The Gift of Remembrance
Note: I wrote this article for the yearly book of tributes to my spiritual master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. But somehow the article was overlooked this year and didn’t get published, so I am publishing it here.
注：我写这篇文章是为了纪念我的灵性圣恩圣帕布帕德。但不知何故，这篇文章今年被忽略了，没有发表，所以我把它发表在这里。
In the Sri Chaitanya Charitamrta we find the following passage:
“Things that are very difficult to do become easy to execute if one somehow or other simply remembers Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. But if one does not remember Him, even easy things become very difficult. To this Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu I offer my respectful obeisances.” (Adi 14.1)
在《施瑞·柴坦尼亚·查瑞塔蜜瑞塔》中，我们发现了下面这段话：
“如果一个人以某种方式简单地记得主柴坦尼亚·玛哈帕布，那么很难做的事情就会变得容易执行。但是如果一个人不记得祂，即使简单的事情也会变得非常困难。我向这位主柴坦尼亚·玛哈帕布致以敬意。”(Adi 14.1)
But how can someone like me get the mercy of remembering Lord Caitanya?
Only one way: the mercy of Lord Caitanya’s devotee. And because of this mercy, the impossible has become easy.
As a hippie on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, I could not even hope to set foot on any path to the Absolute Truth. How could I? Could anyone today perform austerities like the sages and yogis of the past?
但是像我这样的人怎么能得到记住主柴坦尼亚的仁慈呢？
只有一个方法：主柴坦尼亚奉献者的仁慈。因为这种仁慈，不可能的事情变得容易了。
作为曼哈顿下东区的一名嬉皮士，我甚至不敢奢望踏上任何通往绝对真理的道路。我怎么会？今天还有人能像过去的圣人和瑜伽士一样苦行吗？
Like the Zen monk Hui Ke in the sixth century? He cut off his own arm and held it out to his teacher, Bodhidharma, in a desperate plea for enlightenment. And in more recent times, just before the Vietnam War, Buddhist monks in Saigon set themselves on fire in protest against persecution by the Catholic government. I saw the photos. Bodies engulfed in flames. But they sat calmly in meditation. Could I ever do that?
What about the Christian martyrs? They knelt in prayer while hungry lions leaped toward them, fangs bared? Me do that? I get weak in the knees if a little dog growls at me.
就像六世纪的禅宗和尚慧可？他砍断了自己的手臂，并把它交给他的老师菩提达摩，绝望地恳求开悟。在近代，就在越南战争之前，西贡的佛教僧侣自焚以抗议天主教政府的迫害。我看了照片。被火焰吞没的尸体。但他们平静地坐着沉思。我能做到吗？
基督教殉道者呢？他们跪着祈祷，饥饿的狮子向他们扑来，露出獠牙？我做那个？如果一只小狗对我咆哮，我的膝盖就会发软。
I wanted the Absolute Truth. Yes, but not the austerities.
Maybe LSD would be the way. But each time, as the drug wore off, the visions of golden lights faded into apartment walls. Sunsets over eternal beaches melted into unmade beds. Never any lasting knowledge. Where could I go from there?
我想要绝对的真相。是的，但不是苦行。
也许迷幻药是个好办法。但是每一次，随着药效的消退，金色灯光的景象消失在公寓的墙壁里。永恒海滩上的夕阳融化成未整理的床。从来没有任何持久的知识。从那里我能去哪里？
Lord Caitanya (right) is Krishna himself. His companion Lord Nityananda is Krishna’s brother Balarama. They advented themselves in India 500 yeara ago to enjoy the life of a devotee, 主柴坦尼亚(右)就是奎师那本人。祂的同伴主尼提阿南达是奎师那的兄弟巴拉茹阿玛。500年前，祂们降临到印度，享受奉献者的生活
But I didn’t have to go anywhere. No need to pack a suitcase or buy a ticket or stick my thumb out. Remembrance of Lord Caitanya came to the Lower East Side.
It came in the form of an elderly monk from India when Srila Prabhupada opened up the first Hare Krishna center at 26 Second Avenue. I stopped in the doorway that summer evening and listened to the chanting. I knew then that the impossible had become easy.
Here was the spiritual path for someone who lived on the Lower East Side. No need to cut off my arm or set myself on fire or leave the world behind and move into a monastery with rules I couldn’t follow.
