31.2  When we spirits observe human beings, we can see how badly you need spiritual nourishment. Your body is nourished, as is your intellect and even your emotional nature—though the latter not always with the best possible food. But when it comes to spiritual nourishment, most human beings starve themselves. There is a great confusion about what spiritual nourishment really means. It does not merely mean to read, hear, or learn about spiritual truth or law, about God and His creation. It does not even mean prayer and meditation which, of course, if done in the right way, is also a very important part of spiritual nourishment. However, the most important substance of spiritual food is self-development. Your innermost self, your divine spark, is constantly crying out for this food, but your conscious being refuses to hear the cry. When you are sad or depressed, when you are dissatisfied with your life whether for actual and rational reasons or not, it is always because your spirit is starved. Only that person can be truly happy and fulfilled who partakes of this most important food:  spiritual development. For there is no human being alive who has not the opportunity to become happy. It is in your hands, my friends. But you so often turn the wrong way; you seek happiness in the wrong direction; you blame others for your misfortunes; you blame fate, you blame God; you blame the alleged injustice of the world. But you do not take the one and only step that leads you to fulfillment through a deep sense of having lived your life the way your Creator had it in mind for you in this particular incarnation. It varies, of course, with each individual, for not everyone has to fulfill an incarnation in the same way. The same work or effort is not expected of everyone. But the one thing you should keep in mind, my friends, is that if you are not quite happy in spite of occasional outer difficulties, you have denied your spirit some of the nourishment it craves—most probably in the right way of self-development and self-recognition. Anyone hearing or reading these words has sufficient means to acquire this food.

 当我们观察人类时，我们可以看到你们是多么迫切地需要精神滋养。你们的身体能得到滋养，你们的智力，甚至你们的情绪本质也能得到滋养——尽管后者并不总能得到最理想的食物。但说到精神的滋养时，大多数人都在让自己饿着。于“精神滋养的真正意义”而言，人们心中存在着很大的困惑。人要做的，不仅仅是阅读、倾听、学习精神真理或精神法则。甚至，也不限于做冥想和祈祷。当然，如果方式正确的话，这些行为也是精神滋养非常重要的组成部分。然而，精神食粮中最重要的成份，其实是自我发展。你们内心最深处的自我、你们的神圣火花，一直在呼喊着，渴望得到这份食物，但你们清醒意识的自我却拒绝听取这份呼求。每当你感到难过或情绪低落时，每当你不管是出于现实或理性原因而对生活感到不满时，这其实都是因为你的精神感到了饥饿。只有那个摄入了这种最重要的食物的人，才能变得真正地快乐和满足，而这种食物就是精神/心灵发展。同时，没有哪个活人是没有机会变快乐的。这里的决定权握在你们手中，我的朋友们。但你们经常会转向错误的方向；你们在错误的方向上寻求幸福；你们把自己遇到的不幸怪罪到别人头上；你们责怪命运，你们责怪神祇；你们抱怨所谓的“世事不公”。可你唯独没有迈出通向圆满的那唯一的一步，这一步会带你进入一种深刻感觉，你会感觉到活出了造物主为你的今生所构想的生活。当然，这一步对每个人来说都不一样。因为绝非每个人都需要以相同方式来圆满完成自己的人生。造物者对每个人要做出的工作和努力的预期与要求都不相同。但你们应该记住的一件事，我的朋友们，如果你感觉不到快乐，即便外在的困境只是偶然才发生，你就已经拒绝了自己的精神所渴望的那部分滋养——而且这种滋养很可能是进行自我发展和自我认识道路上的一部分。任何听到或读到这些话的人都有足够的能力和手段，来获得这份食粮。

 31.3  In my previous lectures I have mentioned several attitudes in the human soul which are what you might call God-eclipsing. Last time I explained that pride, self-will, and fear underlie all faults and are responsible for all unhappiness and all untruth that exists in the human soul. To continue this series of lectures on self-development, I will discuss tonight a new subject:  shame.

 在之前的讲座中，我提到了几种存在于人类灵魂中的态度，你们可能会称之为“遮蔽神性”。上次讲座时我解释了，人的一切过错背后都涉及到骄傲、固执己见和恐惧，这三种根本问题引发了人类灵魂中所有的不快乐和所有的不真实。为了继续进行这一系列关于自我发展的讲座，今晚我会讨论一个新的主题：羞耻。

 31.4  There is a right kind and a wrong kind of shame. The right kind of shame is true repentance. Without this kind of shame, there could never be an incentive for self-development. Without it, no one would ever undergo the noble fight, my friends, against one’s lower self; no one would take the path of purification if this shame did not exist within. True repentance is therefore constructive and very positive. But there is also shame of the wrong kind. Human beings so often confuse the two kinds of shame that now I want to devote some of our time together to this subject.

 羞耻有正面的，有负面的。正面的羞耻感是真正的悔悟。如果没有这种羞耻感，人就永远不会有自我发展的动机。如果没有它，我的朋友们，就永远不会有人去进行那高贵的斗争，去与自己的低层自我进行战斗；如果心中没有这种羞愧感，就不会有人选择自我净化的道路。因此，真正的悔悟是非常具有建设性、非常积极的态度。不过也有另一种错误的羞耻感。人们经常把这两种不同的羞耻感弄混淆。因此我想花一些时间来一起关注这个主题。

 31.5  What is the wrong kind of shame?  We might call it a guilt-complex which, of course, is entirely destructive and negative. What do your emotions actually say—even though you certainly do not consciously think so—when you have the wrong kind of shame?  They say:  “I am hopelessly bad, and there is nothing that can be done about it.”  With this attitude you not only wallow in self-pity, but express a sluggishness that prohibits your working actively on the elimination of that which is wrong within you. Furthermore, this attitude becomes more and more unreasonable and unjust, for you demand and expect respect and love from others although you do not respect and love yourself. Mind you, this is not because of your shortcomings. In the deepest regions of your being you cannot respect yourself because of the wrong attitude, the wrong kind of shame that makes you passive where you should be active.

