第六章：自由
Freedom
As received by Marshall Vian Summers on November 11, 2007 in Boulder, Colorado
2007年11月11日，在科罗拉多州博尔德(Boulder, CO)，向上帝的信使马歇尔・维安・萨默斯(Marshall Vian Summers)揭示
The need for freedom is central to people everywhere, regardless of their situation or their needs. Some people need to be free to feed themselves. They need to be free from oppression. They need to be free from insecurity. They need to be free from intervention from other peoples. They need to be free to just simply live their lives at the most fundamental level.
无论处境如何，无论需求如何，自由都是世界各地人民的核心需求。有些人需要自由地养活他们自己。他们需要摆脱压迫。他们需要摆脱不安全感。他们需要摆脱其他民族的干涉。他们需要在最基本的层面上自由地生活。
Beyond this, people need freedom to develop their true abilities, to have opportunities, to cultivate their skills, to be able to serve their communities and to improve the condition of their lives.
除此之外，人们需要自由来发展他们的真实能力，获得机会，培养他们的技能，为他们的社会服务并改善他们的生命条件。
For people who have been able to achieve this or who have this opportunity, there is a greater threshold for freedom—the freedom to find their real purpose for being in the world, to discover the deeper Intelligence that the Creator of all life has placed within each person, an Intelligence called Knowledge.
对于那些能够做到这一点或者拥有这个机会的人们来说，有一种更伟大的自由门槛——他们可以自由地找到他们存在于这个世界的真正目的，自由地发现所有生命的创造者放置在每个人内心深处的更深层次的智能，这种智能被称为内识。
This deeper Intelligence is not like the mind you think with normally. It does not compare. It does not speculate. It does not judge. It does not condemn. It functions entirely differently from your intellect.
这种更深层次的智能与你通常思考的心灵不同。它不比较。它不推测。它不评判。它不谴责。它的功能与你的智力完全不同。
But Knowledge is certain. Knowledge is clear. Knowledge is fearless. Knowledge is free from confusion and ambivalence and attachment. Its only true focus is for you to find and to fulfill your greater purpose for coming into the world.
但内识是确定的。内识是清晰的。内识是无畏的。内识摆脱了困惑、矛盾和依恋。它唯一真正的焦点是让你找到并实现你来到这个世界的更伟大目的。
So the freedom to discover Knowledge, to learn of Knowledge, to experience Knowledge and then the freedom to follow Knowledge and to fulfill what Knowledge gives you to do—this is the greater threshold for freedom.
因此发现内识、学习内识、体验内识的自由，以及随后遵循内识并完成内识赋予你去做的事情的自由——这是自由的更伟大门槛。
Once you have satisfied basic needs and requirements for living in the world, you have this greater threshold. The fact that most people are not aware of this threshold, and certainly do not choose it for themselves, alone gives rise to the world that you see and experience every day and to the condition of people everywhere—whether they be rich or poor, living in societies that have political freedom and societies that do not.
一旦你满足了在世界上生存的基本需求和要求，你就有了这更伟大的门槛。大多数人没有察觉到这个门槛，当然也不会为他们自己选择它，这一事实本身就造就了你每天看到和体验的世界，也造就了世界各地人们的状况——无论他们是富人还是穷人，生活在有政治自由的社会还是没有政治自由的社会。
For you, once you have met certain basic requirements, the real threshold for freedom is awaiting you. You cannot figure it out with your intellect. Your ideas alone cannot capture it. You cannot conceptualize it and comprehend its true meaning.
对于你来说，一旦你满足了特定的基本要求，自由的真正门槛就在等着你。你无法用你的智力去弄清楚。你的想法本身无法捕捉到它。你无法将其概念化并理解其真正含义。
For the power and the reality of Knowledge and the power and reality of God’s true Creation are beyond the grasp of any person’s intellect. Fabulous cosmologies, metaphysical teachings, superstructures of idealistic understanding cannot contain the reality, the power and the meaning of Knowledge.
因为内识的力量和现实以及上帝真实创造的力量和现实超出了任何人的智力所能理解的范围。神话般的宇宙学、形而上学的教导、理想主义理解的上层建筑都无法包含内识的现实、力量和意义。
You gain access to Knowledge through experience, not through idealization. You experience the reality of Knowledge by following what it gives you to do and not to do. This validates its reality and proves to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is not a creation of your intellect.
你通过体验而不是理想化来获得内识。你通过遵循内识让你做什么和不做什么来体验内识的现实。这证实了它的真实性，并毫无疑问地向你证明它不是你的智力的创造。
It is not a phantom. It is not an illusion. It will show you that it is not born out of your ambitions, your desires, your preferences, your attachments, your phobias because it acts independently of all these things.
它不是幻影。它不是幻觉。它会向你表明，它并非源自你的野心、你的欲望、你的偏好、你的执着、你的恐惧，因为它独立于所有这些事物而行动。
For many people, the true validation that Knowledge is real will come when they have an experience of knowing something and not wanting to know what they know. This experience, which can be so difficult and which people avoid, is in itself a real proving ground, an essential kind of experience to have.
对于许多人来说，当他们经历过知道一些事情却又不想知道他们知道什么的时候，他们才会真正确认内识是真实的。这种体验可能非常困难，人们也会回避它，但它本身就是一种真正的试验场，是一种必不可少的体验。
For it demonstrates to you that there is a greater reality within you, and it is intelligent, and it has purpose, and it is not deceived by what deceives you intellectually. It is not limited by your biological or social or political circumstances. It is not governed by the things that govern the world or that govern nations or that govern tribes or families. It has a greater authority, one that cannot be corrupted by anything in the world or anything even in the Greater Community of the world, in the universe in which you live.
因为内识向你展示，你内在有一个更伟大的现实，它是智慧的，它是有目的，它不会被那些在智力上欺骗你的事物所欺骗。它不受你们的生物、社会或政治环境的限制。它不受那些统治世界、统治国家、统治部落或家庭的人所支配。它拥有一个更伟大权威，这个权威不会被世界上的任何事物，甚至世界大社区、你们所生活的宇宙中的任何事物所腐蚀。
Only Knowledge knows why you are here and what you must do and who you must meet and where you must go and what you must choose and what you must avoid. Only Knowledge stands as the real barometer of the truth within you.
