Chapter 5: The Purpose of Religion

As revealed to God’s Messenger Marshall Vian Summers on July 20, 2009 in Antakya, Turkey
2009年7月20日，在土耳其安塔基亚(Antakya, Turkey)，向上帝的信使马歇尔・维安・萨默斯(Marshall Vian Summers)揭示

At this time and place, it is important to speak about the purpose of religion. Religion is part of the human experience, and any attempts that have been made to eradicate it or to minimize it have proven to be unsuccessful.

在这个时间和这个地点，有必要谈谈宗教的目的。宗教是人类经历的一部分，任何试图根除宗教，或尽量减少其影响都被证明是不成功的。

For you cannot deny the reality of the human spirit. You cannot deny the fundamental reality that there is a greater spiritual need in people that must be expressed.

因为你无法否认人类精神的现实。你不能否认这样一个基本现实，即人们有更大的精神需求必须得到表达。

But like all things in the world, that which is natural and essential can become distorted, misaligned and misused, allied with other purposes, particularly when these natural impulses become connected with governments and powerful forces in society.

但是，就像世界上的所有事物一样，自然且基本的精神也会被扭曲、偏离和滥用，与其他目的结盟，尤其是当这些自然冲动与政府和社会中的强大势力联系在一起时。

Simply said, the purpose of religion is to cultivate the desire and the capacity to experience the Divine Presence in one’s life. All teachings and rituals, whether within large institutions or within the privacy of one’s home, are for this purpose. And the desire and capacity to experience the Divine Presence are to bring one to the power of Knowledge that the Creator of all life has placed within each human heart.

简单地说，宗教的目的是培养人在生命中体验神圣存在的愿望和能力。所有的教义和仪式，无论是在大型机构中还是在个人的家庭隐私中，都是为了这个目的。而体验神圣存在的愿望和能力是为了把人带到所有生命的创造者放置在每个人心中的内识力量之中。

Yet when you look about, either at home or in foreign lands, you will find there is a great poverty, a great poverty in that people’s lives are not demonstrating this Presence and the power of this Knowledge. The look of disappointment and dissatisfaction, the sense of regret in the older people, the sense of hopelessness and discouragement in the young are evidence that this power and this Presence are not being experienced.

然而，当你环顾四周，无论是在国内还是在国外，你都会发现有一种巨大的贫困，一种人们在生命中没有展现出内识的力量和存在的巨大贫困。老年人的失望和不满的神情、遗憾的感觉，年轻人的无望和气馁感，都证实了人们没有体验到这种力量和存在。

Religion has become now a yoke and a harness for people, requiring them to believe along certain prescribed lines of thought and to behave along certain prescribed lines of behavior. But this is far from the essence of what religion is really for. To require, either through inducement or threat, for people to adhere to a certain system of belief does not represent the essence and the purpose of religion. Yet that is what is so manifest in the world today.

宗教如今已经成为人们的枷锁和束缚，要求人们按照某些规定的思维方式和行为方式来信仰和行事。但这与宗教的真实本质相去甚远。通过诱导或威胁的方式要求人们遵守某种信仰体系，并不代表宗教的本质和目的。然而，这正是当今世界的真实写照。

Religion has become another form of government—a form of government that seeks power and domination, a form of government that seeks to overcome its competing rivals, the competing agendas of other religious traditions and faiths. And so there is a contest and a kind of war exerted between the most radical elements of these systems of belief. But this is not what religion really is.

宗教已经成为另一种形式的政府——一种寻求权力和统治的政府形式，一种寻求战胜其竞争对手、其他宗教传统和信仰的竞争议程的政府形式。因此，这些信仰体系中的最激进分子之间展开了一场较量和战争。但这并不是宗教的真谛。

The Creator of all life has initiated all the world’s religions, but they have all been altered by people and governments, by cultures and traditions and by the competition for power in the world. That is why there are so many people today in the world who, though they have genuine spiritual needs and yearnings, are so put off by the manifestations of religion as it has become.

