做一个脚踏实地的理想主义者 |《群体事件》完结篇

?本文选自《个人与群体事件的本质》第873节

当你学会给你的冲动一些自由时，你会发现冲动联结着你心中理想生活该有的样子。你会开始发现，那些自发性的冲动基本上是好的，就像地球的物质元素那样，是孕育生命的——为所有生物的生命提供了原动力。

不过，不止于此，那些冲动还将你与那个孕育了所有生命的原始冲动连结起来。

你会发现冲动自然的合作本质，你不会再相信它们是矛盾的，或者只会困扰人。你的冲动是“存在”伟大的多重行动的一部分。在更深的层面，人格具冲动性的部分能觉察到地球上所有的行动。你涉入了一个合作性的冒险，在其中，你最微小的冲动也有着更大的意义，且与其他所有行动紧密相连。你有力量把人生和世界变得更美好，但再说一次，在如此做时，你必须重新评估你的理想是什么，什么样的手段才能与之相称。科学与宗教都对人类的发展作出了很大贡献，不过，它们也必须重新评估自己的理想和手段。

然而，从更大的角度说，真的只存在相信科学的人和相信宗教的人，若没有那些相信他们看法的个人，科学及宗教领域就会变得毫无意义。当那些人扩大了对实相的定义时，科学及宗教领域也必然会扩展。在追求理想时，你必须不顾一切——不顾一切地坚持你沿途所走的每一步都配得上那个理想。

如果你是一个脚踏实地的理想主义者，就会明白你不能以和平的名义杀人，因为如果那样做，你的手段就会自动破坏你的理想。生命与灵魂的神圣性是一体的。你不可能只诅咒身体而最终没有波及灵魂。你也不可能只诅咒灵魂而最终没有波及身体。

我希望我的每位读者都是脚踏实地的理想主义者，而如果你是，你就会自动容忍别人的信念。在你追求自己的理想时，你就不会刻薄。你会以一种清醒的慈悲和些许幽默去看这个世界，而且会去寻找人的基本善意。你会找到它，因为它一直就在那儿。你会发现自己的基本善意，明白它一直就在你所有行动的背后——甚至在那些最不符合你个人理想追求的行动里。

目的并不能使手段合理化，如果你学会了这个功课，那么你的善意会使你在个人体验及人际关系里有效而创造性地行事。你改变了的信念会影响你的国家及世界的精神氛围。

你们必须面对现在的自己，承认你们的冲动。探索冲动的意义。依靠你们自己。你们会找到远比设想的更多的力量、成就与美德。

结论：你们都是单独的个体，但你们每一个都形成了世界实相的一部分。在有意识的层面上，你通常只觉察到自己的思想，但那些思想与世界上所有其他人的思想融合在一起。你明白电视是怎么回事，但在其它层面，你带有一幅世界新闻的画面，那画面“捕获”自构成所有生命的细胞所发送的信号。当你有一个去行动的冲动时，这冲动是你自己的，但也是全球行动的一部分。不妨说，有一种内在的类似神经的系统，为世界的所有部分提供持续不断的沟通。如果你接受这个事实——人基本上是善良的生物，那么你就可以让自己的心灵本性自由而自然地流动——那本性源于你的冲动，而不是与冲动对立。

由于你们的思想，信念及期望的本质，地球表面上的事件不论多渺小，你们每一个人无不在其中扮演了某个角色。

同样地，也没有任何你未曾参与的公众行为。你与这个时代的所有历史事件都紧密相连。

在某种程度上，你参与了人类登月的行动，不论你与那具体事件本身有无关联。你的思想把一个人放在了月球上，就像任何一枚火箭所做的一样确定。你现在就可以涉入一项新的探索，在其中，人类的文明及组织会改变进程，并反映出人类的良好意图和理想。你可以做到这一点，如果你确保自己所走的每一步都与你希望达成的目标“完美相称”。要确保你的手段是理想的。

如果你这样做，你的人生会自动充满激情、天然的热情与创造力，而这些特性也会向外反映到社会、政治、经济与科学领域。这是一个值得付出努力的挑战。我希望每位读者都接受这一挑战。做脚踏实地的理想主义者……总而言之，根本没有另外一种理想主义者。

我祝你们每个人的努力都能成功。

本书结束。此节结束。

As you learn to allow your impulses some freedom, you will discover their connection with your own idealized version of what life should be. You will begin to discover that those spontaneous urges are as basically good and life-giving as the physical elements of the earth, that provide the impetus for all biological life.