只有内识知道你为何在此，你必须做什么，你必须遇见谁，你必须去哪里，你必须选择什么，你必须避免什么。只有内识才是你内在真理的真正晴雨表。
You may claim that your ideas are true. You may claim that your position or your beliefs are true, but only Knowledge knows what is really true. You may claim that what you believe is what you know, but if it is not coming from Knowledge, then it is just a belief, an assumption, an assertion, a demand, an expectation, a preference.
你可能声称你的想法是正确的。你可能声称你的立场或信念是正确的，但只有内识知道什么是真正的真实。你可能声称你所相信的就是你所知道的，但如果它不是来自内识，那么它就只是一种信念、一种假设、一种断言、一种要求、一种期望、一种偏好。
There is no freedom here, for here you are governed by your culture. You are governed by your conditioning. You are governed by your fears and your desires, your addictions and your preferences. You are a slave to other forces. Even the thoughts in your mind are hardly original, your having acquired them from the environment, from other people and from the social conditioning that you have been undergoing since the day you were born.
这里没有自由，因为在这里你被你的文化所统治。你被你的条件所统治。你被你的恐惧和欲望、你的嗜好和你的偏好所统治。你是其他力量的奴隶。甚至你心灵中的想法都不是原创的，你从环境、从其他人以及从你出生那天起就一直经历的社会条件中获得它们。
When you can come to understand this to any degree, you will begin to see that without Knowledge, there is no freedom. There is only a kind of servitude. Perhaps it has its pleasures and its inducements, but it is still a servitude.
当你能够在某种程度上理解这一点时，你就会开始理解，没有内识，就没有自由。只有一种奴役。也许它有其乐趣和诱惑，但它仍然是一种奴役。
If you are a slave to your desires and the expectations of others, well, even if you live in splendor, you are kind of a slave. You are a servant. You are a servant of the world. You are not a servant to the world, you are a servant of the world. There is a big difference here, of course.
如果你是你的欲望和他人期望的奴隶，那么，即使你过着奢华的生活，你依然算是一个奴隶。你是一个仆人。你是这个世界的仆人。你不是为这个世界服务，而是被这个世界所奴役。当然，这里有很大的区别。
Your thoughts, your feelings, your motivations—do you really have any real authorship over them? Do you have any control over them? Can you really choose in the face of them? Or do they simply govern you, and you try to adapt to your condition, to your circumstances, to your situation and to your state of mind?
你的思想、你的感受、你的动机——你真的对它们拥有真正的主导权吗？你能控制它们吗？在面对它们时，你真的能做出选择吗？还是它们只是控制着你，而你试图适应你的条件、你的环境、你的处境和你的心灵状态？
Slaves acquiesce. They adapt. They try to make the best of their situation. But they are still slaves.
奴隶们默许了。他们适应了。他们尽力改善他们的处境。但他们仍然是奴隶。
Now there is physical bondage still in the world. There is still slavery in different parts of the world—physical bondage. People are locked in place. Even circumstantially, they are locked in place. They have no freedom to move. They cannot change their circumstances. They cannot choose another direction. They cannot choose a different work, a different environment.
现在，世界上仍然存在着肉体的束缚。世界各地仍然存在着奴隶制——肉体的束缚。人们被束缚在原地。即使是在特定情况下，他们也被束缚在原地。他们没有行动的自由。他们无法改变他们的处境。他们无法选择另一个方向。他们无法选择不同的工作，不同的环境。
And you look and you think, well, they are circumstantially bound. It is because of lack of education, lack of opportunity, lack of political freedom and so forth. This is true, but this freedom that you feel they are lacking, it is only part of the picture.
你看一看，就会想，他们确实受到环境的束缚。这是因为缺乏教育、缺乏机会、缺乏政治自由等等。这是事实，但你觉得他们缺乏的这种自由只是情况的一部分。
For the people that have these freedoms, they can choose what they want to do with their life to a far greater degree, they too are in bondage. Their freedom is only a possibility. And the fact that it is being wasted upon them—that they cannot really claim their own inner direction, they cannot experience the guidance that God has placed within them, within Knowledge—kind of makes their situation even more tragic.
对于那些拥有这些自由的人来说，他们可以在更大程度上选择他们想要如何度过他们的生命，但他们也处于束缚之中。他们的自由只是一种可能性。而事实是，这种自由被浪费在他们身上——他们无法真正宣称他们自己的内在方向，他们无法体验上帝在他们内在、在内识中放置的指导——这在某种程度上使他们的处境更加悲惨。
For here they have the opportunity to choose. They have the rare, extremely rare, opportunity to determine the direction of their life, an opportunity that throughout human history has been so extremely rare as to be almost nonexistent. And here in modern times they have such an opportunity, and they do not choose it.
因为在这里他们有选择的机会。他们有罕见、极其稀缺的机会来决定他们的生命方向，这种机会在整个人类历史上都是极其罕见的，几乎不存在。而在现代，他们有这样的机会，但他们没有选择。
They follow the herd. They capitulate to the promises of pleasure, wealth or comfort. They, who have a freedom that has been so difficult to achieve and to maintain through the course of history and is so rare in the course of history, they pass it by for simple pleasures—to be socially acceptable, to be sexually attractive, to have seeming financial affluence, to have pride in the community, to show themselves off, to look good to themselves and others, to groom themselves for future advantages.
他们随波逐流。他们屈服于快乐、财富或舒适的承诺。他们拥有一种在历史进程中如此难以实现和维持的自由，这种自由在历史上是如此罕见，他们为了简单的快乐而放弃了这种自由——被社会接受、具有性吸引力、拥有表面上的财富、对社会感到自豪、炫耀他们自己、在他们自己和他人面前表现良好、为未来的优势打扮他们自己。
It is these things people will choose, but what is that but simply another form of servitude? Instead of slaving in the fields, you are now slaving in the castle. Your circumstances have changed and perhaps have improved to some degree, but your mental state is still the same. And the anger and frustration this produces really have nowhere to go.