所有生命的创造者发起了世界上所有的宗教，但它们都被人们和政府、文化和传统以及世界上的权力竞争所改变。这就是为什么当今世界上有如此多的人，尽管他们有真正的精神需求和渴望，却对宗教的表现形式如此反感。

Where can you find the cultivation of one’s inner life? Where is the emphasis on recognizing, following and embracing the power and the presence of Knowledge within the individual? Where is the emphasis on developing and encouraging the individual’s capacity and desire to experience the Mystery of the Divine Presence—a Mystery that defies all religious teachings and conventions?

你在哪里可以找到一个人的内在生命的培养？哪里强调认识、遵循和拥抱个人内心深处内识的力量和存在？哪里强调了发展和鼓励个人体验神圣存在的神秘的能力和愿望——一种违背所有宗教教义和惯例的神秘？

Where are such things being encouraged for the individual? You visit the church or the temple or the mosque and what is presented but an emphasis on upholding the ideology of religion, the institutions of religion, the demands of religion? This emphasis is out of context and out of relationship with the essential purpose of religion.

这类事情在哪里得到鼓励呢？你去教堂、寺庙或清真寺，除了强调维护宗教的意识形态、宗教的制度和宗教的要求之外，还能看到什么？这种强调脱离了宗教的基本目的和关系。

In essence, all religion is to teach The Way of Knowledge, to bring the individual into the direct experience of Knowledge, the deeper Mind beyond the intellect, the Mind that God has provided each person to guide them, to protect them and to lead them to a greater life and expression in the world.

从本质上讲，所有的宗教都是为了教导内识之路，将个人带入内识的直接体验，即超越智力的更深层次的心灵，上帝为每个人提供的引导他们、保护他们并引领他们在世界上实现更伟大的生命和表达的心灵。

But you do not hear this emphasis. Instead, there is the encouragement to believe, to adhere, to follow the prescriptions of a religious tradition, however illogical and unreasonable those prescriptions may be within the context of modern life. And this is called “the Word of God,” God’s Will for humanity.

但你听不到这种强调。取而代之的是鼓励人们相信、坚持、遵循宗教传统的规定，无论这些规定在现代生活的背景下是多么不合逻辑和不合情理。而这被称为“上帝的话语”，上帝对人类的意志。

Of course, there is great competition between competing powers over who has the ultimate and final claim of God’s Will and prescription for humanity. It is as if the unreligious have taken over the business of religion for their own purposes. Never having realized its essential purpose and meaning, they have turned it into something else. It is like now a political party and, of course, religion has political aims as well.

当然，在谁拥有上帝对人类的意志和规定的终极和最终主张方面，相互竞争的势力之间存在着巨大的竞争。就好像非宗教人士为了自己的目的接管了宗教事业一样。他们从未意识到宗教的基本目的和意义，而是将宗教变成了其他东西。现在宗教就像一个政党，当然，宗教也有政治目的。

This is so far apart from God’s initial impulse and intention for religion—to keep Knowledge alive in the world, to teach The Way of Knowledge, to encourage human responsibility and ethical behavior, not simply as a prescript or as a requirement for admission into Heaven or some other exalted future state.

这与上帝对宗教的初衷和意图相去甚远——让内识在这个世界上保持活力，教导内识之路，鼓励人类的责任和伦理行为，而不仅仅是作为进入天堂或其他崇高未来状态的规定或要求。

It is really a denial of the natural integrity and natural ethics that will arise with the person who has experienced this power and presence of Knowledge and is guided by its wisdom and its grace. These individuals, no matter what part of the world they reside, no matter what tribe or group or culture they come from, will all uphold the same values because these are the values of Knowledge.

这实际上是对自然完整性和自然伦理的否定，这种完整性和伦理将会在经历了内识的力量和存在，并受到其智慧和恩典指引的人身上显现。无论这些人生活在世界的哪个地方，无论他们来自哪个部落、哪个群体或哪种文化，他们都会秉持相同的价值观，因为这些都是内识的价值观。

So you have a world that seems deeply religious, but is not practicing and emphasizing what religion is really for. And given the submission and oppression of peoples throughout human history, whatever sacred intent has been maintained has been maintained only for the elite, for the monastic, for the adept.