Beyond that, however, those impulses, again, connect you with the original impulse from which all life emerges.

You will discover the natural, cooperative nature of your impulses, and you will no longer believe that they exist as contradictory or disruptive influences. Your impulses are part of the great multi-action of being. At deeper levels, the impulsive portion of the personality is aware of all actions upon the earth's surface. You are involved in a cooperative venture, in which your slightest impulse has a greater meaning, and is intimately connected with all other actions. You have the power to change your life and the world for the better, but in doing so you must, again, reevaluate what your ideals are, and the methods that are worthy of them. Science and religion have each contributed much to man's development. They must also reevaluate their ideals and methods, however.

In larger terms, there are really only scientific and religious men and women, however, and fields of science and religion would be meaningless without those individuals who believe in their positions. As those men and women enlarge their definitions of reality, the fields of science and religion must expand. You must be reckless in pursuit of the ideal — reckless enough to insist that each step you take along the way is worthy of that ideal.

You will understand, if you are a practicing idealist, that you cannot kill in the name of peace, for if you do so your methods will automatically undermine your ideal. The sacredness of life and spirit are one and the same. You cannot condemn the body without ultimately condemning the soul. You cannot condemn the soul without ultimately condemning the body.

I would like each of my readers to be a practicing idealist, and, if you are then you will automatically be tolerant of the beliefs of others. You will not be unkind in the pursuit of your own ideals. You will look upon the world with a sane compassion, with some humor, and you will look for man's basic good intent. You will find it. It has always been there. You will discover your own basic good intent, and see that it has always been behind all of your actions — even in those least fitted to the pursuit of your private ideals.

The end does not justify the means. If you learn that lesson, then your good intent will allow you to act effectively and creatively in your private experience, and in your relationships with others. Your changed beliefs will affect the mental atmosphere of your nation and of the world.

You must encounter the selves that you are now. Acknowledge your impulses. Explore their meanings. Rely upon yourselves. Yon will find far greater power, achievement, and virtue than you suppose.

Conclusion: You are individuals, yet each of you forms a part of the world's reality. Consciously, you are usually aware only of your own thoughts, but those thoughts merge with the thoughts of all others in the world. You understand what television is. At other levels, however, you carry a picture of the world's news, one that is "picked up" by signals transmitted by the cells that compose all living matter. When you have an impulse to act, it is your own impulse, yet it is also a part of the world's action. In those terms, there are inner neurological-like systems that provide constant communication through all of the world's parts. If you accept the fact that man is basically a good creature, then you allow free, natural motions of your own psychic nature — and that nature springs from your impulses, and not in opposition to them.

There is no event upon the face of the earth in which each of you has not played some part, however minute, because of the nature of your thoughts, beliefs, and expectations.

There is no public act in which you are not in that same manner involved. You are intimately connected with all of the historic events of your time.

To some extent you participated in putting a man on the moon, whether or not you had any connection at all with the physical occurrence itself. Your thoughts put a man on the moon as surely as any rocket did. You can become involved now in a new exploration, one in which man's civilizations and organizations change their course, reflecting his good intents and his ideals. You can do this by seeing to it that each step you personally take is "ideally suited" to the ends you hope to achieve. You will see to it that your methods are ideal.

If you do this, your life will automatically be provided with excitement, natural zest and creativity, and those characteristics will be reflected outward into the social, political, economic, and scientific worlds. This is a challenge more than worth the effort. It is a challenge that I hope each reader will accept. The practical idealist . . . When all is said and done, there is no other kind.

I bid each of you success in that endeavor.