人们会选择这些事情，但这不过是另一种形式的奴役而已。你不再在田里干活，而是在城堡里干活。你的处境已经改变，也许有所改善，但你的心理状态仍然一样。而由此产生的愤怒和沮丧真的无处发泄。
So people become neurotic. They become conflicted. Their behavior becomes illogical, irrational. They do foolish things to hurt themselves. They destroy their accomplishments. They addict themselves to things. They desperately seek relief from their situation, from their servitude.
因此人们变得神经质。他们变得矛盾重重。他们的行为变得不合逻辑、不理性。他们做蠢事伤害他们自己。他们毁掉他们的成就。他们沉迷于各种事物。他们拼命寻求从他们的处境、从他们的奴役中解脱出来。
There are many addictions to choose from. Some seem more benign than others. Some are immediately destructive, and others are destructive over a long period of time. But they all prevent you from making a deeper connection in your life, from finding the real guidance that God has given you and to allow this guidance to clarify your situation, to liberate you from damaging or hindering circumstances, to free your mind from its fixations and addictions and anxieties and to begin a different path in life, a path less traveled. While everyone is marching nowhere together, you are going somewhere, alone or perhaps only with one or two people.
可供选择的成瘾有很多。有些成瘾似乎比其他的要温和。有些会立即产生破坏性，而有些则会在很长一段时间内产生破坏性。但它们都会阻止你在生命中建立一种更深层次的联接，阻止你找到上帝赋予你的真正指导，阻止你让这种指导澄清你的处境，将你从有害或阻碍的环境中解放出来，将你的心灵从它的固着、成瘾和焦虑中解放出来，开始一条不同的生命道路，一条人迹罕至的道路。当每个人都在一起无处可去时，你却要去某个地方，独自一人，或者可能只和一两个人一起。
Here freedom can look really lonely. You are not doing what everyone is doing. You are not believing what everyone is believing. You are not valuing what everyone is valuing because your values and your beliefs and your focus are changing, slowly coming in line with a deeper guidance, a deeper current of your life. Instead of bouncing around the surface of the ocean, being swept by the crazy winds of the world, you have found a deeper current that is actually going to take you somewhere.
在这里，自由看起来真的很孤独。你不会做每个人都在做的事情。你不会相信每个人都在相信的事情。你不会重视每个人都在重视的事情，因为你的价值观、你的信仰和你的关注点正在改变，慢慢地与你生命中更深层次的指导、更深层次的潮流保持一致。你不再在海面上蹦蹦跳跳，被世界上疯狂的风吹着，而是找到了一种更深层次的潮流，它实际上会把你带到某个地方。
But to your dismay, you find that many others are not going—your old friends, your brothers and your sisters, the people you previously admired. They are not going there. It can feel very isolating and lonely, and you think to yourself at this point, “Well, this isn’t giving me greater pleasure. This isn’t giving me a greater sense of inclusion in life. I’m more alone. I mean I’m going somewhere else. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m going somewhere else, and everyone else is going where they’re going, and I’m not going there.”
但令你沮丧的是，你发现许多人不会去那里——你的老朋友、你的兄弟姐妹、你以前钦佩的人。他们不会去那里。这会让人感到非常孤立和孤独，这时你会想：“好吧，这并没有给我带来更大的快乐。这并没有给我带来更大的生命包容感。我更孤独了。我的意思是我要去别的地方。我不知道我要去哪里。我要去别的地方，其他人都在去他们要去的地方，而我不会去那里。”
But you see, to find your way to a greater life, you cannot go where everyone else is going. Your life cannot be based upon consensus. Your values cannot be dictated to you by an indulgent and corrupt culture. You cannot follow the expectations and demands of others if you are to follow what God has given you to follow.
但你看，为了找到通往更伟大生命的道路，你不能走其他人都在走的道路。你的生命不能基于共识。你的价值观不能被一种纵容和腐败的文化强加给你。如果你要遵循上帝赋予你遵循的内识，你就不能遵循他人的期望和要求。
You will have certain responsibilities you will have to meet. You will have certain obligations you may have to fulfill, but fundamentally you are choosing to go another way. You are listening to a different voice within yourself. And this requires that you turn away from all the voices that would dissuade you from following this deeper voice, this inner voice, the voice of Knowledge.
你必须承担特定的责任。你必须履行特定的义务，但从根本上说，你是在选择走另一条路。你在倾听你自己内心深处的一种不同的声音。这就要求你摒弃所有会劝阻你追随这个更深层次的声音、这个内在的声音、内识声音的声音。
God wills to save you, but first God must get your attention. God must have your growing allegiance. God must have your growing trust. God is not micromanaging your life. God is calling you out of desperate, meaningless circumstances to find a way to experience and to reclaim the purpose that has brought you into the world— a purpose that has been forgotten, that is buried deep within you, that Knowledge within you has preserved for you.
上帝愿意拯救你，但上帝首先必须得到你的关注。上帝必须得到你日益增长的忠诚。上帝必须得到你日益增长的信任。上帝不会对你的生命进行微观管理。上帝在召唤你走出绝望、毫无意义的境遇，去寻找一种方法来体验和重新找回把你带到这个世界上的目的——一个被遗忘的目的，一个深埋在你内心深处的目的，一个你内在的内识为你保存的目的。
Now many people will think, “Well, you must be politically free first. You must be economically free before you can attempt a greater spiritual freedom.” But this is only an excuse. This is only a postponement.
现在许多人会想：“好吧，你必须先获得政治自由。你必须先获得经济自由，然后才能尝试更大的精神自由。”但这只是借口。这只是一种拖延。
Knowledge does not require that you be financially secure or socially acceptable or politically free in order to speak to you. You do not have to meet the expectations of the world first to meet the expectations of God. In fact, you will have to disappoint many of these expectations of the world in order to have the courage and the integrity to respond to what God has placed within you.
