自己创造了秩序，我不再是自家后院里的卑微小人物，而是完整的大写的人。
人人都会经历这一程地狱之旅。所以，如果我，生而为人，有幸明白了这些，那么我已经有了新发现——这是所有人都能领悟的东西。
（1969年7月25日瑞士萨能，与斯瓦米·维卡特萨南达的对话，选自《智慧的觉醒》第一章第四节。）
