Pathwork Lecture 2, Condensed Version for the Chinese Community

 第二课：

开启精神视觉，增加内部知识

Most people find life on this earth incomprehensible. They cannot recognize its meaning and purpose because they see only through their physical eyes. The contact with their spiritual eyes has not yet been established. Therefore everything seems meaningless—their sorrows, their trials, their loneliness. But when you understand that this life is one of many learning periods, one link in a long chain, you will at first sense and later comprehend more and more fully the connections. Then your goal will no longer be immediate happiness through the fulfillment of every single wish in this existence. You will instead direct your vision toward the whole. Thus you can bear the deprivations of this life. And thus you can pass the tests and fulfill the conditions necessary to enter a higher state of existence, a permanent happiness that cannot be taken away by any outside force.

多数人觉得地球上的生命不可思议。他们没法看到它的意义与目的，原因在于他们仅仅通过物质双眼看东西，却尚未建立起来与自己精神视觉的接触。于是一切都显得没有意义——他们的悲伤、磨难和孤独。但当你理解到这次生命只是许许多多学习阶段中的一段，只是一条长链中的一环时，你就会首先感觉到，并在之后领悟到这中间越来越多的内在联系。其后你的目标就不会再是通过实现这次存在过程中自己内心的某个愿望来获得那些便宜的快乐了。相反，你就会把目光转向整体。如此一来，你就可以承受这次生命中的缺失；然后你就能通过考验并达成进入更高层次的必要条件，（这种更高层次的存在是）一种无法被任何外力剥夺的恒久幸福。

After all, how fast each individual will proceed is up to his or her free will. One person may just drift along and have to reincarnate many, many times to overcome or fulfill one thing, experiencing it again and again. Others, who have recognized these basic truths, will act differently and direct their aim toward spiritual progress—which does not mean withdrawing from earthly problems. On the contrary:  for earthly and spiritual problems are very closely connected. An earthly problem is actually the expression of a specific spiritual problem. The difference is only in how the solution of a problem is sought, from what vantage point. Only if you solve the problem on the spiritual level can you find its true earthly solution.

归根结底，每个个体的成长速度是由他或她的自由意志决定的。有的人可能随波飘流，用许多许多次生命的时间来克服或者完成单独一件事，一遍又一遍地经历它。其他的人，认出了这些根本性真理，就改变行为方式并且将目标指向精神发展——而这并不是说简单地从世俗问题中退出。恰恰相反：因为世俗的问题和精神的问题是紧密联系的。一个世俗问题实际上是某个特定精神问题的展开表现。区别仅仅在于解决方法是怎样进行追求的，以及从何种有利位置出发。只有当你从精神层面着手解决问题时，你才能找到它真正的世俗解决方案。

We often see that people know this or that, but they still do not perceive the connecting links within themselves. They still look for God and for knowledge somewhere outside of themselves, for instance through increasing their outer knowledge—which in itself is good, but not enough. There must be continuous balancing. The acquired knowledge must always be applied on a personal level, digested and evaluated within, so that harmony is established. To achieve true progress, you have to grow from both sides. New outer knowledge has to be acquired when the old has been integrated and assimilated within. Knowledge must never remain theoretical. It must be put into practice and take root in your personal life. Thus every person needs to widen his or her knowledge of the true nature of creation and of the spiritual laws. But the outer knowing is only one part, which must not be taken as the whole. Without the other part, the inner assimilation, there can be no harmony in your progress, no real fulfillment, and thus actually no progress.

我们经常看到人们知道这、知道那，但他们仍然没有意识到它们在自己内部的联系钮结。他们会在身外的某处寻找上帝和知识，比如选择增加他们的外部知识——这本身是好的，只是还不够。需要有一种持续的平衡。那些新得的知识必须总是能应用到个人层面，在内心得到消化和评估，从而建立起一种（内外）的和谐。为了达到真正的进步，你们必须由（内外两边）同时成长。当旧的知识已经在内心得到整合与吸收时，就必须有新鲜的外部知识加入进来。知识永远不可以停留在理论上。它必须被运用于实践之中，并且在你的个人生活中扎根。因此每个人都需要增进他或她对于整个宇宙造物的真正本质和精神法则的知识。但外部知识只是其中一部分，一定不能被当成整体。没有另一部分，即内在消化吸收，你的进步中就不会和谐，就不会有真正的完成，于是实际上你并没有进步。

You have to get acquainted with yourself, attend to yourself, examine yourself, and acquire the discipline to overcome the resistance which is so difficult at the beginning. You have to observe all your notions about yourself which flatter you and with which it is so easy to deceive yourself. Then you have to cast them off or revise them. This work is something special, something different for each one of you, yet most of it is similar, or can even be the same. When we talk about the spiritual progress of the human being we mean something very individual for each one of you. And you, my dear ones, should search yourselves and ask:  “What hidden part of me still does not react according to the sole reality, the spiritual laws, even if only on a subtle, inner level?  Where do I lack clarity about certain things in myself?”

你必须得熟悉你自己，关注你自己，检查你自己，并且培养起一定的自律来战胜阻力，这一点在一开始是很困难的。你必须观察自己内心所有那些自视过高的看法、那些自我欺骗的手段，然后你必须抛弃或者改正。这项工作对你们每个人来说都是一件相对特殊、各不相同的事情，然而它的主体内容都是相似的，甚至还可能是一样的。当我们谈论人类的精神进展时，我们指的是一些对你们每一个人来说都特别个性化的东西。而你们，我亲爱的人们，应该搜寻你们自身并发出提问：“我内心隐藏的哪一部分仍然不会根据唯一的现实，根据精神法则，来做出反应，哪怕仅仅是在一个微妙的、内在的层次上？我在自己内心特定问题上的哪些地方缺乏清晰度？”

Such self-examination should go on at all times. Then you will be able to slowly eliminate that which is not yet right within you, so that you become happier. You have to be clear about what obstacles are in you, and to gain clarity you need inner search and also true inner will and effort. For if you lack happiness in any area, you can be sure that the lack is directly connected with a specific inner block. Were your wishes simply granted without your first eliminating the inner obstacles, that could never make you really happy. You could not build lasting happiness; it would have to dissolve. Only when you have established inner harmony, a relationship to God in which His laws are accomplished within you, is your soul mature enough to encompass happiness.

这样的自我排查应该是随时都在进行的。然后你就能慢慢地去掉那些你内心中还不正确的东西，这样你才能变得更快乐。你必须清楚地知道自己内心有哪些障碍，而要获得这种清晰的认识你需要进行内心省查并调动起真正的内在意志和力量。因为如果你在任何区面缺乏幸福感，你可以确定它是跟某个特定的内心障碍直接相关的。假如你的愿望在你还没有排除掉其中的内心障碍之前被轻易地满足了，那它永远不会给你带来真正快乐。你无法获得持久的快乐；它一定会烟消云散。只有当你建立起内心的和谐，让造物者经由你（的自我完成）来实现它的法则，你的灵魂才变得足够成熟，从而能承载幸福。