内识并不要求你有经济保障、社会认可或政治自由，才能与你对话。你不必先满足世界的期望，才能满足上帝的期望。事实上，你必须让世界的许多期望失望，才能拥有勇气和完整性回应上帝放置在你内心深处的内识。
Knowledge is here to save you, but first you must want to be saved. You must see the hopelessness of your situation. You must recognize that your life is not really alive, that you are going through the motions, that you are acquiring possessions, you are pleasing expectations, but your life is really not going anywhere, and that your soul is calling for you, and that your soul is restless.
内识可以拯救你，但首先你必须想要被拯救。你必须看到你处境的绝望。你必须认识到你的生命并不是真正活着的，你只是在敷衍了事，你只是在获得财富，你只是在满足期望，但你的生命实际上没有任何进展，你的灵魂正在召唤你，你的灵魂焦躁不安。
For only fulfilling your purpose and following Knowledge can meet the real needs of your soul, so that the real needs of your soul can be fulfilled. Your soul does not care about pleasures and acquisitions and looking good in society, gaining approval. These might be the needs of your weak, personal mind, which is frightened and alone, but these are not the needs of the soul. These needs are very different, very fundamental, and they do not change. Whether you are ten- or ninety-years old, the need of the soul is the same.
因为只有实现你的目的并遵循内识才能满足你灵魂的真正需求，这样你灵魂的真正需求才能得到满足。你的灵魂不在乎享乐、获得、在社会上表现良好、获得认可。这些可能是你虚弱、恐惧和孤独的个人心灵的需求，但这些不是灵魂的需求。这些需求非常不同，非常基础，而且它们不会改变。无论你是十岁还是九十岁，灵魂的需求都是一样的。
Your wandering desires, your shifting feelings, up today, down tomorrow, want this one week, want that the next week. These are not the needs of the soul.
你的欲望飘忽不定，你的感情变化无常，今天涨，明天跌，这周想要这个，下周想要那个。这些都不是灵魂的需求。
It [your soul] is calling to you. It needs your complete involvement. It needs your attention. God seeks to save you, but first you must realize you need what God has to offer, and God needs to get your attention, which is fixated everywhere all the time.
它（你的灵魂）正在召唤你。它需要你全身心的投入。它需要你的关注。上帝试图拯救你，但首先你必须意识到你需要上帝提供的内识，上帝需要引起你的关注，而你的关注无处不在，无时不在。
If your mind is constantly taken up with stimulation, constantly taken up with busyness, activities, television and media, newspapers, books, everything constantly occupying you from the moment you awake to the moment you go to bed, you will see what a slave you are.
如果你的心灵不断地被刺激所占据，不断地被忙碌、活动、电视和媒体、报纸、书籍所占据，从你醒来的那一刻到你上床睡觉的那一刻，一切都不断地占据着你，你就会发现你是多么的奴隶。
You cannot sit still for five minutes. Your mind is never still. It is restless. It is anxious. It is seeking. It is avoiding. It is fretting over what is happening today. It is anxious over the future. It is projecting blame and condemnation. It is tormented. It is exhausted. Can’t sleep! Can’t eat! Can’t think! Your body reflects the state of your mind. It is stressed. It is unhealthy. It is out of balance.
你无法静坐五分钟。你的心灵永远无法平静。它焦躁不安。它焦虑不安。它寻求着。它逃避着。它为今天发生的事情而烦恼。它为未来而焦虑。它指责和谴责着。它饱受折磨。它精疲力竭。睡不着！吃不下！思考不了！你的身体反映了你的心灵状态。它压力很大。它不健康。它失去了平衡。
Before you can really make progress, you must build a foundation for freedom. You must begin to see what is free and what is not free, what is really freedom and what only pretends to be freedom.
在你真正取得进步之前，你必须为自由打下基础。你必须开始看清什么是自由，什么不是自由，什么是真正的自由，什么只是假装的自由。
Having no responsibilities, having no obligations, having no accountability—some people think that is freedom because to a slave, to be free of their bounds looks to be free. But even if they could break free of all their bounds, they are still serving the dictates of their mind—a mind that is conditioned by the world, a mind that is frightened and fixated, full of conflict and anxiety and desire.
没有责任、没有义务、没有责任感——有些人认为这就是自由，因为对奴隶来说，摆脱束缚就是自由。但即使他们能够摆脱所有束缚，他们仍然在服从他们心灵的支配——一个受世界制约的心灵，一个充满恐惧和执着的心灵，一个充满冲突、焦虑和欲望的心灵。
Better to go to the Source than have to learn the hard way that what you think is free is not free. What you think is good is not really that good. What you think would be a better life, well, it is really not that much better. You spend a lifetime trying to find this out when it could have been known and is already known within you.
最好是去寻找自由的源泉，而不是通过艰难的方式学习到你认为的自由其实并不是自由。你认为的善其实并不是善。你认为的一种更好的生命，其实并不好。你花了一生的时间试图找到这一点，而其实它本可以知道，而且你的内心已经知道了。
Now let Us talk about the world, for what is coming over the horizon is going to limit human freedom—political freedom, economic freedom, social freedom. You are facing a world in decline, a world where ever greater numbers of people will be drawing from a well of diminishing resources.
现在让我们谈谈世界，因为即将发生的事情将限制人类的自由——政治自由、经济自由、社会自由。你们正面临着一个衰落的世界，这个世界中越来越多的人将依靠日益减少的资源。
The freedoms and advantages that perhaps some of you have enjoyed may not be there in the future. Life will become more demanding, more difficult. Opportunities will become less. The freedom to be foolish or self-indulgent or chaotic will be less.
你们中有些人曾经享有的自由和优势在未来也许会不复存在。生命将变得更加艰难，更加艰辛。机会将越来越少。愚蠢、自我放纵或混乱的自由将越来越少。
You can view this as a great loss and infringement, or you can see it as a great opportunity to finally turn to what God has given you that is the only thing that can make you free. And what God has given you is not a belief. It is not a religious belief system. It is not an ideology. It is not a story from the past. It is not a metaphysical understanding. Any of these things may or may not be important for you, but the fundamental thing that God has given you is Knowledge.