 什么是错误类型的羞耻？我们可以把它称为一种“悔恨情节”，当然了，这是一种完全毁灭性、负面的态度。当你有这种错误的羞耻感时，你的情绪（尽管你在表面上觉察不到它们的真实内容）实际上都在说什么呢？你的情绪会说：“我糟得无可救药的，没有办法。”在这种态度下，你不仅会沉溺在自怨自艾的过程中，而且会表现出一种惰怠不振，这种惰怠会阻止你去积极地消除掉自己内心实际上存在的问题。另外，这种态度会变得愈加不合理和不厚道，因为这时，你会在不尊重自己的情况下要求和期望别人尊重你、爱你。请注意，这个情况不是由于你的缺点（本身）导致的。在你内心最深处的地方，你实际上是出于这种错误的态度，而没法尊重自己，也就是这种在你应该保持积极状态时，却把自己限制在消极被动的状态中的态度。

 31.6  Thus, you find yourself in a vicious circle:  the more you deny to yourself the experience of the constructive shame that would make you lift yourself up and work on yourself with realistic self-recognition—the foundation of self-development—the more you despise yourself. The more you do that, the more you need to demand love and respect from others to make up for the lack of self-respect. The blind, unconscious, and immature side of you believes that if you receive sufficient appreciation from others, it will make up for the lack of self-respect you can never truly possess unless you fulfill the basic spiritual laws within your own soul and unless you do the maximum of what can be expected of you in self-development according to your overall spiritual development.

 于是，你发现自己处在一个恶性循环中：正面的羞耻会使你振作起来，并从实事求是的自我认识出发——而这正是自我发展的根基和出发点——来不断改善自己，你越是拒绝采取这种具有建设性的态度，你就越鄙视自己。而你越是鄙视自己，就越需要从别人那里要求爱和尊重，来弥补缺少的自我尊重。你心中盲目、无意识而不成熟的那一面认为，只要你从别人那里得到足够的欣赏，它就能弥补自己缺乏的自我尊重，而实际上，自我尊重只有在你满足了自己灵魂内部的基本精神法则时、在你最大限度地完成了符合自己总体精神发展水平的自我发展预期时，才能真正得到。

 31.7  I know, my friends, that no one thinks these thoughts consciously, but if you would test your emotions, examine their demands as to what they actually mean and express, this is what you would find. Remember—and this is very important—your lack of self-respect is not due to your faults, weaknesses, shortcomings, and sins—no matter what they may be—but it is due to your wrong kind of shame. The moment you exchange the wrong shame for the right, I can promise you that in the measure this change takes place, you must develop true and justified self-respect long before the faults in you have disappeared. You do not have to be perfect in order to respect yourself. All you have to do is to adopt a realistic and constructive attitude toward your imperfections. The more your self-respect is established, the less you will crave for the respect of others, for you are then resting secure within yourself. And this will so change your inner attitude and your emanations that you will have a different effect on others; this will make it so much easier for the people around you to actually give you the love and respect you desired in the first place.

 我知道，朋友们，没人会清醒地思考这些想法，但如果你能检测自己的情绪，检查它们提出的要求背后的真实意义，这就是你会发现的情况。请记住——这一点很重要——你自我尊重的缺乏不是由于自己的缺点、弱点、短处和罪本身导致的，无论它们本身是什么；而是由你错误种类的羞愧感导致的。一旦你把错误的羞耻转变成正确的，我可以保证，与这种转变发生的程度相对应，你一定会在自己内心相关的缺点被排除掉之前，就可以培养起真实而合理的自我尊重。你不需要等到自己完美的时候才能尊重自己。你只需要采取一种切实的、具有建设性的态度来看待自己的不完美之处。你的自我尊重建立得越好，你就越不会渴求来自别人的尊重，因为这时你内心是很安稳的。这进而会改变你的内部态度和你周身的放射力，使你给周围的人带来一种不同的影响和效果；然后，这又会使你周围的人觉得给你爱和尊重是一件自然而然的事情，于是你轻易地得到自己最初渴望的东西。

 31.8  Perhaps it has not occurred to you that the wrong kind of shame comes from your pride and furthers your pride even more. This may sound paradoxical at first. Let me explain it this way:  Your lower self with all its shortcomings is a factor to reckon with if you do not want to escape your present reality. The more you try to escape the facts of your life, the sicker your soul must become. By having the wrong kind of shame, you do escape reality, for what your emotions express is that you will not accept yourself as you really are. The moment you hopelessly despair about the lower side of your nature, you have not accepted yourself as you are. It means you are lacking the humility of courageously facing everything about yourself—and that is pride.

 也许你没有想到的是，那种错误类型的羞愧来自于你的骄傲，并且会愈加助长你的骄傲。这在一开始听起来可能有些矛盾。让我这样解释：你的低层自我，包括它所有的缺点，是一个无法忽视的重要因素，尤其是当你不想回避自己目前处境的时候更是这样。你越是想逃避自己生活中的事实，你的灵魂就一定越病态。通过采取错误种类的羞愧感，你确实逃避了现实，因为你的情绪所表达的态度是：你不想接受自己目前真实的样子。当你对自己本性中的低级层面感到无尽的绝望时，这说明你还没有实事求是地接受自己。这说明你缺少一种勇敢面对自己全部本性的谦逊态度——而这就是骄傲。

 31.9  Let me stress once again:  Intellectually you know that you are imperfect, but emotionally you don’t. Often there is a wide chasm between what you know and think consciously and what your emotions claim and desire. It is not at all difficult to make the emotions conscious if only you are willing to take the trouble to translate them into concise thoughts, but it needs a little effort. Your emotions claim perfection before this perfection can be yours. You place yourself higher than the efforts you have so far taken would warrant. At the same time, you do know, or at least feel, that you are not there yet. Instead of consciously recognizing this fact and slowly working up to the point where you want to be, you become angry at the world and at yourself for being what you are and refuse to make the inner effort to become what you want to be. So the wrong kind of shame means pride, laziness, injustice, and escape from your present reality. This is what makes you feel guilty, my friends, and not the actual faults you may possess. These would never make you feel guilty, provided you adopted the right kind of shame in which you accepted yourself in humility as you are at present, not fleeing from your reality, and thus building up from there—slowly, step by step. It is the only realistic and constructive way to change and develop.

