《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 54 (118):外甥尼克

Nick, my nephew, is an eight-year-old boy, skinny for his age, scarily smart, frighteningly astute, sensitive and complex. Even minutes after his birth, amid all the squalling newborns in the nursery, he alone was not crying, but looking around with adult, worldly and worried eyes, looking as though he'd done all this before so many times and wasn't sure how excited he felt about having to do it again. This is a child for whom life is never simple, a child who hears and sees and feels everything intensely, a child who can be overcome by emotion so fast sometimes that it unnerves us all. I love this boy so deeply and protectively. I realized—doing the math on the time difference between India and Pennsylvania—that it was nearing his bedtime back home. So I sang the Gurugita to my nephew Nick, to help him sleep. Sometimes he has trouble sleeping because he cannot still his mind. So each devotional word of this hymn, I dedicated to Nick. I filled the song with everything I wished I could teach him about life. I tried to reassure him with every line about how the world is hard and unfair sometimes, but that it's all OK because he is so loved. He is surrounded by souls who would do anything to help him. And not only that—he has wisdom and patience of his own, buried deep inside his being, which will only reveal themselves over time and will always carry him through any trial. He is a gift from God to all of us. I told him this fact through this old Sanskrit scripture, and soon I noticed that I was weeping cool tears. But before I could wipe the tears away the Gurugita was over. The hour and a half was finished. It felt like ten minutes had passed. I realized what had happened—that Nicky had carried me through it. The little soul I'd wanted to help had actually been helping me.

我的外甥尼克，就八歲男孩來說，長得很瘦，聰明過人，精明得可怕，又敏感又複雜。甚至出生後短短几分鐘，在育嬰室大聲嚎哭的新生兒當中，只有他沒哭，而是用一雙成熟、世故、擔憂的眼睛四下打量，神情猶如這些事他已做過多次，不清楚再做一次的感覺有何興奮。對這個孩子來說，人生永遠不是簡單的事，他激烈地聽、看、感受一切，有時他很快陷入傷感，使每個人感到氣餒。我深愛這孩子，保護着他。我發現——計算着印度和賓州之間的時差——此時接近他那邊的就寢時間。於是我爲外甥尼克吟唱古魯梵歌，幫助他入睡。他有時難以入眠，因爲他的腦子靜不下來。因此這首頌歌的每一個禱詞，我都獻給尼克。我爲頌歌注入我想教導他有關人生的一切。我想用每個句子向他保證，世界有時雖冷酷不公，但沒有關係，因爲他擁有許多愛。他身邊的人願意做任何事來幫助他。不僅如此——他有智慧與耐心深藏在自己內心，將隨着時間展現出來，帶着他通過任何考驗。他是神送給我們每個人的禮物。我通過古梵語經文告訴他這件事，不久，我發現自己流下清涼的淚水，還沒來得及擦眼淚，古魯梵歌已結束。一個半小時唱完了，感覺像過了十分鐘。我意識到發生了什麼事——尼克幫助我唱完它。我想幫忙的小孩兒居然反過來幫了我的忙。

I walked to the front of the temple and bowed flat on my face in gratitude to my God, to the revolutionary power of love, to myself, to my Guru and to my nephew—briefly understanding on a molecular level (not an intellectual level) that there was no difference whatsoever between any of these words or any of these ideas or any of these people. Then I slid into the meditation cave, where I skipped breakfast and sat for almost two hours, humming with stillness.

我走到寺院前，磕頭感謝神，感謝革命性的愛的力量，感謝自己，感謝我的導師以及我的外甥——在分子層面上（而非知識層面上）概略地獲知，這些詞語、這些想法，或者這些人之間並無任何差異。而後我溜進禪坐洞裏，未吃早點，坐了近兩個鐘頭，幽靜地哼唱。

Needless to say, I never missed the Gurugita again, and it became the most holy of my practices at the Ashram. Of course Richard from Texas went to great lengths to tease me about having jumped out of the dormitory, being sure to say to me every night after dinner, "See you at The Geet tomorrow morning, Groceries. And, hey—try using the stairs this time, OK?" And, of course, I called my sister the next week and she said that—for reasons nobody could understand—Nick suddenly wasn't having trouble falling asleep anymore. And naturally I was reading in the library a few days later from a book about the Indian saint Sri Ramakrishna, and I stumbled upon a story about a seeker who once came to see the great master and admitted to him that she feared she was not a good enough devotee, feared that she did not love God enough. And the saint said, "Is there nothing you love?" The woman admitted that she adored her young nephew more than anything on earth. The saint said, "There, then. He is your Krishna, your beloved. In your service to your nephew, you are serving God."

不用說，我不再錯過古魯梵歌，它成爲我在道場最神聖的修行。當然囉，德州理查竭盡所能拿我從宿舍跳出窗外這件事取笑我，每天晚餐過後，總不忘對我說：“食品雜貨，明早聲樂課見。嘿——這回可要走樓梯，好吧？”而當然，我在一個星期後打電話給我姐姐，她說，沒有人瞭解爲什麼，尼克不再有難以入睡的問題。幾天後，我在圖書館很自然地讀了一本關於印度聖人羅摩克里希納（SriRamakrishna）的書，意外地讀到一則故事，敘述一名信徒有一回前來見上師，向他透露她擔心自己不夠虔誠，擔心自己不夠愛神。聖人說：“沒有任何你愛的東西嗎？”女子承認她愛外甥勝過世間的一切。

But all this is inconsequential. The really amazing thing happened the same day I'd jumped out of the building. That afternoon, I ran into Delia, my roommate. I told her that she had padlocked me into our room. She was aghast. She said, "I can't imagine why I would've done that! Especially because you've been on my mind all morning. I had this really vivid dream about you last night. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all day."

聖人說：“這就是了。他是你的克里希納，你心愛的人。你對他履行職責，就是對神履行職責。”但這一切都無關緊要。最讓人驚奇的事發生在我跳出窗外的同一天。當天下午，我碰見我的室友黛莉亞。我跟她說她把我鎖在房間裏，她嚇呆了。她說：“我想象不出自己幹嘛這麼做！尤其我一整個早上都惦記着你。昨晚我夢見你，一個生動的夢，讓我一整天想個不停。”

"Tell me," I said.

“告訴我那個夢。”

"I dreamt that you were on fire," Delia said, "and that your bed was on fire, too. I jumped up to try to help you, but by the time I got there, you were nothing but white ash." Eat, Pray, Love

“我夢見你身上着火，”黛莉亞說，“你的牀也着火。我跳起來想幫你，但還沒到你那裏的時候，你已成了白色的灰燼。”