Spiritual Honeytraps
精神甜蜜陷阱

Here’s yet another in a long list of weird things; due to a pretty mellow lifestyle of late, I find myself becoming more knowledgeable in the field of ignorance. I have been spending more time investigating nonduality on the internet, mainly in the form of videos. I am listening to teachers at every level, from energetic young guys and girls to robe-wrapped and dhoti-clad old folk and everyone in-between. 
这里又是一个奇怪事情的长长清单；由于最近生活相当平静，我发现自己在无知领域变得更加博学。我花了更多时间在网上研究非二元论，主要是以视频的形式。我听各种层次的老师讲课，从充满活力的年轻男女，到穿着袈裟和裹着多提的老人，以及介于两者之间的所有人。

I’m not a good or attentive listener. I’m a  dabbler. I don’t listen to anything end-to-end. I bounce around, a few seconds here and there, a little of this person, a little of that one, maybe I let something play while I wash dishes. If someone says something of interest, not necessarily merit, I might take a deeper look. Frankly, I find the nonduality teachers a little sad-making and off-putting, so I don’t dial in and give them a good listening until I’m pretty sure they are saying something I’m interested in. Of course, I’m not listening for me.
我不是一个好听众，也不专注。我是个涉猎者。我不会从头到尾听完任何内容。我会跳来跳去，时不时听几秒钟，听这个人一点，那个一点，也许洗碗时会放着某个视频。如果有人说了有趣的东西，不一定是有价值的，我可能会深入了解。坦白说，我觉得非二元论的老师们有点让人难过和反感，所以我不会认真听他们讲，除非我很确定他们说的内容我感兴趣。当然，我听的不是为了自己。

I was never a student of advaita or nonduality so I don’t feel a strong kinship for anyone trying to navigate those dark woods. For that reason and a bunch of others, I don’t recommend internet videos as a spiritual solution. I am generally against all teachers and teachings. Nothing is hidden or withheld and you’re perfectly able-minded, so why take on a lot of unnecessary baggage? Travel light and fast.
我从来不是非二元论或一元论的学生，所以我对那些试图在那片黑暗森林中摸索的人没有强烈的亲近感。基于这个原因以及其他许多原因，我不推荐把网络视频当作灵性解决方案。我通常反对所有的老师和教导。没有什么是隐藏或保留的，你的心智完全正常，那么为什么要背负那么多不必要的包袱呢？轻装上阵，快速前行。

I have no skin in this game. I am not in competition with anyone. If I knew of anyone I could recommend, I would. That would be nice. There are certainly many I like, but I like people for a lot of reasons that don’t depend on them being right about anything. I’d love to be proven wrong about something I’m sure I’m not wrong about, that would make my decade. It can’t really happen, but that’s the kind of stuff I’m looking/listening for. Besides improving my own expression, I’d love for one of these teachers to disprove something I know I’m right about, but they usually only manage to muddy the waters.
我对此毫无利害关系。我不与任何人竞争。如果我知道有人可以推荐，我会的。那会很好。确实有很多我喜欢的人，但我喜欢他们的理由有很多，并不依赖于他们在任何事情上是对的。我很想被证明在某些我确信自己没错的事情上错了，那会让我开心十年。虽然这几乎不可能发生，但这正是我在寻找/倾听的东西。除了提升我自己的表达，我也希望这些老师中有人能推翻我确信正确的某些观点，但他们通常只会让事情变得更加混乱。

The reality is that I can’t get more than a minute into anyone without seeing clearly where they are on the spiritual terrain, and that it’s far from where they think they are. I don’t know how it works, but it’s interesting to watch. As I’ve said, I am a strict nondual fundamentalist. I can detect asstalk in a few dozen words or less. As soon as I hear talk of love or feelings or happiness, for example, I know the speaker has long-since fallen into the grip of Maya. Once you’ve spent your time in the furnace, it’s easy to tell who else has, and, more importantly, who hasn’t. Who has succumbed to Maya’s charms and who hasn’t. 
现实是，我和任何人交谈不到一分钟，就能清楚地看出他们在精神层面上的位置，而这个位置远非他们自己所认为的那样。我不知道这是怎么做到的，但观察起来很有趣。正如我所说，我是一个严格的非二元论原教旨主义者。我能在几十个字以内识别出废话。比如，一听到有人谈论爱、感情或幸福，我就知道说话者早已陷入了玛雅的掌控。一旦你在烈火中度过了时光，就很容易分辨出谁也经历过，更重要的是，谁没有经历过。谁屈服于玛雅的魅力，谁没有。