 让我再次强调：智力层面上，你们知道自己是不完美的，但情感上，你们不知道这一点。通常来说，你们在清醒思维下知道和思考的东西，与你们的在情感上所宣称并渴望的东西之间，存在着一条巨大的鸿沟。想要把情感（中隐藏的意味）变得更加清醒、更加有意识完全不是什么难事，只要你愿意花功夫把它们翻译成简洁的思想就行了，但这需要人做出一点努力。情感层面上，你们在实际得到完美状态之前就宣布自己已经拥有它了。你们把自己放在了高于自己目前实际做出的努力所能带来的效果的位置上。与此同时，你们也知道，或者至少感觉到，自己的程度确实还不够。然而，人们不仅没有有意识地接受这个事实然后慢慢地朝理想状态靠拢，反而变得对这个世界不满，变得对自己的真实情况不满，并且拒绝付出内心努力去变成自己想要的样子。所以，错误的羞愧感意味着骄傲，懒惰，不合理，以及对自己当前现实的逃避。这才是使你们感到内疚的东西，我的朋友们，而不是你们实际可能拥有的缺点。那些缺点本身绝不会使你们感到内疚，前提是你拥有正确的羞愧感，并以谦逊的态度接受自己当前的情况，不逃避它，进而以它为起点，慢慢地、一步一步地走下去。这是进行改变和发展的唯一实际而有建设性的方式。

 31.10  The wrong attitude brings further hazards, however. Because of your pride and your need for respect and love from others, you begin to withdraw from what you really think and feel about yourself and hide it behind a wall, so to speak. You dare not stand up for who you really are because your emotions say that if you were yourself, you would be despised. As I said before, the more you lack self-respect, the more important the respect of others becomes to you. So you create a mask self. In some subtle way, you become a fake. And that, in turn, makes you even more despondent and you despise yourself even more. The vicious circle continues in full force and carries you into deeper emotional conflicts until you develop the courage and humility to break it. Please do not confuse standing up for who you really are which includes your lower self, with giving in to the impulses of your lower self in your deeds. There is a vast difference between that and a simple recognition and acceptance of what you are, without building up a different personality for the outside world to appear better. One often establishes a fake “real self” for the very reasons explained here.

 然而，错误的态度会带来新一层的危险。由于这种骄傲，以及对来自别人的尊重和爱心的需要，你开始远离那些自己的真实想法和感觉，然后，可以说，你把它们藏在了一堵墙后面。你不敢坚定捍卫真正的自己，因为你的情感在说：如果你真的是自己的话，你就会被鄙视。如我之前所说，你越是缺乏自我尊重，别人的尊重对你来说就越重要。于是你创造出了一个“面具自我”。以某种微妙的方式，你变成了一件假货、一个冒充者。而这，反过来使你变得更加抑郁沮丧，于是你更加鄙视自己了。就这样，这种恶性循环发挥出充足的效力，把你卷入越来越深的情感冲突中，直到最终你能培养起足够的勇气和谦逊态度来打破它为止。请不要把“坚定捍卫真实的自己（这其中也包含了你的低级自我）”跟“在实际行动上屈服于自己低级自我的冲动”混为一谈。单纯地认清自己的实际情况然后接受自己的现状，同时不创造出一种企图迷惑外界的虚假人格，这种做法与实际屈服于低级自我的冲动之间，是有巨大的不同的。然而，人们常常正是出于这些原因，而建立起一种虚假的“真实自我”。

 31.11  As long as you feel sad, bitter, defiant, or disharmonious in any way when you encounter your faults, you have not yet accepted yourself as you are. Again you have to strive for the middle path. Accepting does not mean wanting to stay in a state of imperfection. It means that you first have to learn to accept your state of imperfection. You should also find out whether you desire to be cherished for your shortcomings as a compensation for your imagined inability to change and thus come to cherish yourself. When you have made such and other unreasonable emotions conscious, it will be easy to direct them into proper channels.

 当你面对自己的缺点时，只要感觉到任何的悲伤、痛苦、抗拒或不和谐，就说明你还没有“如你所是”地接受自己。同样，你必须努力走中间道路：接受并不是说你想要停留在不完美状态，它意味着你必须首先学会接受自己这个状态。此外，你应该找出，你是否渴望让他人来珍爱你的缺点，作为一种你想象出来的无能为力的补偿：即无力去做出改变并因此珍爱自己。当你认识到这些不合理的情绪时，就很容易把它们引导到正确的通道中。

 31.12  When you are capable of really and truly accepting yourself as you are, not desiring to appear better than you are, you have fulfilled the basic requirement to be on this path, my friends. Before that, you are not on it as yet, but merely in a state of preparation for entering the gate leading to it. In other words, as long as there is the wrong kind of shame in you, you cannot advance on this path; you have to exchange it for the right kind of shame.

 当你能够真正如实地接受自己，并不想显得比实际情况更好，你就已经满足了这条路的基本要求。如果做不到，你就还没有上道，但仍处于准备阶段，在进入此路的大门之外。换句话说，只要内在还有错误的羞愧，你在这条道路上就无法进步，必须将它改变为正确的羞愧。

 31.13  The wrong kind of shame will create a state of mind that is not only extremely unhealthy, as I outlined just now, but will also make you feel more and more alone. Whenever you feel lonely and not understood, please realize that, at least to some degree, the condition I have described must be responsible for it and not other people’s lack of love and understanding. No matter how incapable of love the people around you may be, you would never feel lonely if this wrong attitude were not somehow prevailing within you. So do not seek a remedy from without, but turn around within and look at yourself from this point of view.

