When I was growing up, my family kept chickens. We always had about a dozen of them at any given time and whenever one died off—taken away by hawk or fox or by some obscure chicken illness—my father would replace the lost hen. He'd drive to a nearby poultry farm and return with a new chicken in a sack. The thing is, you must be very careful when introducing a new chicken to the general flock. You can't just toss it in there with the old chickens, or they will see it as an invader. What you must do instead is to slip the new bird into the chicken coop in the middle of the night while the others are asleep. Place her on a roost beside the flock and tiptoe away. In the morning, when the chickens wake up, they don't notice the newcomer, thinking only, "She must have been here all the time since I didn't see her arrive." The clincher of it is, awaking within this flock, the newcomer herself doesn't even remember that she's a newcomer, thinking only, "I must have been here the whole time . . ."
在成长过程中，我家里养鸡。我们在任何时刻都有12只鸡，每回死去一只——被老鹰、狐狸攫去，或罹患某种不清楚的疾病死去——我父亲便补上一只。他开车去附近的家禽农场，回来的时候，袋子里装着一只新的鸡。问题是，想让新的鸡加入鸡群行列，必须非常谨慎。你不能只是把它丢进旧的鸡群，否则会被当做闯入者看待。你必须在三更半夜，趁别的鸡睡觉时，把新来的鸡偷偷放入鸡笼中。把它放在鸡群旁边的窝，然后蹑手蹑脚地走开。鸡在早晨醒来时，不会留意到新来的鸡，只会以为：它肯定一直待在这里，因为我没看见它被送来。重要的是，新来的鸡在鸡群当中醒来时，自己也不记得自己是新来者，只以为：我肯定从头到尾都待在这里。

This is exactly how I arrive in India.
这正是我到达印度的情况。

My plane lands in Mumbai around 1:30 AM. It is December 30. I find my luggage, then find the taxi that will take me hours and hours out of the city to the Ashram, located in a remote rural village. I doze on the drive through nighttime India, sometimes waking to look out the window, where I can see strange haunted shapes of thin women in saris walking alongside the road with bundles of firewood on their heads. At this hour? Buses with no headlights pass us, and we pass oxcarts. The banyan trees spread their elegant roots throughout the ditches.
我的班机大约在凌晨一点半降落于孟买。那天是12月31日。我领了行李，而后找计程车出城，前往数个钟头车程外、位于某偏远乡村的静修道场。我一路打盹儿，穿越夜间的印度，时而醒来望向窗外，看见身穿莎丽服装的瘦小女人们诡异神秘的身影，她们走在路上，头上顶着柴火。这么早？不亮前灯的公车超越我们，我们超越牛车。榕树伸展着优雅的树根，遍及沟渠。

We pull up to the front gate of the Ashram at 3:30 AM, right in front of the temple. As I'm getting out of the taxi, a young man in Western clothes and a wool hat steps out of the shadows and introduces himself—he is Arturo, a twenty-four-year-old journalist from Mexico and a devotee of my Guru, and he's here to welcome me. As we're exchanging whispered introductions, I can hear the first familiar bars of my favorite Sanskrit hymn coming from inside. It's the morning arati, the first morning prayer, sung every day at 3:30 AM as the Ashram wakes. I point to the temple, asking Arturo, "May I . . .?" and he makes a be-my-guest gesture. So I pay my taxi driver, tuck my backpack behind a tree, slip off my shoes, kneel and touch my forehead to the temple step and then ease myself inside, joining the small gathering of mostly Indian women who are singing this beautiful hymn.
我们在凌晨三点半左右抵达道场，停在寺院门口。我下了计程车，一名身穿西方服饰、头戴羊毛帽的年轻人从黑暗中走出来，自报姓名——他是阿图洛，24岁的墨西哥记者，我的精神导师的追随者，他向我表示欢迎。我们低声互相介绍的当儿，我听见我最喜爱的梵语赞歌熟悉的第一小节从寺院传出来。是清晨的灯仪（arati）：每天清晨三点半在道场起身时所进行的第一次晨祷。我指着寺院，问阿图洛：我可不可以……？他做出请便的手势。于是我付了计程车费，把背包塞在树后，脱了鞋，跪下来，在寺院阶梯上磕了头，慢慢移身进去，加入大半由印度女人唱出优美赞歌的小小聚会。