你可以把这看作是巨大的损失和侵犯，或者你也可以把它看作是一个伟大的机会，让你最终转向上帝赋予你的内识，这是唯一能让你自由的东西。上帝赋予你的不是一种信仰。它不是一种宗教信仰体系。它不是一种意识形态。它不是一个过去的故事。它不是一种形而上学的理解。这些事物对你来说可能重要，也可能不重要，但上帝赋予你的基础是内识。
For if you believe in your religious ideology, if you adhere to a religious teaching, if you are adamant in your beliefs or assumptions but you are disconnected from Knowledge, then you are simply a slave to other things. You are in servitude still—now to your ideas, which are largely not your own, which have been dictated to you, which you are trying to believe in—and you seek to use these things to give your life stability and certainty and confidence and a sense of purpose and direction.
因为如果你相信你的宗教意识形态，如果你坚持一个宗教教导，如果你固执己见或假设，但你却与内识脱节，那么你只是其他事物的奴隶。你仍然处于奴役之中——现在被你的想法所奴役，这些想法很大程度上不是你自己的，它们被强加给你，你试图相信它们——你寻求利用这些事物来给你的生命带来稳定、确定性和信心，以及一种目的和方向感。
Your circumstances have changed, but your condition, your true condition, has not changed. Only Knowledge will free you. Only Knowledge knows where you need to be and where you need to go and what you need to do.
你的境遇已经改变，但你的状况，你的真实状况，并没有改变。唯有内识才能给你自由。唯有内识知道你需要在哪里，需要去哪里，以及你需要做的事情。
Knowledge can function within formal religion or outside of it. It is not bound by it.
内识可以在正规宗教之内或之外运作。它不受宗教的束缚。
The world you are facing will deprive you of your personal freedoms because it will become more difficult. It will be more demanding. The choices will be fewer, but more fundamental and consequential. You cannot be fooling around in the face of the Great Waves of change that are coming to the world.
你所面对的世界将剥夺你们的个人自由，因为它将变得更加困难。它将更加苛刻。选择将更少，但更加基本和重要。面对即将降临世界的变革巨浪，你不能再胡闹了。
This, then, is an opportunity for you to get serious about your life, to re-evaluate what you are doing, what you are thinking, what you are believing—to do a true reckoning within yourself.
因此，这是一个让你认真对待你生命、重新评估你正在做的事情、你正在想的事情、你正在相信的事情的机会——对你自己进行真实的清算。
Are you really doing what you came here to do? Are you really being who you really are, or are you simply acting out a role, playacting? Are the people you are with really helping you to find what you need to do and really amplifying and acknowledging who you are? Or are they just people filling up your life for convenience, for advantage, for opportunities? Can you sit still and be with yourself without judgment, condemnation? Or are you restless and driven, compulsive, tormented, as if someone was cracking a whip over you every moment of the day?
你真的在做你来到这里要做的事情吗？你真的在做你真正的自己吗？还是你只是在扮演一个角色，在演戏？你身边的人真的在帮助你找到你需要做的事情，真的在放大和承认你是谁？还是他们只是为了方便、为了优势、为了机会而填补你的生命？你能静静地坐下来，不加评判、不加谴责地和你自己相处吗？还是你感到焦躁不安、被驱使、强迫、受折磨，仿佛每天每时每刻都有一条鞭子在你身后鞭策？
You have to want freedom to begin to find freedom. You have to want what God has given you, which is a deeper Intelligence, in order to begin to experience it and to take the Steps to Knowledge. You have to realize that your intellect was not designed to comprehend greater things. This must be born of a deeper recognition, a true resonance within you, an experience that perhaps you have had momentarily and that you need to have now more frequently.
你必须想要自由，才能开始寻找自由。你必须想要上帝已经赋予你的内识，既一种更深层次的智能，才能开始体验自由，并开展内识的进阶。你必须意识到，你的智力并非为理解更伟大的事情而设计的。这必须源于一种更深层次的认知，源于你内心深处的一种真实的共鸣，源于你也许曾有过的、现在需要更频繁地拥有的体验。
For time is running by. The river of your life is passing under the bridge. Your opportunity in this world cannot be taken for granted and postponed for some other future time. “Someday I will deal with this. Someday I will get around to it. Someday I will ask these deeper questions. Someday I will concern myself with Knowledge.”
因为时间在流逝。你的生命之河正在桥下流过。你在这个世界上的机会不能被视作理所当然，也不能被推迟到未来的某个时间。“总有一天我会处理这个问题。总有一天我会抽出时间来处理它。总有一天我会问这些更深层次的问题。总有一天我会关注内识。”
That is how a slave thinks. That is how a person thinks if they are afraid to face something within themselves. That is what people think when they are afraid to question their social conditioning, their psychological conditioning. They are afraid to give up their little pleasures and advantages to concern themselves with a deeper question that is much more fundamental. They are afraid to disappoint other people whose approval they think they need, whether it be their parents or their husband or their wife or their children.
这就是奴隶的想法。当一个人害怕面对他们自己内心的某些事情时，他就会这样想。当人们害怕质疑他们的社会条件、心理条件时，他们就会这样想。他们害怕放弃他们自己的小乐趣和优势，去关心一个更为根本的更深层次的问题。他们害怕让那些他们认为需要认可的人失望，无论是他们的父母、丈夫、妻子还是孩子。
The need of the soul is growing. Every moment it goes unattended to, unrecognized, unsupported, it grows stronger. That is why after a life of pleasure and indulgence, you are so very empty. Because the deeper need that was the source of all your needs has never been recognized and really served.
灵魂的需求正在不断增长。每当它得不到关注、得不到认可、得不到支持的时候，它就会变得更加强烈。这就是为什么在享受了生命的快乐和放纵之后，你会感到如此空虚。因为你所有需求的根源——更深层次的需求从未被认识到并真正得到满足。
If you have all the things you think you want, your life might be more comfortable, but the need of the soul will be more desperate. Time will have passed. You are growing older now—less able to change, less able to redirect your life, less able to question the mounting years of social conditioning, less willing to face the fact that you have wasted so much of your life on things of little or no value.