 错误种类的羞愧感会造成一种心理状态，它不仅极为不健康（如我刚才解释的），而且会让你感到越来越孤独。每当你感到孤独而不被理解时，请意识到这一点：这种结果肯定是我前面描述的情况造成的，而不是由于别人缺乏关爱和理解造成的。不管你周围的人可能多么缺乏爱心，如果不是这种态度在你心中占据了上风的话，你是绝不会感到孤独的。所以不要从外界寻求补救，而是要调转方向转向内心，从这个角度去观察自己。

 31.14  You, whoever you are, may feel ashamed of something. Whether it be big or small, grave or unimportant, is not the point. You cover it up; you hide it; you appear to be without that something of which you are ashamed. This is the wall that separates you from others. But in this way you can never be sure that you are really loved and appreciated. For this little voice in you keeps saying:  “If they only knew how I really am and what I have done, they would not love me.”  That makes you feel alone, suffering, and cold. You think that all the affection given to you is destined for the person you appear to be and not for the person you really are. Of course you are insecure and lonely in that state. But only you can change it—no one else.

 不管你是谁，你都可能对某事物感到羞愧。此事物是大是小，严重还是不严重，都无关紧要。你把它掩盖住，你把它藏起来，显得好像没有这件事一样。这才是把你跟其他人隔开的那堵墙。

但这样一来，你永远无法确定自己是否真的被爱、被欣赏。因为你内心有一个小小的声音不停地在嘀咕：“只要他们知道我的真实面目，知道我的所做所为，他们就不会再爱我了。”

“如果他们知道我的实际情况，以及我做了什么，他们就不会爱我了。”正是这种想法，让你感到孤独、痛苦、寒冷。你以为，所有人对你的爱，都是朝向你伪装成的那个人，而不是给真正的你。在这样的情况下，你当然会感到不安全、孤独。但只有你可以改变它，别人不行。

 31.15  It will be easy for you to see that the only remedy for this constant state of loneliness, of insecurity, and of growing self-despisal is the one step that appears hardest to you, namely to break down the shame and stand up for what you really are. The more you try the other way, the way of subtle deception, the deeper your dilemma will be. You have seen that. So it is up to you to take the one courageous step of becoming yourself and gaining true security and the true appreciation of your friends. For they who are spiritually developed and capable of love will most certainly not love you less; quite the contrary. And they who are immature and therefore incapable of love will not be retracting their love for you since they never really gave it nor did you ever really own it. For such people find themselves in exactly the same spot as you are in now:  craving for affection, respect, and love to assuage their own lack of self-respect, absent because they too do not have the courage to be themselves. Their kind of love was an illusion in the first place. So the only way to build a secure ground on which to stand is to stop the pretense you have laboriously cultivated all your life. This seems a hard step at first, my friends.

 显而易见的是，要补救这种持续状态下的孤独、缺乏安全感和不断增长的自卑，你要做的，正是要迈出在你看来最困难的一步，说白了就是要打破（错误类型的）羞愧感，然后坚持真正的自己。你越想采取另一种方式，也就是那种微妙欺骗的方式，你的困境就会变得越深。你们已经看过这种结果了。所以你们要做的就是勇敢地迈出“成为你自己”的这一步，进而得到真正的安全感和来自你朋友们的真正理解和欣赏。因为那些精神/心灵层面成熟稳定，并且有能力给出爱心的人，绝不会因此而减少对你的爱；恰恰相反。而那些精神/心灵不成熟，从而没有能力给出爱心的人也不会收回对你的爱，因为他们从来没有真正给出过爱，你也从来没有真正得到过来自他们的爱。这些人会发现他们的处境与你现在一模一样：渴望得到（别人的）喜爱、尊重和爱心，以此来减轻由他们自己缺乏自我尊重而导致的不适，因为他们也没有勇气来做自己。他们的爱在一开始就是一种幻觉。所以，想要构建坚实的土地从而让自己站稳，唯一的方法就是停止你生命中一直在努力培养的各种矫饰和假装。这在一开始看起来确实是很困难的一步，我的朋友们。

 31.16  Again, I want to stress that you are not expected to tell your secrets to everyone you meet. Choose the right person to open up to; choose the person who can help you. Then choose the people with whom you are really close and those who know you as you really are. Otherwise, you can never be yourself. It is not a question of what you say, but rather of what you feel; a question of your inner attitude. In order to adjust your emotions from the wrong kind of shame to the right kind, all you have to do is delve into your emotions and, as I so often say, translate them into clear-cut concise thoughts. Then, when you see the unreasonableness of the immature side of your soul, you can readjust them. Only when you do that will you be able to take the next step. Only then will you have security and self-respect. For as long as you hide behind a wall of falsity, you must despise yourself—much more than a brother or sister of yours who may have many more weaknesses but who has the courage to live without pretense and act according to the real self. It is not how good you are or how many weaknesses you still have that determines your self-respect. Self-respect—and as a result of it also the respect of others—can only be measured by how true you are to yourself, or how much you deceive and escape yourself, or how much you hide behind a wall of pretense. This wall of pretense is not something easily recognizable from the outside. It is something subtle within that only you yourself can find, by testing and probing your emotions and their meaning.

 我想再次强调的是，你不需要把自己的秘密告诉你遇到的每一个人。选择合适的人进行诚实的交流；选择能帮到你的人。然后选择与你关系非常紧密的人，以及真正了解你的人。不然的话，你永远无法真诚地做自己。问题不在于你说什么，而在于你的感觉是什么；问题在于你的内心态度。想要把自己的情绪从错误种类的羞愧感转为正确的，你只需要潜入自己的情绪中，然后如我经常所说的，把它们翻译成简明扼要的思想就可以了。然后，当你看到自己灵魂中不成熟一面的不合理性时，你就可以重新调整它们了。只有当你做到这一点的时候，你才能开展下一步。只有这时你才能获得安全感和自我尊重。因为只要你还躲在一堵假象的墙之后，你就一定会鄙视自己——这种鄙视要远大于你可能对一个虽然有更多弱点但是有勇气不加掩饰地活着、按照真实自我行事的人产生的鄙视。决定你自我尊重的东西不是你有多好，或者你还有多少缺点。是否尊重自己——以及由此产生的是否尊重别人——只能由你对自己有多么诚实，以及你对自己进行了多少欺骗和逃避，以及你在虚假矫饰的墙后面隐藏了多少东西来决定。这堵进行掩饰和矫饰的墙不是那么容易就能从外界识别出来的。它是内心中一种微妙的东西，只有你自己，通过不断检测和摸索自己情绪和它们背后的意义才能发现它。

 31.17  True repentance in the positive sense means to simply take stock of the self and to accept its weaknesses in their present state, with the deep desire to change. At the same time you need to acknowledge that the change can only come by again and again recognizing the deeply ingrained faults and comparing the faulty reactions to the ideal state. Thus you learn humility.