因此，你会发现这个世界看似深受宗教影响，但实际上并没有实践和强调宗教的真正目的。而考虑到人类历史上各民族的屈从和压迫，任何被保持的神圣意图实际上只是为精英、僧侣和神职人员所保留的。

As a result, God’s true Messengers have had to break the chains of convention, have had to teach in opposition in the face of the prevailing religious beliefs and attitudes. They have had to become rebels and reformers, counteracting humanity’s tendency to turn what is sacred into what is profane.

因此，上帝的真实信使们不得不打破传统的枷锁，在主流宗教信仰和态度面前进行反对性的教导。他们不得不成为反叛者和改革者，抵制人类将神圣转化为世俗的倾向。

What is the intent of the true Messenger but to evoke the spiritual Fire in the individual and to bring them in contact with the deeper conscience that exists within them—a conscience that is not the product of social conformation or social expectation, but a deeper conscience that is innate and essential to the human life?

真实的信使的意图是唤起个人的精神之火，使他们接触到存在于自己内心深处的更深层次的良知——这种良知不是社会顺应或社会期望的产物，而是人类生命中与生俱来的、不可或缺的更深层次的良知？

So you have a world that is religious, but knows not of religion. You have a world where religious institutions and their advocates clash and compete with one another, not realizing that the Source of their faith is the same. They will have people demanding and expecting adherence to ideas and beliefs and admonitions, but who themselves have never received the real initiation into the mystery and the power of the Presence.

因此，你生活在一个有宗教信仰的世界，但不知道宗教的目的。在这个世界中，宗教机构及其倡导者彼此冲突和竞争，却没有意识到他们信仰的源头是相同的。他们会有要求和期待他人遵循某些想法、信仰和训诫，但他们自己却从未真正经历过对神秘和存在力量的入门。

Religion has become concrete. It has become political. It has become an economic and social power that seeks to preserve its status and its power at whatever cost. So now those who are truly responding to religion’s true purpose now find themselves in exile, now find themselves heretics and visionaries following the Mystery—a Mystery that has been lost to so many in the religious orders and institutions.

宗教已经变得具体，变得政治化，成为了一种经济和社会力量，试图不惜一切代价保持其地位和权力。因此，现在那些真正响应宗教真实目的的人，现在发现自己处于流亡状态，现在发现自己是追随神秘的异端和有远见的人——这种神秘在许多宗教组织和机构中已被遗忘。

It is as if religion has become the enemy of what religion is really for. It is now the religion of the state, religion of tradition, religion of history, religion of fixed ideas, fixed beliefs and exclusive claims of authority. So far this is from the desire and intent of the Creator to keep Knowledge alive in the world.

就好像宗教已经成为宗教真正目的的敌人。现在，宗教成了国家的宗教、传统的宗教、历史的宗教、固定想法的宗教、固定信仰的宗教和独享权威的宗教。这与造物主让内识在世界上保持活力的愿望和意图相去甚远。

In certain cases, religion has become the enemy of Knowledge, declaring that only God has Knowledge and that people are foolish and must be corralled like animals, must be programmed and conditioned to believe—to believe things that are incredible and impossible, to believe things that run counter to the deeper experience that people have, things that are apart from the real mystery and the profound experience that is the essence of what religion really is.

在某些情况下，宗教已经成为内识的敌人，宣称只有上帝才拥有内识，而人们是愚昧的，必须像动物一样被圈起来，必须被编程和调教去相信——去相信那些不可思议和不可能的事情，去相信那些与人们的更深层次的体验背道而驰的事情，去相信那些脱离了真正的神秘和深刻体验的事情，而这正是宗教的真谛。

Throughout the ages, the mystics, the wise amongst them, have kept this Power and this Presence alive, but they were the outcasts, at the margin of religious institutions. They were the rebels and the reformers who, though disapproved of or distrusted by their authorities, actually gave life and substance and meaning to the empty religious practices that prevailed in human society.

