One of my first roommates at the Ashram was a middle-aged African-American devout Baptist and meditation instructor from South Carolina. My other roommates, over time, would include an Argentinean dancer, a Swiss homeopath, a Mexican secretary, an Australian mother of five, a young Bangladeshi computer programmer, a pediatrician from Maine and a Filipino accountant. Others would come and go, too, as devotees cycled in and out of their residencies.
一开始，我在道场的室友是一位中年、美籍非裔的浸礼会教徒和禅修指导老师，来自南卡罗莱纳州。不久，我的其他室友包括阿根廷舞者、瑞士顺势疗法师、墨西哥秘书、五个孩子的澳洲母亲、年轻的孟加拉程序设计师、缅因州来的小儿科医师和菲律宾会计师。还有其他信徒来来去去，做周期性的居留。

This Ashram is not a place you can casually drop by and visit. First of all, it's not wildly accessible. It's located far away from Mumbai, on a dirt road in a rural river valley near a pretty and scrappy little village (composed of one street, one temple, a handful of shops and a population of cows who wander about freely, sometimes walking into the tailor's shop and lying down there). One evening I noticed a naked sixty-watt lightbulb hanging from a wire on a tree in the middle of town; this is the town's one street-lamp. The Ashram essentially creates the local economy, such as it is, and also stands as the town's pride. Outside the walls of the Ashram, it is all dust and poverty. Inside, it's all irrigated gardens, beds of flowers, hidden orchids, birdsong, mango trees, jackfruit trees, cashew trees, palm trees, magnolias, banyans. The buildings are nice, though not extravagant. There's a simple dining hall, cafeteria-style. There's a comprehensive library of spiritual writings from the world's religious traditions. There are a few temples for different types of gatherings. There are two meditation "caves"—dark and silent basements with comfortable cushions, open all day and night, to be used only for meditation practice. There's a covered outdoor pavilion, where Yoga classes are held in the morning, and there's a kind of a park with an oval walking path around it, where students can jog for exercise. I'm sleeping in a concrete dormitory.
这座道场不是让你顺道造访的地方。首先，它位于不易通达的郊外。它的地点远离孟买，在乡间河谷的一条尘土路上，接近一个散乱的美丽小村庄（由一条街、一座寺院、几个店家组成，还住了在街上随意漫游的牛，时而走入裁缝店里躺下来）。一天傍晚，我留意到一盏光秃秃的六十瓦灯泡挂在镇中央一棵树的电线上；这是镇上的街灯。道场基本上开拓了当地经济，也是镇上的骄傲。道场墙外的世界，是尘土与贫困。墙内则是灌溉的庭园，花坛，隐蔽的兰花，鸟啭，芒果树，波罗蜜树，腰果树，棕榈树，木兰，榕树。虽是不错的建筑物，却不奢华。有一间自助餐厅式的简单食堂。还有一间无所不包的图书室，汇集世界各地的宗教作品。有几间供各种聚会使用的寺院。有两间禅修洞 ——黑暗寂静的地下室，内有舒适的椅垫，日夜开放，仅供禅坐之用。有一座户外凉亭，清晨的瑜伽课在此举行。还有一座小公园，椭圆形步道环绕四周，供学员们慢跑。我睡在水泥建造的宿舍里。