 真正的积极意义上的悔悟，指的是对自己做出盘点核对，然后根据实际情况接受自己的弱点，同时心怀深刻的做出改变的欲望。与此同时你需要承认，改变只有通过一次次地认识到自己各种根深蒂固的缺点，然后把它们与理想状态进行比较的方式才能得到。这样，你们就会逐渐拥有谦逊的态度。

 31.18  The moment you do not wish to appear better or more than you are, even in your own eyes, you will have taken yourself down from the high place in which you have put yourself. You can start rebuilding only after you have torn down the false edifice. If you have the courage to stumble a thousand times over the same faults and forever lift yourself up to try again, then you pay God the debt you owe Him; then you are worthy of His grace; then you are truly on the path. Then you rid yourself of pride and falsity long before you are perfect in all the details of your personality. Thus you approach perfection much faster than you think, in spite of some of your stubborn shortcomings that linger on. In that way you must win. But if every time after having stumbled again over the same fault you become so despondent that you despair of yourself, wishing to give up, and you consider self-acceptance to be senseless, then you have the destructive and weakening kind of shame, which will never get you anywhere. For as long as you despair so easily, there is too much pride in you, and then the healing, curative action of being able to observe your own weaknesses in the true light of what they are, neither exaggerating nor diminishing them, will not be able to affect your soul.

 当你不想再表现得比实际情况好，哪怕在自己眼中都如此的时候，你就已经把自己从之前高高在上的位置上拿下来了。你只有在拆除了之前的大厦之后才能开始重建工作。如果你有勇气在相同的错误上摔倒一千次，却总能爬起来再试一次，你就付给了上帝你欠祂的东西；这时你就值得拥有祂的恩典；这时你就真正走在了道路上。这时，远早于你人格中所有细节都变得完美前，你已经铲除了自己的骄傲和虚伪。就这样，尽管你还有一些固执的缺点在延续，你（会发现自己）接近完善状态的速度变得比之前预想的快很多。以这种方式，你一定会取得胜利。但如果每次摔倒在相同错误上之后，你变得如此沮丧、意志消沉以至于变得自我绝望，想要放弃，认为接受自我是没有意义的，那么你就进入了那种毁灭性的、令人软弱的羞愧情绪之中，这种状态不会给你带来任何进展。因为只要你仍然会如此轻易地绝望，你内心就还有太多的骄傲自负，于是那种具有修复性、治愈性的行为，那种能切实客观、既不夸大也不贬低地观察自己的弱点的行为，就无法影响到你的灵魂。

 31.19  So, my friends, do not despair if you have no success for quite a while in overcoming your weaknesses. You may perhaps understand now that here you have a great curative agent for remedying something even more important than the actual weakness you are treating. You will learn the right kind of shame and self-acceptance, which brings humility, overcomes pride, and shows you how to live in your own reality. If you were soon very successful in overcoming your individual faults, it might make you even prouder, and pride is more harmful than many other faults. Apart from that, the faults you are battling against have been ingrained in you often for many incarnations, so you cannot expect to get rid of them within a few years. However, if you are capable of facing these weaknesses; if you meet them with open eyes and a healthy attitude and learn even while you are still stumbling over them; if you have the humility to face yourself knowing where you really belong—not too low, nor too high—then even though you are still imperfect, you are laying the foundation to a very healthy and normal inner attitude.

 所以，我的朋友们，不要因为一段时间内都没能成功战胜自己的弱点而感到绝望。你们现在也许能理解到，这里存在一种用来修复某种比你实际正在处理的弱点更加重要的东西的治愈成份。你将学到正确的羞愧感和自我接纳，它们会给你带来谦逊的态度，战胜你的骄傲，并告诉你如何正确面对自己生活的现实。如果你很快就十分成功地克服了自己的个人缺点，这就可能使你变得越加骄傲自负，而自负比其他很多缺点害处都大。另外，你正在对抗的那些缺点通常是许多次降世中根深蒂固地存在的，所以不要指望几年之中就能摆脱掉它们。不过，如果你能面对这些弱点；如果你以宽阔的视角和健康的态度来应对它们，并能在自己仍然没有摆脱它们时就进行学习；如果你以谦逊态度面对自己，知道自己的位置——不是特别低，也不是特别高——那么哪怕你仍然不很完善，你已经在为一种非常健康、非常正常的内心态度打下基础了。 

32.20  Think and meditate about this, my friends. It is not sufficient to just hear or read my words once, for that will not be the kind of spiritual food that helps you to discover where your feelings still deviate from the ideal state. Find the echo within you to direct you in your daily strivings and in your daily spiritual work. When you do that, you will be giving yourself the food your spirit needs. 

思考并冥想下这些内容，我的朋友们。只听或读一遍我的话是不够的，因为以那种方式得到的精神食粮不足以帮你找到那些自己的感觉仍然偏离于理想状态的地方。找到自己内心产生的回声，让它们在你每天的努力和精神工作中指引你。当你做到这一点的时候，你就给自己带来了你的精神/心灵所需要的食物。 

32.21  Perhaps you now begin to sense why it is so necessary to be able to talk openly about yourself to a qualified person and then to the people you are really close to. For as long as you keep things hidden within you, everything gets out of proportion. You may exaggerate one thing and underestimate another. But a person who is detached from your problems and your inner struggles may see things in the right light. As I have often said in private sessions, there is a spiritual law which applies equally to psychoanalysis and confession. It is the law of brotherhood. The moment you open up to another person, you risk an act of humility. At that moment with that person you do not want to appear more perfect than you are. That is one of the most harmful human tendencies, my friends. When you show yourself to one person as you are, you will instantly feel the relief your spirit has cried for, even if that person does not give you a single piece of advice. 

