My arrival coincides nicely with the arrival of a new year. I have barely one day to get myself oriented to the Ashram, and then it is already New Year's Eve. After dinner, the small courtyard starts to fill with people. We all sit on the ground—some of us on the cool marble floor and some on grass mats. The Indian women have all dressed as though for a wedding. Their hair is oiled and dark and braided down their backs. They are wearing their finest silk saris and gold bracelets, and each woman has a brightly jeweled bindi in the center of her forehead, like a dim echo of the starlight above us. The plan is to chant outside in this courtyard until midnight, until the year changes over.
我来的时候正好碰上新年到来。我还没搞清楚道场的东南西北，就已是除夕夜。晚餐后，中庭已开始挤满人潮。我们大家坐在地上——有些人坐在凉爽的大理石地板上，有些则坐在草席上。印度妇女身穿仿佛参加婚礼的装束。她们的头发上油，乌黑，绑成一条辫子垂在身后。她们穿上最好的丝质莎丽，戴上金手链，每位妇女的额头中央都有个珠光闪耀的“bindi”，有如星辰的暗影。大家打算在中庭内吟诵，直到午夜，年度交替之际。

Chanting is a word I do not love for a practice that I love dearly. To me, the word chant connotes a kind of dronelike and scary monotony, like something male druids would do around a sacrificial fire. But when we chant here at the Ashram, it's a kind of angelic singing. Generally, it's done in a call-and-response manner. A handful of young men and women with the loveliest voices begin by singing one harmonious phrase, and the rest of us repeat it. It's a meditative practice—the effort is to hold your attention on the music's progression and blend your voice together with your neighbor's voice so that eventually all are singing as one. I'm jetlagged and afraid it will be impossible for me to stay awake until midnight, much less to find the energy to sing for so long. But then this evening of music begins, with a single violin in the shadows playing one long note of longing. Then comes the harmonium, then the slow drums, then the voices . . .
我不喜欢用“吟诵”一词来称呼我深爱的活动。对我而言，“吟诵”含有某种单调诵念的可怕含义，仿佛一群僧侣绕着牺牲仪式的火堆做的事情。然而我们在道场的吟诵，是一种天使般的歌唱。一般说来，是以一呼一应的方式诵唱。一群嗓子优美的年轻男女开始唱出一段和谐的句子，然后我们其他人重复一次。这是一种禅修——把注意力集中在乐曲的进行，让你的歌声跟邻座的歌声交织在一起，最后大家像一个声音一样齐声而唱。我有时差，担心自己昏昏欲睡，撑不到午夜，更甭说有力气唱得久。然而这一夜的音乐响起，一把小提琴在黑暗中奏出 一长声的渴望。接着是小风琴，而后是慢鼓，而后是歌声……

I'm sitting in the back of the courtyard with all the mothers, the Indian women who are so comfortably cross-legged, their children sleeping across them like little human lap rugs. The chant tonight is a lullaby, a lament, an attempt at gratitude, written in a raga (a tune) that is meant to suggest compassion and devotion. We are singing in Sanskrit, as always (an ancient language that is extinct in India, except for prayer and religious study), and I'm trying to become a vocal mirror for the voices of the lead singers, picking up their inflections like little strings of blue light. They pass the sacred words to me, I carry the words for a while, then pass the words back, and this is how we are able to sing for miles and miles of time without tiring. All of us are swaying like kelp in the dark sea current of night. The children around me are wrapped in silks, like gifts.
我坐在中庭后方，和所有的母亲坐在一起；这些印度妇女自在地盘腿而坐，她们的孩子像膝盖毯似的跨在她们身上睡觉。今晚的吟诵是一首催眠曲，一首哀歌，意在感激，“拉格”（raga）曲式，表达悲悯与虔敬。我们以梵语诵唱（在印度已然绝迹的语言，除了用作祷告和宗教学术研究之用），一如既往，我尝试做领唱者的声音镜子，接收有如一道道蓝光的音调。他们将神圣的歌词传递给我，我接过歌词，过一会儿再把歌词传回去，使我们得以源源不断地吟唱，却不觉疲倦。我们大家好似夜晚在黑色海潮中荡漾的海藻般摇来晃去。我周围的孩子们裹在丝绸里，犹如礼物。

I'm so tired, but I don't drop my little blue string of song, and I drift into such a state that I think I might be calling God's name in my sleep, or maybe I am only falling down the well shaft of this universe. By 11:30, though, the orchestra has picked up the tempo of the chant and kicked it up into sheer joy. Beautifully dressed women in jingly bracelets are clapping and dancing and attempting to tambourine with their whole bodies. The drums are slamming, rhythmic, exciting. As the minutes pass, it feels to me like we are collectively pulling the year 2004 toward us. Like we have roped it with our music, and now we are hauling it across the night sky like it's a massive fishing net, brimming with all our unknown destinies. And what a heavy net it is, indeed, carrying as it does all the births, deaths, tragedies, wars, love stories, inventions, transformations and calamities that are destined for all of us this coming year. We keep singing and we keep hauling, hand-over-hand, minute-by-minute, voice after voice, closer and closer. The seconds drop down to midnight and we sing with our biggest effort yet and in this last brave exertion we finally pull the net of the New Year over us, covering both the sky and ourselves with it. God only knows what the year might contain, but now it is here, and we are all beneath it.
我很疲倦，却未丢下小小的蓝色歌曲，我不知不觉地进入某种状态，我想我或许在沉睡中呼唤神的名字，或者只是跌入宇宙的深渊。不过，十一点半的时候，管弦乐奏出吟诵曲调的拍子，激发成纯粹的喜悦。衣着华美、手环叮当响的女子拍着手，整个身子随鼓声起舞。鼓声猛烈、优美、激动。随着一分一秒过去，感觉就像我们同心协力把2004年拉向我们。就好似我们用音乐系住它，拖过夜空，犹如一张巨大的渔网，网中装满我们未知的命运。确实是一张沉重的大网，载着一切生、死、悲剧、战争、爱情故事、发明、变动、苦难，专为每个人未来的一年而准备。我们持续诵唱、拖网，手拉手，一分又一秒，歌声不断，愈来愈近。分秒在午夜落下，我们尽己所能地吟唱，这最终的努力使我们终于将新年的网盖在自己身上，覆盖天空和我们自己。唯有神明知道这一年将由什么组成，然而此时此刻，我们每个人都在此地。

This is the first New Year's Eve I can ever remember in my life where I haven't known any of the people I was celebrating with. In all this dancing and singing, there is nobody for me to embrace at midnight. But I wouldn't say that anything about this night has been lonely.
这是我这辈子头一次和陌生人一同庆祝除夕。在舞蹈歌唱当中，没有人让我在午夜时分拥抱。但我要说，这不是寂寞的夜晚。

No, I would definitely not say that.
Eat, Pray, Love
肯定不是。