古往今来，神秘主义者和其中的智者们始终保持着这种力量和存在的活力，但他们是被抛弃者，处于宗教机构的边缘。他们是反叛者和改革者，尽管受到当局的不赞同或不信任，却实际上为人类社会中盛行的空洞宗教实践赋予了生命、实质和意义。

So what does this mean for you? This means that there is a greater power in your life, a greater mystery in your life, and that your connection to God is through Knowledge, the deeper Intelligence that God has placed within you, an Intelligence that is beyond the realm and the reach of your intellect. This power is calling to you, and your response to it represents the deepest need of your soul—a need that is deeper than the need for survival and gratification, for education and opportunity, for friendship and partnership.

因此，这对你意味着什么呢？这意味着在你的生命中有一种更伟大的力量，在你的生命中有一种更伟大的神秘，你与上帝的联接是通过内识，即上帝放置在你内心深处的更深层次的智能，一种超越你智力领域和范围的智能。这种力量正在召唤你，而你对它的回应代表着你灵魂最深处的需求——一种比生存与满足、教育与机会、友谊与合作更深层次的需求。

To find this need, you must realize that what the world is providing is inadequate. It meets social and psychological needs. It meets practical needs. But it does not meet the real need of the soul. That requires an engagement of an extraordinary kind.

要找到这种需求，你必须意识到这个世界所提供的是不够的。世界能满足社会和心理需求。世界能满足实际需求。但世界无法满足灵魂的真正需求。这需要一种非同寻常的参与。

The Creator of all life, of course, understands this predicament—that religion has become the problem and not the answer, that religion has become the impediment and not the pathway, that the true purpose and emphasis of religion has been lost in so many ways that now only a very wise and exceptional teacher within a faith tradition can speak to the Mystery and the Power and refer to the deeper conscience within the individual.

当然，所有生命的创造者理解这个困境——宗教已成为问题而不是答案，宗教已成为障碍而不是道路，宗教的真实目的和重点已在许多方面丧失，以至于现在只有信仰传统中非常睿智和特殊的老师才能讲到神秘和力量，并提到个人内心深处的更深层次的良知。

But such teachers are rare. They represent the minority of those who claim ecclesiastical powers and authorities. For how can you be allegiant to the church or the mosque or the temple if your greatest allegiance is to Knowledge, which represents your allegiance to God? And if God is not bound by human thought, human philosophy and human theology, then you as a follower of Knowledge will not be bound by these things either. This makes you free and uncontrollable. This makes you perceptive and more incorruptible. This makes you question the value of religious authority and the ethics and behavior of religious institutions—all things that religious institutions are prone to resist and to repress.

但这样的教师并不多见。他们代表了那些声称拥有宗教权力和宗教权威的少数人。因为如果你最大的忠诚是对内识的忠诚，而内识代表着你对上帝的忠诚，因此，你怎么能对教堂、清真寺或庙宇忠诚呢？如果上帝不受人类思想、人类哲学和人类神学的约束，那么，你作为内识的追随者也不会受到这些事物的约束。这使你变得自由而不可控制。这使你变得敏锐，更加廉洁。这使你开始质疑宗教权威的价值，以及宗教机构的伦理和行为——这些都是宗教机构倾向于抵制和压制的事物。

Therefore, it is necessary that you come back to what is essential, to the initial impulse and power of religion—not the religion of the state, not the religion of the traditional institutions necessarily, but to something much purer that can exist within them and beyond them.

因此，你有必要回到本质的内识，回归宗教最初的冲动和力量——不是国家的宗教，也不是传统机构的宗教，而是可以存在于它们之内和之外的更为纯粹的内识。

Beware of beliefs that seem set in stone. Beware of proclamations of exclusive privilege or authority by religious leaders. Recognize that there are people who are freedom oriented and there are people who are control oriented. The control oriented are afraid of freedom, and they are afraid of Mystery because they do not believe in the essential goodness of the human spirit. They have lost their faith in humanity and have placed all their faith in their ideology and the prescriptions that they believe have come from God.

警惕那些似乎不可动摇的信仰。警惕宗教领袖对专属特权或权威的宣称。要认识到，有些人是以自由为导向的，而有些人则是以控制为导向的。以控制为导向的人害怕自由，他们害怕神秘，因为他们不相信人类精神的本质是善良的。他们已经对人类失去了信仰，把所有的信仰都寄托在他们的意识形态和那些他们相信是来自上帝的教条。

But God has only given recommendations through the great teachers, not rules—recommendations for living, guidelines for living to help people orient their lives correctly and productively and beneficially.