也许现在你们能开始感觉到，为什么能够去跟一个有资质的人，进而跟与你很亲近的人们直率地讨论自己是如此有必要的一件事。因为只要你还在内心有所保留，事情就都会变得没有分寸感。你可能会夸大某件事，然后低估另一件事。但对一个身处你遇到的问题和你内心挣扎之外的人来说，他或她能以正确的眼光看待问题。我经常在私人讲座中说，有一条精神法则同等适用于精神分析和忏悔/告解。这就是兄弟情义法则。当你对另一个人敞开自己时，你就承担起了一份谦逊举动的风险。在这一时刻，在这个人面前，你没有想要表现得比自己实际情况更完美。这种想表现得不一样的倾向，是人类习惯中最有害的行为之一，我的朋友们。当你如实地把自己展现给别人时，你会感觉到自己的精神/心灵所渴求的那种放松和解脱，哪怕那个人不给你提供任何一条建议都一样。 

32.22  Your spirit suffers when you act against its laws. And you feel better all of a sudden when you are able to humbly reveal yourself. The law of brotherhood is working. Something in you says, “At this moment I do not want to appear better than I am. I want to show myself as I am; I do not strive for respect and love that I think is not really due me because of the things of which I am ashamed.”  Though you are wrong in that too, for love and respect are due every living creature. In the distorted view you suffer loneliness and you go on pretending in some subtle way. The wrong kind of shame also violates the law of brotherhood. Thus you may see once again how every inner feeling can be right when it comes from the godself. However, the same can be distorted by luciferic powers. It is so also with shame. 

当你的行为与精神法则相悖时，你的精神就会因此受苦。而当你能谦逊地显示自己时，突然之间你会感到舒服很多。这时，兄弟情义法则正在产生作用。你心中有种东西在说：“这一刻我不想显得比我实际情况要好。我想要真实地显示自己；因为某些我为之感到羞愧的东西，我认为自己不应该真正得到的尊重和爱心，但是，我不会因此进行争吵和索求。”虽然这一点上你也是错的，因为爱心和尊重是每个活着的生物应得的，（但这没有关系）。在之前那种扭曲的观念中，你承受着孤独的痛苦，同时继续以微妙方式进行假装。错误种类的羞愧感也违反了兄弟情义法则。所以这里你也可以看到，为什么当情感来自神性自我时，一切内心感觉都可以是正确的。不过，同样这些来自神性自我的感觉也可以被路西法性质的力量扭曲掉。羞愧感也属于这种情况。 

32.23  So I say to you, my friends, when you really and truly desire to develop along this path you will find guidance at a certain point. You will be almost pushed into a corner where you will open up for your own salvation. Of course, you always have your free will and this we spirits will respect at all times and never violate it, even if we do know what may seem so difficult for you to express. But you have to do the talking. We will not do it for you. You are always free, therefore, to refuse and retire deeper into your corner and resent that you are being pushed in this direction. However, you can also take the opportunity and step out of your hiding place, open your eyes, and see that herein lies your salvation. It is up to you. 

所以我对你们说，我的朋友们，当你真正、真心地渴望在这条道路上进步时，你会在某个节点上得到引导。你几乎会被推到一个角落里，在这里你会为了自己的拯救而打开自己。当然了，你永远都有自己的自由意志，我们魂灵们在任何时候都会尊重这一点，并且永远不会侵犯它，尽管我们确实知道你想表达，却对其感到很困难的东西是什么。但必须由你来实际做这件事。我们不会替你做。正因如此，你总是可以自由地拒绝这样做，然后更深地退回自己的角落中，然后怨恨自己被推向这个方向的事实。然而，你也可以选择借此机会走出自己的藏身之处，睁开双眼，看到自己的拯救就在此处。这取决于你。 

32.24  When guidance appears in the form of an unpleasant test, you cannot fully understand what is happening. Yet it is there to help you do what is necessary. Such an opening up of your personality is healing. You think of these experiences as hardships. Once you understand, however, why they are necessary you will cease to see them in that way. You are like children; you do not know what is good for you. And God’s helpers who are all around you constantly—particularly with the person who is willing to take this path of purification—manage to guide and inspire people to create situations which afford you the opportunity. But you have to decide with your free will whether or not you want to learn from them. You can either open your eyes to the significance of the situation, or you can shirk from the issue and refuse to recognize the call, for it is a call!  Decide, my friends. Do you want to take your courage into your own hands, or do you think that you can advance on this path without summoning the courage to follow the call?

 当给你的引导以某种令人不快的考验的形式出现时，你没法完整地理解正在发生的情况。但这种情况的目的是要帮助你去做你该做的事。这种对你个性的开放是有治愈效果的。你们把这些经历当成苦难和折磨。然而一旦你理解了为什么这些东西是必要的之后，你就不会再以排斥的眼光看待它们了。你们就像小孩；你们不知道什么东西对自己有好处。而遍布在你们周围的上帝的助手们——它们尤其遍布在那些愿意选择自我净化道路的人们周围——会引导和启发人们创造条件来获得克服困难的机会。但你必须通过自己的自由意志决定你想不想从中学到东西。你可以选择认识到事情的重要性所在，也可以选择回避问题，并对这种召唤充耳不闻，因为这确实是一种召唤！作出决定，我的朋友们。你想把勇气掌握在自己手中，还是认为你可以不鼓起勇气追随召唤，就能在这条道路上取得进展？

 32.25  I can promise you one thing. After you have made the decision to take this path, you will already feel a foretaste of the spiritual rebirth that must come sooner or later when a certain phase is reached. The greater the effort and the apparent difficulty of recognizing the call and following it, the more relief, the more victory, the more happiness, the more self-respect, and the more inner joy and peace will you feel after the test is over and you have fully understood how to go on from there. This, my friends, I beg you to remember very well. Do not choose to forget these words, secretly thinking that if you manage to evade the issue the situation will cease to exist. Read my words every day, whenever you are faced with such a decision.

