Above everything else, I wish you were more courageous. Does that word surprise you? In considering this year as a whole, I question not your devotion or your steadfastness; I have confidence in the depth of your aspiration and your desire for the will-to-good; I know that naught will turn you for any length of time from the pursuit of your goal.
最重要的是，我希望你们更加勇敢。这个词让你感到吃惊吗？就今年整体情况而言，我毫不怀疑你们的奉献精神和坚定不移的意志；我对你们行善的心愿和渴望深信不疑；我知道，没有什么会阻止你们停止追求你们的目标。
I do, however, question your courage. It takes courage to make spiritual decisions and to abide by them; it takes courage to adjust your lives – daily and in all relations – to the need of the hour and to the service of mankind; it takes courage to demonstrate to those around you that the present world catastrophe is of more importance to you than the petty affairs of your individual lives and your humdrum contacts; it takes courage to discard the alibis which have prevented you from participating to date in the all-out effort which characterizes today the activities of the Hierarchy; it takes courage to make sacrifices, to refuse time to nonessential activities and to deal with the physical body as if it were free from all impediments; it takes courage to ignore frailties which may be present, the tiredness incident to a long life, the physical tendencies which handicap and limit your service, the sleeplessness which comes from world pressures or from a badly regulated life program, an the nervousness and strain which are the common lot today; it takes courage to attack life on behalf of others, and to obliterate your own wishes in the emergency and need.
然而，我的确质疑你们的勇气。做出灵性层面的决定，并遵照它们进行生活，这需要勇气。调整自己的生活 —— 日常生活和所有的关系 —— 以适应时代的需要、以适应为人类服务的需要，这需要勇气。向周围的人证明，现今世界所面临的灾难比你个人生活中的琐事和单调的人脉更重要，这需要勇气。摒弃那些一直以来阻碍你们不能对灵性阶层的目标进行全力以赴的借口，这需要勇气。做出牺牲需要勇气，拒绝不必要的活动、处理好物质身体让它没有任何障碍，这也需要勇气。无视可能存在的脆弱感、活得长久带来的疲惫感、那些阻碍和限制你服务的物质层面的阻碍、来自世界的压力或者不规律的生活导致的失眠、当今世界普遍存在的紧张和压力等，这些都需要勇气。代表其他存有对生命发起攻击，在紧急和必要的时候牺牲自己个人的愿望，这还需要勇气。
One of the points which disciples need to grasp more clearly is the well-recognized fact (and thus easily overlooked from very familiarity) that the assertion of one’s determination to function as a server and as a disciple brings about a refocusing of all the forces of the personality and the soul (in unison); it is, symbolically speaking, a recurrence of the ancient event of individualization upon a higher turn of the spiral, this time entered into with full conscious cooperation. This refocusing brings its own difficulties. It leads often to a distressing consciousness of one’s own nature, one’s aims, one’s life theme, one’s aspirations and one’s handicaps, of one’s equipment and experience, plus the various aspects and vehicles through which the soul has perforce to work. All this produces an intensification ofttimes of self-interest and of concentration upon one’s self, always with the best of intentions and aspiration. One’s limitations, physical or otherwise, look unduly large; one’s faults are exaggerated in one’s consciousness, though not so oft in expression; the extent of the service needed and demanded by the soul appears so great that the disciple at times refuses cooperation for fear of failure or from undue consciousness of himself; excuses for non-service or for only partial service are easily found and appropriated; postponement of all-out help today, plus complete dedication to human need, is easily condoned on the basis of health, time, home limitations, fear of one kind or another, age, or a belief that this life is preparatory to full service in the next; alibis are easy to discover, some of them even taking the form of believing that the demands of the Master and the program of the Ashram with which the disciple is affiliated are unreasonable or – as is the case with two of you in this group – that the Oriental does not understand the demands upon the Occidental disciple.
学生们需要清楚地掌握这一个众所周知的事实（因此很容易被人们因熟悉而忽视），即下定决心成为服务者和弟子会让人格和灵魂的所有力量重新聚焦（人格和灵魂的融合）。象征性地说，这是远古发生的个体化事件在更高进化螺旋上的重现，不过这一次是在完全有意识的情况下进入（进化螺旋）的。这种力量的重现聚焦也带来了困难。它常常会让一个人的本性、目标、生活主题、愿望、缺陷、能力和经验变得有压力，再加上灵魂必须要整合各个方面、并使用身体载具来进行工作，这都会产生痛苦。所有的这些导致了自我利益的强化，更加专注于自我，还伴随着最好的意图和愿望。一个人面临的限制，不论是物质层面的还是其他方面，看起来都过大。一个人的缺点会在他的意识中被夸大，虽然表达中并不多见；灵魂需要和要求进行的服务范围太大，有时候会让弟子因为害怕失败或者认为自己尚未达到该有的意识层次而拒绝合作。很容易找到和使用不去进行服务，或者是仅仅部分性地去进行服务的借口；推迟本应今天全力以赴进行的帮助、以及推迟对人类需求进行奉献，基于对健康、时间、家庭的限制、各种各样的恐惧、年龄、或者是这一世是为了下一世服务做准备的这些理念，推迟就很容易被宽恕了。借口很容易去找，其中一些借口甚至认为，扬升大师的要求和弟子的修行规划是不合理的 —— 就像你们组中这两个人一样 —— 那位东方人并不能理解对西方弟子的要求。
I have for years endeavored to arouse all of you, and through you the thousands you can as a group reach, to the urgency of the times, but hitherto with only partial or temporary results and as yet (for some of you, though not for all) the work to be done in response to the demands of the Ashram is secondary to your daily life pattern, to the requirements of your business or your home or to what you believe to be the physical limitations, the emotional liabilities and the mental handicaps of your equipment.
多年以来，我一直努力唤醒你们所有人，你们作为一个团体，通过你们，可以触及到成千上万的人，以应对时代的紧迫性。但是迄今为止，只取得了部分性的、或者说短暂的成果。而且（对你们中的一些人来说，不是所有人）你们把为响应灵魂的需求而进行的作业放置在了你日常生活之后，把你的生意、家庭、还有那些你认为的物质层面的限制、情感的负担和心智体的阻碍，放在首位。
Let me repeat: The disciple has to take himself as he is at any given time, with any given equipment, and under any given circumstances; then he proceeds to subordinate himself, his affairs and his time to the need of the hour, particularly during a phase of group, national or world crisis. When he does this within his own consciousness, and is therefore thinking along lines of the true values, he will discover that his own private affairs are taken care of, his capacities are increased and his limitations are forgotten.
让我再次重复强调说明：学生必须在任何时间、在现有的条件下、不论在什么环境中，都要把灵魂的需求放在首位；然后他把自己、自己处理的事务和自己的时间都用来响应服务的需求，尤其是当一个群体、国家或者世界处于危急阶段时。当他在自己的意识中这样做时，他就是按照真正的价值观在思考问题，他也会发现，他自己的私人事务得到了很好的处理，他的能力得到了提高，他不再受制于局限。
Source: Discipleship in the New Age Vol II
迪瓦尔·库尔
原文：https://www.lucistrust.org/store/item/discipleship_in_the_new_age_vol_ii