但是，上帝只是通过伟大的老师给出了建议，而不是规则——生活的建议，生活的指南，以帮助人们正确地、富有成效地、有益地定位自己的生命。

Therefore, to find your real connection, you must come to learn The Way of Knowledge, for at the heart of every religion, there is The Way of Knowledge. This is not the way of belief. This is not the way of obedience. This is not the way of blindly following prescriptions and precepts and admonitions of religious leaders and institutions. It is finding the power and presence of Knowledge within you and learning over time and through instruction how to discern this power and presence from the other impulses and compulsions that exist within you as an individual.

因此，要找到你真正的联接，你必须学习内识之路，因为每个宗教的核心都是内识之路。这不是信仰之路。这不是顺从之路。这不是盲目遵循宗教领袖和机构的教条、戒律和训诫的方式。它是在你的内心深处找到内识的力量和存在，并随着时间的推移，通过指导学会如何将这种力量和存在从你个人内心深处存在的其他冲动和强迫中分辨出来。

God’s Purpose in the world is to keep Knowledge alive so that human freedom, human justice and human compassion may be kept alive in the world. God’s Purpose is not to exalt religious leaders or institutions, or to crown one over another. These are human creations and not God creations, and they are fallible and prone to corruption as a result.

上帝在这个世界上的目的是保持内识的活力，从而使人类的自由、人类的正义和人类的同情心在这个世界上得以保持。上帝的目的不是要抬高宗教领袖或机构，或将一个人置于另一个人之上。这些都是人类的创造，而不是上帝的创造，他们都是有缺陷的，因此容易腐败。

God has provided a New Message into the world to clarify this picture and to provide a clear pathway for those who seek to have the real experience. They can have this experience within their religious traditions or outside of them.

上帝向世界提供了一条新的讯息，以澄清这种情况，并为那些寻求真正体验的人提供一条清晰的道路。他们可以在自己的宗教传统中或在传统之外获得这种体验。

God’s New Revelation may conflict with political ideology and longstanding beliefs, but that is what happens when what is pure is contrasted with what has been altered and adapted.

上帝的新启示可能与政治意识形态和长期以来的信仰相冲突，但这就是当纯粹的启示与被改变和适应的启示对比时所产生的结果。

God is not bound by human creations, human beliefs and admonitions. God only provides what is real and essential to ignite the human heart and to give each individual a foundation for being inner directed rather than outer directed.

上帝不受人类的创造、人类的信仰和训诫的约束。上帝只提供真实和必要的内识来点燃人类的内心，并为每个人提供一个内在导向而非外在导向的基础。

Here your imam or your rabbi or your priest can help you if they are guided by Knowledge. But they will hinder you if they are not. You must learn to see the difference.

在这里，如果你的伊玛目、拉比或牧师受到内识的引导，他们可以帮助你。但如果他们不是，他们就会阻碍你。你必须学会看到其中的区别。

Religions are institutions that have to be maintained and protected. They are in competition with each other, so none of them that exist in the world today can really foster human peace and human unity. For they all claim special privileges, and only those few individuals within them that support a great ecumenical movement and the acceptance of all world’s religions can counteract this competition, which is inherently divisive and destructive.

宗教是必须加以维护和保护的机构。它们相互竞争，因此当今世界上没有任何宗教能够真正促进人类的和平与团结。因为它们都声称自己拥有特权，只有那些支持伟大的普世运动和接受所有世界宗教的少数个体，才能抵消这种本质上具有分裂性和破坏性的竞争。

In these words, We speak to the human heart, not to the intellect that wants to have everything figured out and wants to adhere to its notions, its beliefs and its traditions.

在这些话中，我们是对人类的内心说话，而不是对想搞清楚一切，并坚持自己的观念、信仰和传统的智力说话。

There is nothing wrong with a tradition if it fulfills the basic purpose of religion, which is to inspire and expand people’s desire and capacity to experience the Presence of God and to connect them with the deeper Intelligence that God has placed within them that will be essential for their success and their well-being in the world. This is much more important than the teachings of the founder of a religious tradition. It is much more important than the religion’s official declarations of belief or doctrine.

