为何拼命要保持年轻，却老得更快？

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  衰老是一种不必要的“流行病”

无论你看起来多么开放，你仍然只会接纳某些你认为安全的情绪，而对其它情绪假装看不见，或者在某一点把它们止住，因为你不敢再跟着那些情绪走下去。当然，这种行为会遵循着你的信念。举例说，如果你已经四十多岁了，你可能告诉自己年龄是没有意义的，你喜欢与年轻人相处，你的思想很年轻。只有当你的情绪符合你对“年轻”的定义时，你才会接纳它们。你变得关心年轻人的问题。你接受你认为是乐观的、有益健康的想法。也许你认为自己很情绪化。

No matter how open it may seem that you are, you will nevertheless accept certain emotions that you think of as safe, and ignore others, or stop them at particular points, because you are afraid of following them further. This behavior will follow your beliefs, of course. If you are over forty, for instance, you may tell yourself that age is meaningless, that you enjoy much younger people, that you think young thoughts. You will accept only those emotions that appear to be in keeping with your ideas of youth. You become concerned with the problems of the young. You accept what you think of as optimistic health-giving thoughts. You consider yourself quite emotional, perhaps.

然而，在心底里你非常清楚自己生理的实际状况——正如你的确应该知道的那样。但你却坚决地忽略了你三十岁以来在外貌上发生的任何变化——而这样做，你就看不见你作为一个在时空中的生物的真实性。

Underneath however you are very much aware, as indeed you should be, of your reality in creaturehood. Yet you firmly ignore any changes in your appearance from the time you were, say, thirty — and in so doing lose sight of your validity as a creature in space and time.

你会压抑任何有关死亡、将死或年老的念头，而这样就挡掉了那些本该引导你度过早年岁月的十分自然的感觉。你在否认身体的生理存在，以及它在四季光阴中的焦点。你剥夺了自己对那些自然的身体、灵性与精神波动的体验，而它们本该引领你超越它们自身。

You will inhibit any thoughts of death or dying, or of old age, and so close out quite natural feelings that are meant to lead you beyond your earlier years. You are denying the body's corporeal existence and its focus in the time of the seasons, and cheating yourself of those natural biological, psychic, and mental motions that are meant to take you past themselves.

就以上的讨论而言，其中一个问题来自于“年长”或“老”这类字眼被赋予的内涵。在你们的文化中，你们认为年轻就意味着灵活、警觉和警醒。一般来说，变老或年长被认为是一种耻辱，是僵化、过时、落伍的。

In this particular context, one of the problems arises out of the connotations given to the words "older," or "old." In your culture you believe that to be young is to be flexible, alert and aware. To be old or older is considered a disgrace, generally speaking; rigid, out of style, and passe.

如果你拼命想保持年轻，那通常是为了隐藏自己对年龄的信念，否定所有与年龄相关的情绪。不论何时，当你拒绝接受你生理上的实际状况时，你也拒绝了你精神的各个面向。身体存在于时空的世界中。你在六十多岁时可能遇到的经历跟你在二十多岁时遇到的一样必要。你不断变化的形象本来就是要告诉你些什么。当你假装改变没有发生时，你就屏蔽了生理和灵性的讯息。

If you desperately try to remain young, it is usually to hide your own beliefs about age, and to negate all of those emotions connected with it. Whenever you refuse to accept the reality of your creaturehood, you also reject aspects of your spirit. The body exists in the world of space and time. The experiences you may encounter in your sixties are as necessary as those in your twenties. Your changing image is supposed to tell you something. When you pretend alterations do not occur you block both biological and spiritual messages.

在年老的时候，机体在一定程度上是在为新生做准备。身、心、灵的综合事件不仅涉及了一个季节的结束，还在为另一个季节的开始做准备。这种局面包含了所有那些能帮你度过难关的必要支持，让你不仅乐于接纳，还会带着巨大的积极冲力去获得新的经验。

In old age the organism is, in certain terms, preparing for a new birth. The combined events of spirit, mind and body involve not only the passing of one season but preparation for the beginning of another. The situation includes all of those supports necessary to carry you through, not only with acceptance but with the great aggressive drive toward new experience.

因此，拒斥你在时间中的实相，其结果是你会被卡在时间里，被时间所困扰。接受你在每个时间段里完整的自己，这让身体能在良好的状态下正常运转，直到它自然的结束，而不受那些扭曲的无形的年龄观念所限。如果你相信青春是一种理想境界，拼命想要保住它，同时又相信年老必然伴随着体弱多病，那么你就造成了一个不必要的进退两难之境，而且根据你心中的负面想法，你会加速衰老。

To refute your reality in time, therefore, results in your being stuck in time and obsessed by it. Accepting your integrity in time allows the body to function until its natural end, in good condition, free from those distorted, invisible concepts about age. If you believe that youth is the ideal and struggle for it while simultaneously believing that old age must involve infirmities, then you cause an unnecessary dilemma, and hasten aging according to the negative aspects of your mind.

每个人都必须检视自己的信念，或者从感受入手——你的感受总会带你找到你的信念。在这个领域，就像在其它所有领域一样，你们当中那些精于文字表达的人可以用书写的方式。要么把你头脑中冒出来的信念写下来，要么把你理智与情感的假设列出清单来。你也许会发现这两者有很大的不同。

Each individual must examine his or her individual beliefs, or begin with feelings which will inevitably lead to them. In this area, as in all others, those of you who are proficient verbally might use the method of writing. Either write down your beliefs as they come to you, or make lists of your intellectual and emotional assumptions. You may find that they are quite different.

如果你有什么身体的病症，不要逃避它。感受它在你身体内的真实性。让情绪自由地跟出来。如果你允许这些情绪流动，它们会带你找到造成困难的信念。它们会带你历经你必须面对与探索的你自己实相的许多面向。这些方法会把你本来抑制的自然的攻击性释放出来。你也许感觉被情绪淹没，但是请信任它——再说一次，情绪是你存在的自然之流，它会激发你自己的创造力。跟着你的情绪走，它就会寻找到你问题的答案。

If you have a physical symptom, do not run away from it. Feel its reality in your body. Let the emotions follow freely. These will lead you, if you allow them to flow, to the beliefs that cause the difficulty. They will take you through many aspects of your own reality that you must face and explore. These methods release your withheld natural aggressiveness. You may feel that you are swamped by emotion, but trust it — again, it is the motion of your being, and it arouses your own creativity. Followed, it will seek the answers to your problems.

你必须了悟你的显意识心智是有能力的，它的想法是与你切身相关的，而你自己的信念影响并形成了你的身体和你的经验。

You must realize that your conscious mind is competent, its ideas pertinent, and that your own beliefs affect and form your body and your experience.