It’s not really false teachers and teachings I’m trying to expose, but Maya. She’s the one working against you every step of the way, and it’s when you don’t see her that she poses the greatest threat. Maya hath power to assume a pleasing shape. You can never really understand what I mean by Maya – her cunning, the scope of her power, her list of victims – until you’re on the other side of her defenses and deceptions looking back. Until then, en garde! 
我并不是真的想揭露虚假的老师和教义，而是想揭露玛雅。她是一路上与你作对的那个存在，而当你看不见她时，她才构成最大的威胁。玛雅有能力变换成令人愉悦的形态。你永远无法真正理解我所说的玛雅——她的狡诈、她力量的范围、她的受害者名单——除非你已经穿越了她的防御和欺骗，从另一边回望。直到那时，谨防！

It’s as if these well-spoken and charismatic online teachers have taken a course and have a signed certificate to show for it, but it’s clear to me that they’re still trapped in the palace-prison sewer-dungeon they think they escaped. Some rooms/cells are painted with green meadows and sunny blue skies to make you think you’re free when you’re not. It’s not at all surprising that there would be an army of people caught in this spiderweb because it was woven by Maya to catch this particular prey. 
这些口齿伶俐、富有魅力的网络教师仿佛参加过一门课程，并拿到了签字证书，但在我看来，他们仍然被困在那个他们以为自己逃脱了的宫殿-监狱-下水道-地牢里。有些房间/牢房被涂成绿色的草地和晴朗的蓝天，让你以为自己自由了，实际上并非如此。毫不奇怪，会有一大批人被困在这张蜘蛛网中，因为这张网是玛雅编织出来专门捕捉这类猎物的。

That’s fine, nothing bad or wrong, it’s just that my function is to tell you what I see about the surrounding terrain, and I see no easier quickmud for you to get stuck in – for your time and energy to get squandered in – than in this vast, enticing and readily accessible realm of convincing but false teachers. If that’s what you’re into and you’re having fun and you’re getting everything out of it you were looking for and you haven’t had to do any nasty death-rebirth stuff or self-immolation stuff and you still have love and family and friends and a job and you’re happy, that’s great. If you’re happy, then – in the sort of insincere, bullshitty way that people say such things – I’m happy for you.
没关系，没有什么不好或错误的，只是我的职责是告诉你我所看到的周围地形，而我看到没有比这片广阔、诱人且易于接近的虚假教师领域更容易让你陷入泥潭——让你的时间和精力被浪费的地方。如果这正是你喜欢的，你玩得开心，得到了你想要的一切，没有经历什么痛苦的生死重生或自我焚烧的过程，依然拥有爱、家庭、朋友和工作，并且感到幸福，那就太好了。如果你幸福，那么——用人们常说的那种不真诚、虚假的方式——我为你感到高兴。

But if you’re not trapped, not ensnared, not yet relegated to some flowery-trapping shiny-bauble subroutine, then it might benefit you to know what sort of dangers surround you, chief among them being false solutions designed to lure you in and never let you out, possibly in the form of charismatic young teachers who sound pretty awake, or older folk who may be less animated but say the same general stuff, or gurus, priests and proponents of some officious form of nonduality and advaita who speak with the borrowed authority of the old books and pictures of dead gurus behind them.
但如果你没有被困住，没有被套牢，还没有被降级到某个华丽陷阱般的闪亮小程序，那么了解围绕你的各种危险可能对你有益，其中最主要的是那些设计用来诱骗你进去并永远不让你出来的虚假解决方案，可能以充满魅力的年轻老师的形式出现，他们听起来相当清醒，或者是那些年长的人，虽然不那么生动，但说的内容大致相同，或者是一些大师、祭司以及某种官僚式非二元论和阿德瓦塔的支持者，他们借用古老书籍的权威和身后死去大师的画像来说话。

I don’t like talking down an entire class of people, especially people I tend to like and admire and enjoy, but I feel like I’m not doing my job if I don’t tell you what you’re up against. Anyone following their authentic path of awakening will be surrounded by temptations to drop their load, sit down, have a rest, take your shoes off, settle in. Such a place will appear like exactly what you’ve been looking for; full of warmth and camaraderie and none of that icky self-deconstruction stuff. These traps are created and maintained by previous versions of youwho want you to be a future version of them. And you want it too, that’s the problem. That’s where they getcha.
我不喜欢贬低一整类人，尤其是那些我倾向于喜欢、钦佩和享受相处的人，但如果我不告诉你们将要面对的挑战，我觉得自己就没有尽到责任。任何追随自己真实觉醒之路的人，都会被诱惑包围，诱使你放下负担，坐下来休息，脱掉鞋子，安顿下来。这样的地方看起来正是你一直在寻找的；充满温暖和友情，没有那些令人不舒服的自我解构的东西。这些陷阱是由你过去的版本创造和维持的，他们希望你成为他们未来的版本。而你也想要那样，这就是问题所在。这就是他们抓住你的地方。