 我可以保证你们一件事。在你做出决定选择这条道路之后，你会抢先品尝到一种精神重生的滋味，因为这种精神重生是当你抵达某个特定阶段后早晚必然会出现的。一开始，要认出这种召唤并追随它需要花费的努力和难度越大，那么当你完成这份考验并完全理解从此往后该如何继续时，会获得的宽慰、胜利感、快乐、自我尊重以及内心的喜悦和平静就会越大。这些话，我的朋友们，我恳求你们能牢记在心。不要选择忘记这些话，偷偷地以为如果你能回避掉这些问题的话，这种情形就会不复存在。当你每天遇到这种决定时，都读一读我说的话。

 32.26  We deal not only with what you consciously know and hide. That is comparatively easy. Once you are able to reveal consciously hidden thoughts and feelings, you need, with our help, to try to find what unconscious currents lie behind them. That is then the work to be done. Of course, you cannot do so alone; and you cannot do so unless you have displayed the courage to bring into the open what you do know. Most people carry hidden unconscious factors equally active as the conscious ones. Those are a little more complicated to find. The first prerequisite is to be free and open enough to be able to talk about everything pertaining to your person. You can never reach the hidden motives, currents, and emotions without that.

 我们处理的不仅是那些你心知肚明却仍然隐藏的东西。这些相对来说是简单的。当你有能力把隐藏的思想和感觉有意识地显示出来时，你需要，在我们的帮助下，试着找到它们背后那些隐藏的无意识涌流。所以，这就是后面要做的工作。当然，你没法独自完成它；而除非你显示出了敢于把你已经知道的东西摊牌出来的勇气，你也做不到这一点。多数人心中那些隐藏的无意识因素跟他们的清醒意识因素一样活跃。这种隐藏因素会更加复杂一些，也更难找到。要找到它们，第一个前置条件就是变得足够自由和坦率，从而能讨论一切有关你个人的东西。做不到这一点的话，你就永远无法触及那些隐藏的动机、涌流和情绪。

 32.27  If you fulfill the necessary requirements, help will be given to you—that you can be sure of. The help you need is the grace of God. Without it you cannot reach your unconscious and stubbornly hidden shames blocking the way. But if you wait for the grace of God in defiance and anger, saying to yourself, “Why can’t I have it?  Why someone else and not me?  I have suffered so much. I am due for it now; I have tried so hard,” then you push away the time for grace, because your attitude is not humble. You take it upon yourself to judge, and you cannot judge. You have no way of judging how much you have suffered, and when the grace is due, and how hard you have tried, especially in comparison with others. You lack comparison; you even lack complete self-recognition, for as long as you cannot delve into what your unconscious hides, you do not know yourself. And how can you dare to judge and compare if you don’t even know yourself?

 如果你满足了必要的需求，你需要的帮助就会自动地找到你——这一点你可以肯定。你需要的帮助是上帝的恩典。没有它你将无法触及自己那些无意识的、顽固地隐藏着的羞愧感，这些东西在阻挡着道路。但如果你以蔑视和愤怒的态度等待上帝的恩典，并对自己说，“为什么我得不到它？为什么别人可以而我不行？我吃了那么多苦。我现在就应该得到它；我那么努力地尝试，”于是你推迟了恩典到来的时间，因为你的态度不够谦逊。你把进行判断的责任揽在了自己身上，然而你却做不到不偏不倚的判断。你无法判断自己究竟吃了多少苦，恩典应该何时出现，以及你到底做出了多少努力，尤其是自己的努力跟别人相比如何。你缺乏对照；你甚至缺乏完整的自我觉察，因为只要你还无法潜入自己无意识隐藏的东西之中，你就还没有认识自己。如果你还不认识自己，你怎么敢进行判断和比较呢？

 32.28  When you nurse a spirit of true humility and patience, then the grace, my dear ones, will be much nearer. If you have difficulties, try to concentrate on this. If you cannot advance, although you are working and doing your best—and many do not advance because they are not working the way they could, so it is not the lack of grace—and if there are blocks you cannot seem to penetrate, ask yourself, “How humble is my attitude?”  Nurse these words instead of turning away from God the moment things become difficult for you. This is my advice for my dear, beloved friends. 

当你们培养起一种真正的谦逊和耐心的精神时，这时候那份恩典，我亲爱的人们，就会接近很多。如果你遇到困难，试着集中注意力回想下这一点。如果你在尽自己最大努力地工作和实践之后——也有许多人没有取得进展，是因为他们没有尽力，而不是因为缺乏恩典——仍然有某些障碍似乎没法打破，那么问问自己，“我的态度有多谦逊？”（试着）培养这些话，而不要当事情一旦变得困难，就躲开上帝。这就是我给我亲爱的、挚爱的朋友们的建议。 

32.29  I should like to discuss one more subject before we turn to your questions. I have already mentioned that you are ashamed of your faults. Most of them you wish you did not have. However, there is also another category, and it will be important to look at your faults from this new point of view, namely, that you have some faults which you are in love with. This explains why you do not get ahead in some particular respect of your development. You do not admit it, but you are actually quite proud of some of your faults. Of course, as long as this is true, you cannot possibly overcome them. Find out how this applies to you. Once you are aware that you are emotionally attached to some of your faults, pray that God may help you to recognize why this is so and what lies behind it. Pray that you may be able to see this attitude in an objective light, so as to develop the right kind of shame about it. 

