《美食祈祷和恋爱》Chapter 67 (148):难以形容的宗教体验

As a reader and seeker, I always get frustrated at this moment in somebody else's spiritual memoirs—that moment in which the soul excuses itself from time and place and merges with the infinite. From the Buddha to Saint Teresa to the Sufi mystics to my own Guru—so many great souls over the centuries have tried to express in so many words what it feels like to become one with the divine, but I'm never quite satisfied by these descriptions. Often you will see the maddening adjective indescribable used to describe the event. But even the most eloquent reporters of the devotional experience—like Rumi, who wrote about having abandoned all effort and tied himself to God's sleeve, or Hafiz, who said that he and God had become like two fat men living in a small boat—"we keep bumping into each other and laughing"—even these poets leave me behind. I don't want to read about it; I want to feel it, too. Sri Ramana Maharshi, a beloved Indian Guru, used to give long talks on the transcendental experience to his pupils and then always wrap it up with this instruction: "Now go find out."

在他人的心灵传记当中所出现的这一刻——灵魂脱离时空，与无极融为一体的时刻——经常使身为读者及追求者的我灰心丧气。从佛陀到圣泰瑞莎、苏菲神秘论者、我的导师——数世纪来，这些伟大的灵魂尝试以许多文字表达与神合而为一的感受，可是他们的叙述始终无法让我心服口服。你经常发现令人恼火的形容词“难以形容”被拿来描述其过程。但即使最擅于表达宗教体验的记录者——例如鲁米，他叙述自己放弃一切努力、把自己和神的衣袖拴在一起；或哈菲兹，他说他和神就像两名胖子住在一艘小船上——“我们彼此撞来撞去，嚷嚷笑笑”——甚至这些诗人亦把我丢在身后。我不想读；我想去感觉。敬爱的印度导师拉曼纳玛哈西大师（SriRamanaMaharshi）经常和自己的学生们谈论超凡经验，结尾时总是指示他们：“现在，去搞清楚吧。”

So now I have found out. And I don't want to say that what I experienced that Thursday afternoon in India was indescribable, even though it was. I'll try to explain anyway. Simply put, I got pulled through the wormhole of the Absolute, and in that rush I suddenly understood the workings of the universe completely. I left my body, I left the room, I left the planet, I stepped through time and I entered the void. I was inside the void, but I also was the void and I was looking at the void, all at the same time. The void was a place of limitless peace and wisdom. The void was conscious and it was intelligent. The void was God, which means that I was inside God. But not in a gross, physical way—not like I was Liz Gilbert stuck inside a chunk of God's thigh muscle. I just was part of God. In addition to being God. I was both a tiny piece of the universe and exactly the same size as the universe. ("All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop," wrote the sage Kabir—and I can personally attest now that this is true.)

因此现在我搞清楚了。我不想说这天周四下午在印度体验到“难以形容”的经历，尽管的确如此。让我试着说明。简而言之，我穿越时空裂洞，在激流中，突然完全了解宇宙的运行。我离开自己的身体，离开房间，离开地球，迈过时间，走入太虚。我身处太虚，但我也是太虚，并注视着太虚。太虚是无限平静、无穷智慧的地方。太虚清醒而明智。太虚是神，也就是说我在神里头。并非以实体方式——不像是小莉?吉尔伯特嵌在神的一块大腿肌肉当中。我只是属于神。除了身为神之外。我是一小片宇宙，也是和宇宙同大的东西。（“人人知道水滴汇入海洋，却鲜少人知道海洋汇入水滴。”印度圣人迦比尔（Kabir）写道——我亲身证实，他没说错。）

It wasn't hallucinogenic, what I was feeling. It was the most basic of events. It was heaven, yes. It was the deepest love I'd ever experienced, beyond anything I could have previously imagined, but it wasn't euphoric. It wasn't exciting. There wasn't enough ego or passion left in me to create euphoria and excitement. It was just obvious. Like when you've been looking at an optical illusion for a long time, straining your eyes to decode the trick, and suddenly your cognizance shifts and there—now you can clearly see it!—the two vases are actually two faces. And once you've seen through the optical illusion, you can never not see it again.

这不是幻觉，而是最根本的过程。是天堂，没错。是我体验过最深刻的爱，超越自己从前的想象，却不是快感。不是兴奋感。留在我心灵中的自我或热情，不足以产生快感或兴奋感。只是显而易见，就好似你注视那种光学幻象的图像好一阵子，使劲破解把戏，你的认知突然转换——现在看得清楚了！——两个花瓶竟是两张脸。一旦看穿光学幻象，就永远不可能看不见。

"So this is God," I thought. "Congratulations to meet you."

“所以这就是神啰，”我心想，“恭喜认识你。”