如果你拥有了所有你想要的东西，你的生活可能会更舒适，但灵魂的需求会更加迫切。时间会流逝。现在，你的年龄越来越大——越来越没有能力改变，越来越没有能力改变你的生命，越来越没有能力质疑日益增长的社会条件，越来越不愿意面对这样一个事实：你已经在生命中浪费了这么多时间在那些价值不大甚至毫无价值的事情上。
There is only one true freedom and that is to find your purpose and to fulfill it. That fulfills the need of your soul. That is what creates a foundation for true integrity within you. That is what gives your life satisfaction and direction. That is what enables you to be really right with yourself, and as a result of being right with yourself, being able to know who to be with and how to be with them, to recognize those who can truly help you against those who can only hinder you, regardless of their appearance.
只有一种真实的自由，那就是找到你的目的并实现它。这满足了你灵魂的需求。这为你内心真实的完整性奠定了基础。这给了你的生命满足感和方向。这让你能够真正正确地对待你自己，而正确对待你自己的结果就是，你能够知道该和谁在一起以及如何与他们相处，能够认出那些真正能帮助你的人，而不是那些只能阻碍你的人，无论他们的外表如何。
Your greater freedom is not simply to have a relationship or get a better job or increase your income. For if you do not know what your life is about, then all these things simply add more burden onto your shoulders. Now you are laboring more greatly, carrying all these things up the hill.
你的更伟大自由不只是拥有一段关系、找到一份更好的工作或增加收入。因为如果你不知道你的生命是为了什么，那么所有这些事情都只会给你的肩膀增加更多的负担。现在你要付出更大的努力，把所有这些事物都扛上山。
You have acquisitions now. You must take care of them. You must serve them. You must maintain them. But if you cannot hear Knowledge within yourself; if you cannot understand your own restlessness, your own nervousness, your own impatience, your own frustration; if you cannot see this is all coming from the need of the soul within you, then your accomplishments and your wealth and your achievements have only added to your burden, your predicament. And you are not free.
你现在拥有一些收藏品。你必须照顾它们，你必须为它们服务，你必须维护它们。但是，如果你听不到你内心深处的内识；如果你不能理解你自己的焦躁、你自己的紧张、你自己的不耐烦、你自己的沮丧；如果你看不到这一切都来自于你内心深处灵魂的需求，那么你所取得的成就、财富和功业，只会加重你的负担，让你陷入困境。而你并不自由。
So even what freedom is is not what you think. It is not being unaccountable. It is not being carefree all day long. It is not playing like a child in a playground. It is being right with your life. It is being connected to what you are here to do. It is taking that journey, that journey up the mountain. It is being with the right people for the right purpose. It is being in the right place for the right purpose.
因此，自由并不是你所想的那样。它不是不负责任。它不是整天无忧无虑。它不是像孩子一样在操场上玩耍。它是正确对待你的生命。它与你来此要做的事情紧密相连。它是踏上旅程，踏上登山之旅。它是为了正确的目的，与正确的人在一起。它是为了正确的目的，在正确的地方。
As it is today, most people are not with the right people or the right place. That is why they are out of synch with themselves. For where you are in life, both physically and psychologically, is very important in terms of determining whether this deeper freedom can be experienced or not.
就今天而言，大多数人都没有和正确的人在一起，也没有在正确的地方。这就是为什么他们与他们自己处于不同步的原因。因为你在生命中所处的位置，无论是在身体上还是在心理上，都对决定你是否能够体验到这种更深层次的自由至关重要。
Knowledge can correct all of this for you, for it can seem incredibly confusing, but Knowledge knows the way through. Knowledge corrects everything by taking you in your true direction, by engaging you with your true purpose because it is not interested in anything else. It is already free from the world. It is already unencumbered by the world.
内识可以为你纠正这一切，尽管它看起来令人难以置信的混乱，但内识知道通往正确道路的方式。内识通过引导你走向你真实的方向，通过让你参与你真实的目的来纠正一切，因为它对其他任何事情都不感兴趣。它已经从世界中获得了自由。它已经不受世界的束缚。
You follow that, you become more free. You become more [unencumbered]. Then when you take on responsibilities, when you make commitments, when you establish obligations, you can carry this weight, and it will not be a betrayal of your real nature or purpose.
如果你遵循这一点，你就会变得更加自由。你会变得更加不受束缚。然后当你承担责任、做出承诺、确立义务时，你就可以承担起这个重担，而这不会背叛你的真正自然或目的。
Yes, you will work. You will perhaps work harder than you have ever worked, but there will be a rightness about your work. It may still be very difficult and challenging, but there will be a rightness that was never there before.
是的，你会努力工作。你也许会比以前更加努力，但你的工作会有一种正确性。它可能仍然非常困难和具有挑战性，但你会有一种前所未有的正确性。
Here you must understand that you do not seek a relationship or a job or a position in society. You must seek Knowledge. You take the Steps to Knowledge. You do not simply use Knowledge to get what you want because then you are trying to use Knowledge to serve the fixations of the mind.
在这里你必须理解，你寻求的不是一段关系、一份工作或一个社会地位。你必须寻求内识。你要开展内识进阶。你不会简单地用内识来得到你想要的东西，因为那样的话你就是在试图用内识来服务于心灵的固着。
You are not really following here. You are trying to control. You are trying to direct. All beginning students of Knowledge try to do this to some degree. They want to use Knowledge to get what they want. But Knowledge has its own direction, the direction given by God. It is God’s answer to your life.
在这里，你并不是真的在跟随。你试图控制。你试图指挥。所有初学内识的学生都在某种程度上试图这样做。他们想利用内识来得到他们想要的东西。但内识有它自己的方向，这是上帝赋予的方向。这是上帝对你生命的回答。
How are you going to work out your life? How are you going to get yourself straight? How are you going to find your real direction? How are you going to find those individuals who will really make a difference in your life? How will you find the right place to live, the right kind of work? This is God’s answer to all those questions. But to receive this answer, you must give yourself to it. You must follow it step by step.
你要如何规划你的生命？你要如何让你自己走上正轨？你要如何找到你真正的方向？你要如何找到那些真正能改变你生命的人？你要如何找到合适的住处与合适的工作？这是上帝对所有这些问题的回答。但要得到这个答案，你必须全身心投入。你必须一步一步地遵循它。
Your faith in it will be very partial at the outset, and it will grow over time. For you are learning to serve a new master now—not the master of the world, not the master of the world’s values, not the master of what the world tells you you should be, could be or want to be. You are serving the master that is the master. You can do this as part of a religious practice and organization or outside of it. It is fundamentally spiritual.