但是我不需要去任何地方。不需要打包行李或者买票或者伸出我的大拇指。对主柴坦尼亚的记忆，来到了下东区。
一位来自印度的老和尚出现了——圣帕布帕德在第二大道26号开设了第一家哈瑞·奎师那中心。那个夏天的傍晚，我停在门口，听着诵经声。那时我知道不可能的事情变得容易了。
这是住在下东区的人的精神道路。没有必要砍掉我的胳膊或者自焚，或者离开这个世界，搬到一个有着我无法遵循的规则的修道院。
No need to sit up straight for hours in the leg-numbing lotus position. Just run my beads between my fingers and chant the Hare Krishna mantra any way I felt comfortable.
No need to rack my brain trying to figure out what this evasive Truth really was. Just open up the Bhagavad Gita, the book that describes what other books call indescribable.
不需要以腿部发麻的莲花坐姿直直地坐上几个小时。只是在我的手指间转动我的念珠，以任何我觉得舒服的方式吟唱哈瑞·奎师那曼陀罗。
没有必要绞尽脑汁试图弄清楚这种逃避的真相到底是什么。只要打开《博伽梵歌》，这本书描述了其他书籍所认为难以形容的内容。
What’s more, every day Prabhupada served meals of a delicious food called prasada, and I could learn to make it myself.
Thank you Srila Prabhupada.
此外，帕布帕德每天供应一种叫做帕沙达的美味食物，我可以自己学着做。
谢谢您，圣帕布帕德。
His Divine Grace Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada 圣恩·施瑞拉·巴克提韦丹塔·斯瓦米·帕布帕德
Not only had Prabhupada brought remembrance of Lord Caitanya to the Lower East Side, but the remembrance would follow me wherever I went in the world. It became my backpack.
The old saying goes that the heaviest luggage is an empty purse. But even when my purse was empty, this backpack was still full. Sometimes in my travels I found myself on the steet with no money or standing in the rain with no place to go.
But remembrance of Lord Caitanya made the impossible easy. And I knew Prabhupada was with me, even after he had left this world. Because remembrance of Lord Caitanya is always Prabhupada’s gift.
帕布帕德不仅将对主柴坦尼亚的记忆带到了下东区，而且无论我在世界上走到哪里，这种记忆都会伴随着我。它成了我的背包。
俗话说，最重的行李是一个空钱包。但是即使我的钱包是空的，这个背包仍然是满的。有时在旅途中，我发现自己身无分文地站在街上，或者在雨中无处可去。
但是对主柴坦尼亚的记忆让不可能变得容易。我知道帕布帕德与我同在，即使他已经离开了这个世界。因为对主柴坦尼亚的记忆总是帕布帕德的礼物。
Now, every day, I see news of the impossible on the internet. Some scientist is trying to unearth the secret of life: What started the first breath? the first heartbeat? But he can’t get to the essence.
现在，我每天都在网上看到不可能的新闻。一些科学家试图揭示生命的秘密：第一次呼吸是由什么开始的？第一次心跳？但他无法触及本质。
Once more, remembrance of Lord Caitanya makes the impossible easy. Just pick up the Bhagavad-Gita: “I am the life of all that lives,” says Krishna. And there’s the answer. Krishna is the missing factor in the scientist’s equation.
Yes, in the first lesson Srila Prabhupada handed me what the great scientists of the material world cannot grasp even after decades of trying. He made the impossible easy.
再一次，对主柴坦尼亚的记忆让不可能变得容易。只要拿起《博伽梵歌》：”我是所有生命的生命，“奎师那说。答案就在这里。奎师那是科学家等式中缺失的因素。
是的，在第一堂课中，圣帕布帕德教给我物质世界的伟大科学家即使努力了几十年也无法理解的东西。他让不可能变得容易。
But Prabhupada himself, with his unflinching remembrance of Lord Caitanya, performed the impossible on a magnificent scale. Who could have imagined that this humble monk could accomplish more than a dream? There he sat with his typewriter in a little room at the Radha Damodar Temple, using salvaged paper to translate and explain a scripture of 17,000 verses.
And how could this same poverty-stricken monk sail across the ocean on a freighter to a strange land where he knew nobody and start a worldwide spiritual movement attracting thousands of followers?