如果一个传统能够实现宗教的基本目的，即激发和扩大人们体验上帝存在的欲望和能力，并将他们与上帝放置在他们内心深处的更深层次的智能联接起来，这对他们在世界上的成功和福祉至关重要，那么这个传统就没有什么问题。这比一个宗教传统创始人的教导要重要得多。它比宗教的官方信仰宣言或教义要重要得多。

People celebrate and worship and repeat endlessly the lives of the great teachers, but can they really live the lives that these teachers promoted? It is not merely human behavior that is important, for people can behave well for all the wrong reasons. People can fall in line with each other for social advantage, for economic advantage and to achieve social status and acceptance. But this is not religion.

人们歌颂、崇拜、无休止地重复着伟大导师的生平，但他们真的能过上这些导师所倡导的生命吗？重要的不仅仅是人的行为，因为人们可能出于各种错误的原因而表现良好。人们可以为了社会利益、经济利益，以及为了获得社会地位和接受而趋同。但这并不是宗教。

You who seek to know your greater purpose in the world and the greater meaning of your life, this means you are a religious person. Whether you belong to a church or a mosque or a synagogue or any other religious organization, that is secondary.

你如果寻求知道你在这个世界上的更伟大的目的和你生命的更伟大意义，这意味着你是一个宗教人士。至于你是否属于教堂、清真寺、犹太教堂或任何其他宗教组织，这都是次要的。

Promoting a religious ideology in the world does not represent supporting God’s Will and Purpose here. It is only if this ideology and system of belief can meet the basic requirements of religion will they have real and lasting value and produce real benefit for people.

在世界上推广一种宗教意识形态并不代表支持上帝在这里的意志和目的。只有当这种意识形态和信仰体系能够满足宗教的基本要求时，它们才会具有真正的、持久的价值，并为人们带来实际的益处。

Likewise, no religious teaching should promote war and attack upon other groups. This represents competition for power between these groups, but this is not what religion is.

同样，任何宗教教义都不应该提倡战争和对其他群体的攻击。这代表了这些群体之间的权力竞争，但这不是宗教的目的。

Religion is bringing you to God and to what God has placed within you to guide you, to protect you and to lead you to your great accomplishments in life. Anything beyond this is an invention, a human invention, an adaptation.

宗教是把你带到上帝面前，带到上帝放置在你内心深处的内识面前，内识在这里指导你，保护你，引领你在生命中取得伟大的成就。除此之外的任何事物都是一种发明，一种人类的发明，一种适应。

People will have to figure out what this means in terms of the application of law and the running of societies. God is not here to run societies or to carry out the intricacies of jurisprudence or the administration of the law.

人们必须弄清楚内识在法律适用和社会管理方面的意义。上帝并不是来管理社会或处理法律的复杂事务和司法行政的。

God is pointing you to the Mystery, not to the manifestation. God is calling you into the Mystery, not prescribing the manifestation. If you want to have more saints in the world, if you want to have truly inspiring individuals in the world, if you want humanity to have a higher standard that is born not out of an oppressive regime, but out of a natural understanding, then you must guide people to the power of the Mystery.

上帝引导你走向神秘，而不是显现。上帝正在召唤你进入神秘，而不是规定的表现形式。如果你希望世界上有更多的圣人，如果你希望世界上有真正鼓舞人心的人，如果你希望人类有一个更高的标准，这个标准不是出于压迫性的制度，而是出于一种自然的理解，那么你必须引导人们走向神秘的力量。

Religion, you see, does not have an answer for every social and political problem, but it does give people access to the deeper Intelligence that can guide people effectively in meeting all these needs. Religion must be free of the state and it must be free of politics, which will only taint and corrupt it to the point where those who claim to be holy men will call for the execution of people.

