《美食祈祷和恋爱》Chapter 46 (97):与神邂逅

To understand what that experience was, what happened in there (by which I mean both "in the meditation cave" and "in me") brings up a topic rather esoteric and wild—namely, the subject of kundalini shakti.

欲理解此一体验以及所发生的事情（即在“禅修洞”和“我的内心”发生的事情），使我们转到一个奥妙狂放的话题——那就是，“昆达利尼莎克蒂”。

Every religion in the world has had a subset of devotees who seek a direct, transcendent experience with God, excusing themselves from fundamentalist scriptural or dogmatic study in order to personally encounter the divine. The interesting thing about these mystics is that, when they describe their experiences, they all end up describing exactly the same occurrence. Generally, their union with God occurs in a meditative state, and is delivered through an energy source that fills the entire body with euphoric, electric light. The Japanese call this energy ki, the Chinese Buddhists call it chi, the Balinese call it taksu, the Christians call it The Holy Spirit, the Kalahari Bushmen call it n/um (their holy men describe it as a snakelike power that ascends the spine and blows a hole in the head through which the gods then enter). The Islamic Sufi poets called that God-energy "The Beloved," and wrote devotional poems to it. The Australian aborigines describe a serpent in the sky that descends into the medicine man and gives him intense, otherworldly powers. In the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah this union with the divine is said to occur through stages of spiritual ascension, with energy that runs up the spine along a series of invisible meridians.

世界上的每一种宗教，都有一小群信徒追求与神之间进行直接而不平凡的体验，脱离教义经文或教条学习，只为了亲身与神邂逅。有趣的是，这些神秘主义者在描述自身经验时，每个人对所发生的事都有如出一辙的描述。大致而言，他们与神的结合都发生在禅修状态，透过某种能量源传送，使全身充满快乐的电光。日本人和中国佛教徒称这种能量为“气”，巴厘人称之为“塔克苏”（taksu），基督徒称之为“圣灵”，卡拉哈里沙漠的原住民（其圣徒把它描述为蛇一般的力量，爬上背脊，在头上开出一个洞来，神穿洞而入）。伊斯兰的苏菲诗人把这种神的能量叫作“亲爱的人”，写圣诗赞颂。澳洲原住民描述天上的一条蛇降临到世间，进入药师体内，赐予他强大、非凡的力量。在犹太教的卡巴拉（Kabbalah）传统，与神的结合，据说是通过数个阶段的心灵提升而发生的，能量沿着一连串无形的天体经线攀上脊柱。

Saint Teresa of Avila, that most mystical of Catholic figures, described her union with God as a physical ascension of light through seven inner "mansions" of her being, after which she burst into God's presence. She used to go into meditative trances so deep that the other nuns couldn't feel her pulse anymore. She would beg her fellow nuns not to tell anyone what they had witnessed, as it was "a most extraordinary thing and likely to arouse considerable talk." (Not to mention a possible interview with the Inquisitor.) The most difficult challenge, the saint wrote in her memoirs, was to not stir up the intellect during meditation, for any thoughts of the mind—even the most fervent prayers—will extinguish the fire of God. Once the troublesome mind "begins to compose speeches and dream up arguments, especially if these are clever, it will soon imagine it is doing important work." But if you can surpass those thoughts, Teresa explained, and ascend toward God, "it is a glorious bewilderment, a heavenly madness, in which true wisdom is acquired." Unknowingly echoing the poems of the Persian Sufi mystic Hafiz, who demanded why, with a God so wildly loving, are we not all screaming drunks, Teresa cried out in her autobiography that, if these divine experiences were mere madness, then "I beseech you, Father, let us all be mad!"

最具神秘主义色彩的天主教人物圣女大德兰，其描述与神的结合是一种具体的上升光线，其穿越生命中的七个“心房”后，突然让她看见神的存在。她经常深陷于禅坐的恍惚状态，以致其他修女完全无法摸到她的脉搏。她请求修女朋友们切勿将她们看见的事说出去，因为这是一件“很不寻常的事，可能引发议论”（还可能被宗教法官接见）。这位圣徒在回忆录中写到，最困难的挑战，是在冥想之际，切勿挑动思维，因为脑子里的任何想法——即使是最热诚的祷告——都会扑灭神的火焰。麻烦的脑袋一旦“开始构思演说，编造巧思辩论，很快就会以为自己做的工作很重要”。但你只要能超越这些想法，大德兰说道，爬升到神的顶端，“那可是一种光荣的迷惑，美妙的疯狂，足以让你从中取得真正的智慧”。波斯苏菲神秘主义者哈菲兹（Hafiz）问道，神既然慈爱得疯狂，我们何不每个人都成为尖声叫嚷的醉汉。大德兰并未意识到与哈菲兹的呼求相呼应；她在自传中呼唤，这些神性的体验若纯粹是疯狂之举，那么，“我求求你，圣父，让我们都发狂吧！”

Then, in the next sentences of her book, it's like she catches her breath. Reading Saint Teresa today, you can almost feel her coming out of that delirious experience, then looking around at the political climate of medieval Spain (where she lived under one of the most re-pressive religious tyrannies of history) and soberly, dutifully, apologizing for her excitement. She writes, "Forgive me if I have been very bold," and reiterates that all her idiot babbling should be ignored because, of course, she is just a woman and a worm and despicable ver-min, etc., etc. You can almost see her smoothing back her nun's skirts and tucking away those last loose strands of hair—her divine secret a blazing, hidden bonfire.

在接下来的句子当中，她像是屏住呼吸。今日阅读大德兰，几乎能感觉到她从入神体验中苏醒过来后，注视着周遭中世纪西班牙的政治局势（她生活在史上数一数二、最恶劣的宗教专政之下），然后冷静尽责地为自己的激动状态道歉。她写道：“请原谅我的大胆”；再次重申别把她的胡说八道当一回事，因为她只是个女子、小虫、讨人厌的害虫，等等，等等。你几乎看得见她顺了顺自己的修袍，整理好最后几丝乱发——她的神圣秘密将成为藏在内心的熊熊烈火。