《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 38 (82):尋找"恆在"

Yoga is the effort to experience one's divinity personally and then to hold on to that experience forever. Yoga is about self-mastery and the dedicated effort to haul your attention away from your endless brooding over the past and your nonstop worrying about the future so that you can seek, instead, a place of eternal presence from which you may regard yourself and your surroundings with poise. Only from that point of even-mindedness will the true nature of the world (and yourself) be revealed to you. True Yogis, from their seat of equipoise, see all this world as an equal manifestation of God's creative energy—men, women, children, turnips, bedbugs, coral: it's all God in disguise. But the Yogis believe a human life is a very special opportunity, because only in a human form and only with a human mind can Godrealization ever occur. The turnips, the bedbugs, the coral—they never get a chance to find out who they really are. But we do have that chance.

瑜伽是致力於親身體驗自身的神性，而後抓住此種體驗。瑜伽是一種自我控制，努力不讓自己的注意力集中於思索過去、擔心未來，讓你去尋找一個“恆在”的處所，泰然自若地從那兒觀察自己和周遭一切。唯有從這種平心靜氣的觀點，才能明白世界的真實性質（以及你本身的真實性格）。真正的瑜伽士，從他們的平衡狀態，把這個世界看作是神靈創造力的均一表現：男人、女人、孩童、蕪菁、臭蟲、珊瑚，都是神的化身。瑜伽士認爲人生是非凡的機會，因爲對神的了悟，只發生在人的身上和腦子裏。蕪菁、臭蟲、珊瑚——它們沒有機會發現自我。而我們卻有機會。

"Our whole business therefore in this life," wrote Saint Augustine, rather Yogically, "is to restore to health the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen."

“因此，我們整個一生，”聖奧古斯丁（Saint Augustine）以相當帶有瑜伽精神的口吻說，“都是 爲了讓心靈的眼睛恢復健康，爲了看見神。”

Like all great philosophical ideas, this one is simple to understand but virtually impossible to imbibe. OK—so we are all one, and divinity abides within us all equally. No problem. Understood. But now try living from that place. Try putting that understanding into practice twenty-four hours a day. It's not so easy. Which is why in India it is considered a given that you need a teacher for your Yoga. Unless you were born one of those rare shimmering saints who come into life already fully actualized, you're going to need some guidance along your journey toward enlightenment. If you're lucky enough, you pilgrims have been coming to India to seek for ages. Alexander the Great sent an ambassador to India in the fourth century BC, with a request to find one of these famous Yogis and return with him to court. (The ambassador did report finding a Yogi, but couldn't convince the gentleman to travel.) In the first century AD, Apollonius of Tyrana, another Greek ambassador, wrote of his journey through India: "I saw Indian Brahmans living upon the earth and yet not on it, and fortified without fortifications, and possessing nothing, yet having the richness of all men." Gandhi himself always wanted to study with a Guru, but never, to his regret, had the time or opportunity to find one. "I think there is a great deal of truth," he wrote, "in the doctrine that true knowledge is impossible without a Guru."

如同每一種偉大的哲學觀念，這觀念不難了解，事實上卻難於吸收。好吧——我們都是一家人，神性一視同仁地居住在我們內心。沒問題。瞭解 。但現在試着從那個地方生活。試着把這種瞭解付諸一天二十四小時的實際行動。並非輕易之舉。因此在印度的已知事實是，想練瑜伽，你需要老師。除非你是那些少數生而得道的聖哲、智者之一，否則在通往啓蒙的路上，你需要某種指引。幸運的話，你能找到活在人間的導師。這正是多年來朝聖者前來印度尋找的事物。亞歷山大大帝（Alexander the Great）在西元前四世紀曾派大使前往印度，尋找有名的瑜伽士，帶他回宮。（大使報告說找到一位瑜伽士，卻無法說服這位男士旅行。）公元一世紀，另一名希臘大使阿波羅尼奧斯（Apollonius of Tyrana）曾寫文章描述他的印度之行“我看見印度婆羅門雖然腳踩在土地上生活，卻未生活在世間：心靈強固，卻未設防；一無所有，卻擁有最大的財富。”甘地本人始終想追隨精神導師學習，卻遺憾沒有時間或機會尋找導師。“真理唯靠導師方可獲得，”他寫道：“此一教條大有真理。”

A great Yogi is anyone who has achieved the permanent state of enlightened bliss. A Guru is a great Yogi who can actually pass that state on to others. The word Guru is composed of two Sanskrit syllables. The first means "darkness," the second means "light." Out of the darkness and into the light. What passes from the master into the disciple is something called mantravirya: "The potency of the enlightened consciousness." You come to your Guru, then, not only to receive lessons, as from any teacher, but to actually receive the Guru's state of grace.

所謂偉大的瑜伽士，是達到開朗常定之人。導師則是將此種常定傳遞給他人的偉大瑜伽士。導師（Guru）是由梵語的兩個音節所組成。第一個音節是“黑暗”之意，第二則是“光明”。走出黑暗，迎向光明。導師傳給弟子所謂的“mantravirya”（智慧的強度）；你去找自己的導師，並非爲了上課，而是蒙受導師感召。