你看，宗教并不能解决所有的社会和政治问题，但宗教确实能让人们接触到更深层次的智能，能够有效地指导人们满足所有这些需求。宗教必须摆脱国家的束缚，必须摆脱政治的束缚，因为政治只会玷污和腐蚀宗教，以至于那些自称是圣人的人会要求处决他人。

This is the degree of distortion and aberrancy that has been established in the world today, and that is why there is a New Message from God—to restore the clarity and the purpose of religion and the meaning of spiritual practice and the nature of the Divine revelation that must happen within each person.

这就是当今世界上已经建立起来的扭曲和反常的程度，这就是为什么有一条来自上帝的新讯息——恢复宗教的清晰度和目的，精神实践的意义，以及每个人内心深处必须发生的神圣启示的自然。

It is not enough to celebrate a great teacher’s Revelation if you cannot find access to your own. It is not enough to worship a great teacher or emancipator unless you can find this power and this presence within your life, which will apply itself in far more mundane and simple day-to-day circumstances.

如果你无法找到你自己的启示，仅仅颂扬一位伟大老师的启示是不够的。崇拜一位伟大的老师或解放者是不够的，除非你能在你的生命中找到这种力量和这种存在，这种力量和存在将应用于更平凡和简单的日常环境。

Here the contrast is significant and must be comprehended. If you want religion to be a thing, you will lose its essence and its meaning and turn it into something else that it was never meant to be. If you want to turn religion into a set of ideals and beliefs or a complex theology, you will lose what religion really is and what it is for.

这里的对比是显著的，必须加以理解。如果你想让宗教成为一种事物，你就会失去它的本质和意义，把它变成另一种它本来就不该成为的事物。如果你想把宗教变成一套理想和信仰或复杂的神学，你就会失去宗教的真谛和目的。

To argue whether Jesus or Muhammad is the greatest teacher or provides the final word for humanity is so utterly ridiculous, and so far from the nature and intent of religion as God intended it to be that it represents a kind of pathetic diminishing and distortion of what religion really is.

争论耶稣或穆罕默德是最伟大的老师或为人类提供最后的话语是如此的荒谬，而且与上帝所期望的宗教的性质和意图相去甚远，以至于它代表了一种对宗教真谛的可悲贬低和扭曲。

To think that Muhammad gave the final Revelation is to misunderstand God’s Purpose and Presence. For God has many more things to say to the world, particularly at this great turning point when humanity is facing a declining world, a world of declining resources, when humanity is facing the reality of contact with intelligent life in the universe—two great events that none of God’s previous Revelations are meant to address or that can address sufficiently and reasonably.

认为穆罕默德给出了最后的启示，是对上帝的宗旨和存在的误解。因为上帝还有很多话要对世界说，尤其是在这个伟大的转折点上，当人类正面临着一个日渐衰落的世界，一个资源日益减少的世界，当人类正面临着与宇宙中智能生命接触的现实——这两个重大事件是上帝以往的启示所无法充分和合理应对的。

Religion has become overlaid with ideas, beliefs, institutions, laws and requirements that have become repressive to the people or abhorrent to people who are freedom loving. They do not meet the deeper need of the soul. That is why you must come back to what is essential, to what is real. The temple, the mosque, the church and the tribal place of worship are the places to honor the Mystery and to evoke the Presence and the Power.

宗教已经被想法、信仰、制度、法律和要求所覆盖，这些想法、信仰、制度、法律和要求已经成为对人们的压制，或者对热爱自由的人来说是可憎的。它们无法满足灵魂更深层次的需求。这就是为什么你必须回到本质的内识，回到真实的内识。寺庙、清真寺、教堂和部落的礼拜场所都是尊重神秘、唤起存在和力量的地方。

The Way of Knowledge, which is at the heart of all the world’s religions, must become its essential teaching, instead of a focus for clerics and monastics and exceptional individuals only. This is the challenge before you, or religion will be part of the problem for humanity and not its essential means of reconciliation, inspiration and a high ethical awareness.

内识之路是世界上所有宗教的核心，内识必须成为宗教必不可少的教导，而不是只为神职人员和修道者以及特殊的个人所关注。这就是摆在你们面前的挑战，否则宗教将成为人类问题的一部分，而不是人类和解、灵感以及一种更高伦理觉知的必要方法。

Let this be your understanding.

让这成为你的理解。