但是帕布帕德本人，带着他对主柴坦尼亚的坚定记忆，在宏伟的规模上完成了不可能的事情。谁能想到这个卑微的和尚能完成的不仅仅是一个梦想？他坐在茹阿达·达莫达尔神庙的一个小房间里，拿着打字机，用回收的纸张翻译和解释一部有17000节的经文。
同样是这个穷困潦倒的和尚，怎么能乘着货船漂洋过海来到一个陌生的地方，在那里他一个人都不认识，却发起了一场吸引成千上万信徒的世界性灵性运动？
I didn’t believe it when I met Prabhupada. How could the Hare Krishna Movement become a real movement? How could it grow beyond a little group of people in a storefront?
I didn’t know that remembrance of Lord Caitanya made the impossible easy. I didn’t know that Srila Prabhupada, the bearer of this remembrance, was offering it not only to me but to the whole world.
I cannot separate Prabhupada from remembrance of Lord Caitanya. Nor do I want to. I cringe when new people ask if they still need the spiritual master once they see Krishna. All I know is that whatever I have seen of Krishna has come from remembrance of Lord Caitanya.
当我遇见帕布帕德时，我不相信。哈瑞·奎师那运动如何成为真正的运动？它是如何超越店面中的一小群人而成长的？
我不知道对主柴坦尼亚的记忆让不可能变得容易。我不知道圣帕布帕德，这个记忆的承载者，不仅是给我，也是给整个世界。
我不能将帕布帕德与主柴坦尼亚的记忆分开。我也不想。当新人们问他们一旦见到奎师那是否还需要灵性导师时，我感到畏缩。我所知道的是，我所看到的奎师那都来自对主柴坦尼亚的记忆。
It’s like liberation. As long as you are serving a liberated soul, said Prabhupada, you are also liberated just as a wire connected to an electrical outlet is charged. But don’t break the connection.
And Prabhupada is my only connection for remembrance of Lord Caitanya.
就像解放了一样。帕布帕德说，只要你服务于一个被解放的灵魂，你就像一根连接到电源插座的电线被充电一样被解放了。但是不要中断连接。
帕布帕德是我记忆主柴坦尼亚的唯一联系。
So I pray to Krishna for this blessing: May I never think I have outgrown my need for Prabhupada. May I not grow bigger and bigger but shrink smaller and smaller, more and more helpless. May I never see anything that blocks my vision of Prabhupada.
因此，我向奎师那祈祷这种祝福：愿我永远不会认为我已经不再需要帕布帕德了。愿我不是越长越大而是越缩越小，越来越无助。愿我永远看不到任何阻挡我对帕布帕德视野的东西。
Prabhupada is everything to me. He is the hand that feeds me. He is the shepherd who leads me to green pastures. He is my morning sun and evening moon.
But above all, he is Prabhupada, my eternal spiritual master. He is taking me home, where I started from and never should have left, where I can live forever as his servant.
帕布帕德是我的一切。他是养活我的人。他是带我去绿色牧场的牧羊人。他是我的晨阳和暮月。
但最重要的是，他是帕布帕德，我永恒的灵性导师。他要带我回家，那是我开始的地方，也是我永远不该离开的地方，在那里我可以永远做他的仆人。
Bowing my head at the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada,
Umapati Swami, Vyasa Puja 2022
在圣帕布帕德的莲花足前低头，
乌玛帕提斯瓦米，维亚萨普珈 2022
Eternally touching my head to the floor at the lotus feet of my spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, for showing me all this.
~Umapati Swami, October 17 2022
在我的灵性导师圣帕布帕德的莲花足前，我的头永远贴着地板，感谢他给我展示了这一切。
~乌玛帕蒂·斯瓦米，2022年10月17日
Photo top: Naughty Krishna holding a piece of candy (Jishnu Das)
上图：淘气的奎师那拿着一块糖（知势努·达斯）
(Note: The opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any organization or any other person.)
Write to me: hoswami@yahoo.com
© Umapati Swami 2021
Scriptural passages © Bhaktivedanta Book Trust
(注：本文表达的观点为本人观点，不一定反映任何机构或任何其他人的观点。)
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© 乌玛帕蒂·斯瓦米 2021
经典章节 © BBT