During my stay at the Ashram, there were never more than a few hundred residents at any time. If the Guru herself had been in residence, those numbers would have swollen considerably, but she was never in India when I was there. I'd sort of expected that; she'd been spending a fair bit of time lately in America, but you never knew when she might show up anywhere by surprise. It's not considered essential to be in her literal presence in order to keep up your living Yogic master, and I've experienced that before. But many longtime devotees agree that it can also sometimes be a distraction—if you're not careful, you can get all caught up in the celebrity buzz of excitement that surrounds the Guru and lose the focus of your true intention. Whereas, if you just go to one of her Ashrams and discipline yourself to keep to the austere schedule of practices, you will sometimes find that it is easier to communicate with your teacher from within these private meditations than to push your way through crowds of eager students and get a word in edgewise in person.
我待在道场期间，未曾有过居住人数超过百名的时候。导师本人若下榻此地，人数随即暴增，但我在印度时，她不曾返回此地。这早在我的预料内；近来她在美国待不少时间，可是你永远不清楚她在何时会冷不防地出现。有她在不在身边让你持续学习，这并不重要。当然，能跟一位活生生的瑜伽大师在一起，有一种无可替代的快感，我从前经历过。许多长期的虔诚信徒都同意，有时这可能分散你的注意力——你得当心点，才不至于陷入环绕导师身边的名人热潮，让你的真实意图失去焦点。反之，你若是去她的道场静修，训练自己严守禅修时刻表，有时你会发现，从这些个人禅修当中，更容易和你的老师沟通，而不是从一群狂热的学员当中跻身而过，亲自听她说一句话。

There are some long-term paid staffers at the Ashram, but most of the work here is done by the students themselves. Some of the local villagers also work here on salary. Other locals are devotees of the Guru and live here as students. One teenage Indian boy around the Ashram somehow really provoked my fascination. There was something about his (pardon the word, but . . .) aura that was so compelling to me. For one thing, he was incredibly skinny (though this is a fairly typical sight around here; if there's anything in this world skinnier than an Indian teenage boy, I'd be afraid to see it). He dressed the way the computer-interested boys in my junior high school used to dress for band concerts—dark trousers and an ironed white button-down shirt that was far too big for him, his thin, stemlike neck sticking out of the opening like a single daisy popping out of a giant flowerpot. His hair was always combed neatly with water. He wore an older man's belt wrapped almost twice around what had to be a sixteen-inch waist. He wore the same clothes every day. This was his only outfit, I realized. He must have been washing his shirt by hand every night and ironing it in the mornings.(Though this attention to polite dress is also typical around here; the Indian teenagers with their starched outfits quickly shamed me out of my wrinkled peasant dresses and put me into tidier, more modest clothes.) So what was it about this kid? Why was I so moved every time I saw his face—a face so drenched with luminescence it looked like he'd just come back from a long vacation in the Milky Way? I finally asked another Indian teenager who he was. She replied matter-of-factly: "This is the son of one of the local shopkeepers. His family is very poor. The Guru invited him to stay here. When he plays the drums, you can hear God's voice."
道场有一些领薪的长期雇员，但这里的活儿大半由学员自己来做。有些当地村民受雇于此；而也有些当地人是导师的追随者，以学员身份住在此地。道场有个印度少年引发了我浓厚的兴趣。他具有某种令我赞赏的气质。首先，他骨瘦如柴（尽管在当地这是很典型的形象，但如果世界上有任何东西比印度少年更瘦，我会很害怕看见）。他的穿着就像我初中时那些喜欢玩电脑的男生去听乐团演奏的装束——黑长裤，熨烫过的白衬衫；衬衫穿在他身上显得太大，茎状的瘦脖子从领口伸出来，有如一朵雏菊从庞大的花盆冒出来。他的头发总是用水梳得整整齐齐的。他戴着一条成年人的皮带，几乎绕了两圈，束在他一尺六的腰上。他天天穿同一套衣服。我意识到，这是他仅有的一套装束。他肯定每晚手洗他的衬衫，清晨时分熨烫。（尽管对衣着礼貌的注重，在当地亦很常见；印度少年们浆挺的衣着过不久使我皱巴巴的农家服饰相形见绌，促使我穿上更整洁、更端庄的衣裳。）这孩子有啥特别？为什么每次看见他的脸都让我深受感动——如此容光焕发的面容，看起来仿佛刚从银河度了长假归来？最后我跟一位印度少女探问他的身份。她语气平淡地说：他是当地某商家的儿子。他家很穷。导师邀他住在这里。他打鼓的时候，你听得见神的声音。