一开始，你对它的信仰会非常片面，但随着时间的推移，这种信仰会逐渐增长。因为你现在正在学习服务一位新的大师——不是世界的大师，不是世界价值观的大师，不是世界告诉你应该成为、可以成为或想要成为的人的大师。你服务的大师就是大师。你可以将其作为宗教实践和组织的一部分，也可以在其之外这样做。这从根本上说是精神上的。
First, you must be unburdened. The first stage in learning to be free is to become unburdened. This is not about giving away all your possessions and becoming an ascetic. This is not about running away and living in isolation somewhere. It is about shedding the burdens of the mind and to some degree your physical burdens, your circumstantial burdens.
首先，你必须卸下负担。学习自由的第一步就是卸下负担。这并不是要放弃所有财产，成为一名苦行僧。这并不是要你逃走，在某个地方过着与世隔绝的生活。而是要你卸下心灵的负担，在某种程度上卸下你物质的负担，卸下你环境的负担。
Because in the absence of Knowledge, people fill their life up with things and obligations and people and responsibilities until they are completely weighted down. Some of these things have to be released to give you enough freedom, enough time, enough opportunity to consider where you really need to go.
因为在缺乏内识的情况下，人们的生命被各种事物、义务、人和责任填满，直到他们完全不堪重负。有些事物必须被放下，才能给你足够的自由、足够的时间、足够的机会去考虑你真正需要去的地方。
God’s first purpose here is to unburden you, not to give you what you want. You do not even know what you want. What you want is what the world has told you you want. To be safe, comfortable and happy? Well, is that all you want?
上帝在这里的首要目的是减轻你的负担，而不是给你你想要的东西。你甚至不知道你想要什么。你想要的就是世界告诉你你想要的。安全、舒适和快乐？嗯，这就是你想要的一切吗？
You want a relationship. What are you going to do with a relationship? You do not even know where your life is going. How will you know who to be with? How will you choose the right person who is really meant to go where your life is meant to go?
你想要一段关系。你要如何对待这段关系？你甚至不知道你的生命将走向何方。你怎么会知道该和谁在一起？你如何选择一位真正注定与你同行的人？
Instead, you will choose a pretty face, a charming personality or a set of economic advantages. And your burden will simply increase. And your fear of Knowledge will increase because now you must protect the things that you have committed yourself to. And you will be afraid to question that commitment, afraid to challenge your servitude, afraid to reconsider where you are going and what you are doing.
相反，你会选择一张漂亮的脸蛋、一种迷人的人格或一套经济优势。你的负担只会增加。你对内识的恐惧也会增加，因为你现在必须保护你自己承诺的事情。你会害怕质疑那个承诺，害怕挑战你的奴役，害怕重新考虑你要去哪里以及你在做什么。
That is why it is usually only at times of great disappointment or personal loss that people will really be shaken out of their fixations enough to really reconsider what they are doing. This is a great opportunity. Everyone wants to avoid these circumstances, but they hold a great opportunity.
这就是为什么通常只有在极度失望或个人损失的时候，人们才会真正摆脱他们的执着，重新考虑他们正在做的事情。这是一个伟大的机会。每个人都想避免这些情况，但它们却蕴藏着一种伟大的机会。
As We have said, Knowledge within you will not be persuaded by anything else. It is free. It is free to be what it really is, without trying to be anything else.
正如我们所说，你内在的内识不会被任何其他事物所说服。它是自由的。它可以自由地成为它真正的样子，而不必试图成为任何其他事物。
To have this freedom, which is incomparable and cannot be compared with anything that the world can offer you, you must take the Steps to Knowledge. For Knowledge is God’s way of taking you there.
要获得这种无与伦比的自由，这种自由是世界上任何事物都无法比拟的，你必须开展内识的进阶。因为内识是上帝带你到达自由的方式。
You cannot fool Knowledge. It is without deception. It is without conflict within itself; therefore, it cannot be deceived. It is absolutely certain. It is simply waiting to rescue the rest of you who are lost out there in the world.
你无法欺骗内识。它没有欺骗。它本身没有冲突；因此，它无法被欺骗。它绝对确定。它只是等待着拯救你迷失在世界中的这个部分。
Your freedom is not really freedom from things, ultimately. It is freedom for something. At the outset, freedom is about becoming unburdened. It is trying to be free from things, trying to get away from circumstances and feelings and addictions—all the things that are locking your life up. But, ultimately, freedom is for something because you are here for something. You have to be free from things to find the freedom for things.
最终，你的自由并不是摆脱事物的自由。它是为了内识的自由。自由的开始就是摆脱负担。自由是试图摆脱事物，试图摆脱环境、感觉和瘾癖——所有束缚你生命的事物。但最终，自由是为了内识，因为你是为了内识而存在的。你必须摆脱事物才能找到内识的自由。
You have to break away. Most of this breaking away will be internal because if you simply change your circumstances and yet you are driven by the same ideas, the same compulsions, you will simply recreate your situation somewhere else. You will be the same unhappy, frustrated person in a different set of circumstances. Your predicament has not really changed.
你必须摆脱困境。这种挣脱大部分是内在的，因为如果你只是改变了你的处境，却仍然被同样的想法、同样的冲动所驱使，你就会在其他地方重蹈覆辙。在不同的环境中，你还是那个不快乐、沮丧的人。你的困境并没有真正改变。
You were sent into the world to engage with certain individuals to carry out a certain kind of contribution that is needed in the world. This contribution is not grandiose. You are not going to save the planet. You are not going to be a famous person who will be highly regarded and recognized.
你被派到这个世界上来，是为了与特定的人交往，做出世界上需要的特定贡献。这种贡献并不宏大。你不会拯救地球。你不会成为一个备受推崇和认可的名人。
Your service will be under likely very mundane circumstances. Perhaps there will be little or no recognition for you, but to Knowledge, it does not matter; to your soul, it does not matter. To Knowledge, it does not matter. To your soul, it does not matter.
