《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 53 (115):虔誠的學徒

Swamiji obeyed, returned home, and became the holy man's most devoted student, finally achieving enlightenment through his master's guidance. Ultimately, Swamiji would become a Guru himself. Over time, his Ashram in India grew from three rooms on a barren farm to the lush garden it is today. Then he got the inspiration to go traveling and incite a worldwide meditation revolution. He came to America in 1970 and blew everybody's mind. He gave divine initiation—shaktipat—to hundreds and thousands of people a day. He had a power that was immediate and transformative. The Reverend Eugene Callender (a respected civil rights leader, a colleague of Martin Luther King Jr. and still the pastor of a Baptist church in Harlem) remembers meeting Swamiji in the 1970s and dropping on his knees before the Indian man in amazement and thinking to himself, "There's no time for shuckin' and jivin' now, this is it . . . This man knows everything there is to know about you."

思瓦米吉聽他的話返鄉，成爲聖者最虔誠的學徒，最後通過大師的引導，取得證悟。最後，思瓦米吉自己也成爲導師。不久，他的印度道場從荒地上的三個房間發展成今天草木青蔥的庭園。而後他獲得靈感，周遊各地，引發全球性的禪坐革命。他於1970年來美國，扣動每個人的心絃。他每天給數千、數百人“莎克蒂帕”——神聖開引。他具有直接改變人的力量。嘉蘭德（EugeneCallender）牧師（著名的民權運動領袖，也是馬丁?路德?金的同事，仍在哈林一所浸禮教會擔任牧師）回憶自己在20世紀70年代見到思瓦米吉時，驚異地跪倒在這名印度男人的面前，暗自心想：“沒時間插科打諢，這就是了……這男人知道有關你的一切。”

Swamiji demanded enthusiasm, commitment, self-control. He was always scolding people for being jad, the Hindi word for "inert." He brought ancient concepts of discipline to the lives of his often rebellious young Western followers, commanding them to stop wasting their own (and everyone else's) time and energy with their freewheeling hippie nonsense. He would throw his walking stick at you one minute, hug you the next. He was complicated, often controversial, but truly world-changing. The reason we have access now in the West to many ancient Yogic scriptures is that Swamiji presided over the translation and revitalization of philosophical texts that had long been forgotten even in much of India.

思瓦米吉要求熱忱、承諾、自制。他總是斥責人們“jad”，印度話裏的“怠惰”。他把古時的紀律概念帶到年輕、倔強的西方信徒生活中，命令他們不要再用爲所欲爲的嬉皮舉動，浪費自己（和其他人）的時間與精力。這一分鐘他纔拿手杖扔你，下一分鐘卻又擁抱你。他複雜難懂，時而引人爭議，卻是改變世界的人物。西方今天能接觸到許多瑜伽古經典，都是因爲“思瓦米吉”負責翻譯並因此振興——即便在印度大部分地區亦早被遺忘的哲學著作。

My Guru was Swamiji's most devoted student. She was literally born to be his disciple; her Indian parents were amongst his earliest followers. When she was only a child, she would of-ten chant for eighteen hours a day, tireless in her devotion. Swamiji recognized her potential, and he took her on when she was still a teenager to be his translator. She traveled all over the world with him, paying such close attention to her Guru, she said later, that she could even feel him speaking to her with his knees. She became his successor in 1982, still in her twenties.

我的導師是思瓦米吉最忠誠的門徒。她可以說是生來即註定成爲他的弟子，因爲她的印度籍父母本身即是思瓦米吉最早的信徒之一。她還只是孩子的時候，每天吟誦十八個小時，虔誠不倦。思瓦米吉看出她的潛力，在她還是十幾歲的時候，就讓她擔任他的翻譯。她跟隨他周遊世界，認真留意自己的導師，後來她說，她甚至感覺到他用膝蓋跟她說話。她在1982年還是二十幾歲的時候即成爲他的接班人。