【心与物】进步只是一个幻觉

They were chanting in the temple. It was a clean temple of carved stone, massive and indestructible. There were over thirty priests, naked to the waist; their pronunciation of the Sanskrit was precise and distinct, and they knew the meaning of the chant. The depth and sound of the words made those walls and pillars almost tremble, and instinctively the group that was there became silent. The creation, the beginning of the world was being chanted, and how man was brought forth.

寺院里，他们正在唱着颂歌。这是一座洁净的寺院，用切割好的坚不可摧的巨大石头建成。那里有三十多位僧侣，上身袒露；他们的梵音精确而清晰，而且他们熟知颂歌的含义。那些词句的力度和音调几乎使墙壁和柱子震颤，恰好在那里的人们本能地变得安静。世界的起源、创世、人类是如何被创造的，所有这些正在被唱颂。

The people had closed their eyes, and the chant was producing a pleasant disturbance: nostalgic remembrances of their childhood, thoughts of the progress they had made since those youthful days, the strange effect of Sanskrit words, delight in hearing the chant again. Some were repeating the chant to themselves, and their lips were moving. The atmosphere was getting charged with strong emotions, but the priests went on with the chant and the gods remained silent.

人们合上双眼，颂歌营造出一种令人愉悦的悸动：对童年时光的追忆，对于自青年时期以来所取得的进步的思考，梵文词句的奇妙作用，重温这些颂歌的喜悦。一些人正在跟唱，他们的嘴唇蠕动着。空气里洋溢着强烈的情感，而僧侣们继续唱颂，诸神依然沉默。

How we hug to ourselves the idea of progress. We like to think we shall achieve a better state, become more merciful, peaceful and virtuous. We love to cling to this illusion, and few are deeply aware that this becoming is a pretence, a satisfying myth. We love to think that someday we shall be better, but in the meantime we carry on. Progress is such a comforting word, so reassuring, a word with which we hypnotize ourselves. The thing which is cannot become something different; greed can never become non-greed, any more than violence can become non-violence.

我们是多么执著于进步的观念啊！我们喜欢认为我们应该达到更好的状态，变得更仁慈、安静而高尚。我们喜欢执著于这个幻象，几乎没有人深刻地觉知到这是一场骗局，是一个让人满意的神话。我们喜欢想象有朝一日我们将变得更好，但是同时我们继续混着日子。进步是这样一个让人舒服、让人安心的词，一个我们借以自我催眠的词。实然所“是”的东西不可能变成别的东西，贪婪永远不可能变成不贪婪，就像暴力也不可能变成非暴力。

You can make pig iron into a marvellous, complicated machine, but progress is illusion when applied to self-becoming. The idea of the 'me' becoming something glorious is the simple deception of the craving to be great. We worship the success of the State, of the ideology, of the self, and deceive ourselves with the comforting illusion of progress. Thought may progress, become something more, go towards a more perfect end, or make itself silent; but as long as thought is a movement of acquisitiveness or renunciation, it is always a mere reaction. Reaction ever produces conflict, and progress in conflict is further confusion, further antagonism.

你可以把生铁块做成一部庞大复杂的机器，但是当牵涉到“我要成为”的时候，进步就只是一个幻觉。“我”要变成某种光彩夺目的东西的想法,只是那个想要变得“伟大”的欲望耍的一个小花招。我们崇拜国家的胜利，意识形态的胜利，自我的胜利，并且用令人舒服的进步的幻觉来欺骗自己。思想也许可以进步，变得更丰富，走向更完美的目标，或者让它自己沉默；但是只要思想是一种获得或放弃的活动，它就永远只是反应。反应永远在制造冲突，而冲突中的进步只是进一步的混乱，进一步的敌视。

Commentaries on Living, 'Progress and Revolution'

《生命的注释》之“进步与革命”