你的服务很可能是在非常平凡的环境中。也许你很少或根本不会得到认可，但对内识来说，这并不重要；对你的灵魂来说，这并不重要。对内识来说，它是无关紧要的。对你的灵魂来说，它也是无关紧要的。
What Knowledge is here to do is to restore to you, in your awareness and in your life, the purpose that has brought you here. That is freedom. That is the freedom to be who you are and what you are and to do what you came here to do and to find those other people that will be critically important in enabling you to find and to accomplish what you came here to do.
内识在这里要做的，就是在你的觉知和生命中恢复你来到这里的目的。这就是自由。这是成为你是谁、你是什么、去做你来到这里要做的事情的自由，并找到那些对你至关重要的人，帮助你发现并完成你来到这里要做的事情。
To those who sent you into the world, that is the only freedom that really matters in the end. This is not to say that political freedom and social freedom and economic freedom are not important, for they are all contributing, and can contribute, to the well-being of people, and are greatly needed in so many places.
对于那些将你送入这个世界的天使存在来说，这才是最终真正重要的唯一自由。这并不是说政治自由、社会自由和经济自由不重要，因为它们都在为人民的福祉做出贡献，并且能够做出贡献，而且在许多地方都非常需要它们。
But We are speaking of the greater freedom that can enable you to serve people in these ways—to build opportunity and well-being for people and for other forms of life in the world, to help to restore the world, to stabilize the world’s condition, to end destruction, to end war, to end conflict, to learn to use resources more equitably and more sustainably. Such great needs in the world.
但我们谈论的是更伟大的自由，它能够让你以这些方式服务于人们——为人们以及世界上其他生命形式构建机会和福祉，帮助重建世界，稳定世界状况，结束破坏，结束战争，结束冲突，学会更公平、更可持续地使用资源。这是世界如此伟大的需求。
Knowledge will take you to meet one or two of these needs specifically. And you will not go alone. But first you must make the great transition.
内识会带你去满足其中一两个特定的需求。而且你不会孤身一人。但首先你必须完成伟大的转变。
To build a new life, you have to leave an old life. To gain a greater awareness, you have to leave an old awareness. You cannot put a new life on top of an old life. You cannot have a new understanding or experience of life built on an old understanding and experience.
要建立一种新的生命，你必须抛弃旧的生命。要获得一种更伟大的觉知，你必须抛弃旧的觉知。你不能把新的生命置于旧的生命之上。你不能在旧的理解和经验之上建立新的生命理解或经验。
You have to break away from one to find the other. And this breaking away is very natural. It is what your soul is yearning for. Your mind may want to believe and try to secure itself in its beliefs. But your soul wants to break free. It is a prisoner.
你必须摆脱其中一个才能找到另一个。这种摆脱是非常自然的。这是你的灵魂所渴望的。你的心灵可能想要相信并试图在信仰中保护它自己。但你的灵魂想要挣脱。它是一个囚犯。
Real happiness, real fulfillment, true relationship, genuine accomplishment, real satisfaction in life—they are all born out of doing what you came here to do, being what you were sent here to be. And only Knowledge within you knows what this is, what this means and how it can be achieved in the changing circumstances of your life.
真正的幸福、真正的满足、真实的关系、真正的成就、真正的生命满意度——它们都源自于做你来此要做的事、成为你被派来此要成为的人。只有你内在的内识知道这是什么、这意味着什么以及如何在你不断变化的生命境遇中实现它。
Already you know things you need to leave behind or set aside, and you know that you need things you do not have that are fundamental to you. Already the need of the soul is impressing itself upon you. Already you are beginning to see the shallowness of people’s pursuits, the weakness of their relationships, and the emptiness of their achievements because Knowledge has already spoken to you of these things through your experience.
你已经知道了你需要抛弃或搁置的事情，你也知道你需要你所没有的、对你至关重要的内识。灵魂的需求已经深深地印在了你的心中。你已经开始看到人们追求的肤浅、人际关系的脆弱和成就的空虚，因为内识已经通过你的经验向你讲述了这些事情。
Let this be a sign that a greater freedom is awaiting you, that there is a greater need in your life, that a world of growing difficulty represents an opportunity and not simply a calamity. It is an opportunity and an inducement for you to find Knowledge and to follow Knowledge.
让这成为一个迹象，表明更伟大的自由正在等待着你，表明你的生命中存在着更伟大的需求，表明一个日益困难的世界代表着一个机会，而不仅仅是一场灾难。这是一个机会，也是一个诱因，让你去寻找内识并追随内识。
Let the difficult times and the growing storm in the world tell you this. Allow the New Message from God that has been sent into the world for the protection and advancement of humanity, let it serve you by teaching you the Steps to Knowledge, for they are clear and uncorrupted. They have not been defiled by history and culture, politics and government. They have not been dominated by selfish and ambitious individuals. It is a pure pathway that you can choose.
让艰难时期和世界上日益加剧的风暴告诉你这一点。允许上帝为了保护和促进人类而发送到这个世界的新讯息，通过教导你内识的进阶来服务于你，因为它们是清晰和未受腐蚀的。它们没有被历史和文化、政治和政府玷污。它们没有被自私和野心勃勃的个人所支配。这是一条你可以选择的纯粹道路。
Allow God’s New Message to reveal to you why you are in the world at this time, where the world is going and what it will require of you. Allow the great revelation of humanity’s threshold to be shown to you and, fundamentally, respond to the calling of Knowledge.
允许上帝的新讯息向你揭示你为何身处当今世界，世界将走向何方以及它将对你提出什么要求。让人类门槛的伟大启示展现在你面前，并从根本上响应内识的召唤。
For only Knowledge knows. The mind thinks and Knowledge knows. Knowledge is your gift. It is a gift to receive and a gift to give. It is God’s great endowment for you, who must now find your way in the world.
因为只有内识知道。心灵思考，内识知道。内识是你的礼物。它是一份可以接收的礼物，也是一份可以给予的礼物。它是上帝赐予你的伟大馈赠，你现在必须在这个世界上找到你的道路。