在我们转向提问之前，我还有一个话题想要讨论。我已经说过你们会对自己的过错感到羞愧。就这些过错当中的多数来说，你们希望自己没有这些缺点。但是，这里也有另一类过错，从这个新的视角来看待自己的问题是很重要的，具体而言就是，你的有些问题是自己很喜欢的。这就解释了，为什么你在自己某些发展领域踌躇不前。你肯定不会承认，但实际上你对自己的某些缺点很自豪。当然了，只要这种情况还存在，你就不可能战胜它们。去找到自己内心符合这种情况的地方。当你意识到自己在情感上对自己的某些缺点有牵挂的时候，向上帝祈祷，让祂帮你认识到为什么会这样，以及其中真正的问题所在。祈祷自己能以客观的眼光看清这种态度，从而能对此培养出正确类型的羞愧感。 

32.30  Check all your faults and your emotional reactions to them in all honesty. As you go through your list, you will see that there are some faults you really do not like and others you cherish in some way. Then, when you feel that attachment, ask yourself:  “How would I react if another person were to display the same fault either in the same way or perhaps in a slightly different way?”  You are actually often quite irritated when another human being displays the same fault you are somewhat proud of in yourself. Once you approach the fault from this point of view, you will lose the pride you take in it. As long as the pride persists, however, you cannot possibly overcome the fault.

 以最大的诚实态度检查下自己的所有缺点，以及自己对待它们的情绪反应。当你排查自己单子的时候，你会看到有些缺点你真的不喜欢，也有些缺点你在某种程度上是喜欢的。那么，当你感到这种留恋态度时，问问自己：“如果有另外一个人以相同或略有不同的方式展现出相同的毛病，我会如何反应呢？”当另一个人展示出你为之略显自豪的相同毛病时，你通常其实是感到很恼火的。当你从这个角度着手处理这类毛病时，你就能丢掉其中的骄傲情绪。但是，只要这种骄傲还顽固地存在，你就不可能战胜这个毛病。 

32.31  I will be very happy to let you present to me any fault you choose for analysis. I will show you how every one of them is connected with pride, self-will, and fear. I will show you how to analyze the fault, how it leads to other faults, and what is connected with it—and in this way help you to better self-understanding. I will show you how to meditate on it and proceed, in this particular way, with the spiritual work on your path. I will also show you how every single fault, weakness, or imperfection is a direct hindrance to love—and therefore to God. I will also point out what the underlying good quality behind each fault is, for there is no fault that is not a distortion of something good and pure. Try this as an exercise yourself; apply it to your faults, for your spiritual work is useless if it is abstract and impersonal. Where you are unable to do so, bring the faults here. 

我会很高兴让你们把任何你想要分析的毛病展示给我。我会向你们展示它们当中每一个是如何与骄傲/自负、任性和恐惧联系起来的。我会向你们展示如何分析这个毛病，它会如何引发其他毛病，以及与之相关的问题——从而以这种方式来帮你得到更好的自我理解。我会向你们展示如何对它进行冥想，然后，如何以这种特别的方式，继续进行你道路上的精神/心灵工作。我也会向你们展示为什么每一个过错、弱点或不完善的地方都会直接地阻挠爱——进而阻挠上帝。我也会指出每个过错背后潜藏的正面品质是什么，因为没有哪种过错不是由某种善良而纯净的东西经过扭曲变来的。试着自己进行这种练习；把它用在分析自己的毛病上，因为如果你的精神/心灵工作是抽象、一般性，并且与你个人无关的话，它就是毫无用处的。在你做不到这一点的地方，就可以把遇到的问题拿到我这里。 

32.32  Now are there any questions in connection with this subject before we turn to your other questions? 

现在，在我们转向你们的其他问题之前，有没有与这个话题相关的问题？ 

32.33  QUESTION:  You stressed the point that one should open up to a qualified person. Could you elaborate on the problem of a person who has the desire to open up and to be humble, but does so indiscriminately and therefore no good is coming from it—only harm and repercussions?

 问题：你强调的一点是人应该对一个具有资质的人敞开自己。如果有个人具有敞开自己并变得谦逊的愿望，但是不分青红皂白地这样做，以至于没有任何好处出现，反而致造成了危害和不良后果，你能详细说下这种情况吗？

 32.34  ANSWER:  Yes, you see that this is, of course, the opposite extreme, and you know that all extremes are wrong. Such a person has a deep need for which the spirit cries. The real need is not recognized and therefore the wrong satisfaction is sought. However, the case you mention is not as much of an extreme as you think. Often a human being opens up about many little things, and even exposes actual shortcomings, so as to keep the real issue hidden.

 回答：是的，你看到这种反向极端的情况，而且你知道所有的极端都是错的。这样一个人深切地需要他/她的精神所渴望的东西。（然而）其中真正的需要没有被认清，于是，他/她追求的是错误的满足。但是，你提到的这种情况并不是你认为的那么极端。通常来说这种情况下一个人会说出许多细小事情，甚至会暴露一些实际存在的缺点，以此来掩盖真正隐藏的问题。 

32.35  QUESTION:  But what if that same person masks the true faults and invents artificial guilts to divulge? 

问题：但如果这个人掩盖了实际错误，并发明出虚假的内疚感来进行宣泄，这该如何处理呢？

 32.36  ANSWER:  That happens. You see, it will not do any good to tell such a person to choose to open up to the right people, because he will never know who the right people are. The intuition is lacking, as well as the sound intellectual judgment. Neither faculty can function well as long as one rationalizes and covers up the true reasons. Such a person has to be brought to first recognize this fact. That, of course, can only be done very slowly. And it cannot be done at all if the desire is not there. But the desire can grow.

 回答：这种情况有时会发生。你看，要让这样一个人去向合适的人敞开自己是不会有什么好结果的，因为他永远不会知道合适的人是怎样的。这里缺乏的是进行直觉感知的能力，以及透彻稳健的智力判断。只要一个人仍然会文过饰非，并掩盖真正原因，这两种能力就都无法正常运作。这样一个人必须首先能意识到这个前置问题才行。而这，当然了，只能非常缓慢地加以实现。而如果他（暂时）没有发现这个问题的欲望的话，那就根本无法实现。但这种欲望可以慢慢成长。

 32.37  Be blessed, all of you. Be in God.

愿你们所有人受到祝福。与上帝同在。