Sadhguru Isha
Question: I am a high school teacher and wanted to ask for your advice about how not to make a mistake with children, how to inspire them. About fifty percent of the pupils in my class take Ritalin because they are being tagged as having ADD or ADHD. (Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) What would your advice be?
问：我是个中学教师。我想问问您，怎样才不会误导孩子，怎样去启发他们？我班上一半的学生都在服用利他林（Ritalin，一种抗精神失常药），因为这些孩子都被诊断患有ADD（注意力缺乏症）或者ADHA（注意力缺陷多动障碍）。对此，您有没有什么建议？
Sadhguru: With so many doctors and psychiatrics and all this, I don’t think a ‘normal’ child is born anymore. There are no ‘normal’ children because whatever they do, there is a label for them. If they are active, they are ‘hyperactive’ – ADHD. If they are a little slow, it is something else. Whichever way they are, one label is fixed, nailed to them, which they have to carry for the rest of their life. Someone can run fast, someone limps, someone does something else – this is all normal. This is how human beings are. It is just that because we are trying to put all of them into one slot, they look abnormal.
Sadhguru（萨古鲁）：有这么多五花八门的医生、名目繁多的精神病，我觉得我们已经没有“正常”孩子了。没有一个孩子是“正常”的，因为不管孩子做什么，他们总会被贴上标签。如果他们活泼好动，他们会被贴上“多动”标签——ADHA（注意力缺陷多动障碍）。如果他们反应慢一点，也有对应标签。不管他们怎样样，都会被打上一个标签，这个标签将伴随他们一生。有些人跑得快，有些人跛脚，每个人都各不相同——这些都是正常的。人类就是如此。只是因为我们试图把所有人都塞进一个模子里，他们才会看起来反常。
It is like your traveling bag. At the airport, they have this measuring device that your bag is supposed to fit into; otherwise some of the airlines don’t let you take it. Almost nobody’s bag fits into that; I am sure only the terror guys have come with the right-sized bag. But the normal passengers don’t fit their bags into it because when people travel they need things – they take this, they take that, they buy this, they buy that – it will be bulging and it won’t fit. So all these are abnormal people.
这就像带旅行包上飞机。在机场，会有人拿测量装置检查你的旅行包，看看它尺寸是否合适。如果不合适，有些航班就不让你带这个包上飞机。几乎没有包能符合那个精确的尺寸。我确信只有恐怖分子才有这么合适的旅行包。而正常乘客不会正好带着这么合适的包，因为人们去旅行的时候需要很多东西——他们要带这带那，买这买那，旅行包就被塞得鼓鼓囊囊，所以就会不符合标准。然后，这些人就被判定为反常的人。
Have you seen a perfect mango tree? Similarly, have you seen a perfect human being? Unless they are machine turned out, there is no question of whatever you call perfect. Our idea of perfection is so messed up. Our idea of perfection is we must be able to put everybody into the same hole, then they are perfect. Because we are trying to put everybody through the same kind of schooling, everybody should become a doctor, or an engineer, something – children are enduring this torture. Because of that, somebody looks like they have ADD or ADHD. Otherwise, every one of them is capable of doing something. Some may just be so happy, they may not do anything.
你见过完美的芒果树吗？同理，你见过完人吗？除非这些人是机器制造出来的，否则所谓的完美是不存在的。我们对完美的定义太错位了。除非一个人符合所有统一的标准，我们才会认为他们是完美的。我们企图让所有人接受一样的学校教育，人人都该成为医生，成为工程师，成为——对孩子们来说是折磨、煎熬的某种职业。就因为这样，有人才觉得有些孩子患有ADD、ADHD。其实这些被诊断患ADD、ADHD的孩子都能有所成。有些孩子就算平平淡淡什么也不做，他们也能简简单单觉得很快乐。
The education system is not going to change tomorrow, but at least you don’t have to label those who are with you right now.我们无法在朝夕之间改变教育体系。但至少可以不给身边的人贴上标签。
You must see the deer in the forest. At around eight thirty, there will be bunches of deer here. Simply. They eat, romp around, they don’t work. The castrated bullock which is drawing the cart will look at them and say, ‘Those useless deer, they do nothing.’ What to do? Even the elephant does nothing. He doesn’t romp, he rampages through whatever he sees. But it is fine. That is how they should be. Unfortunately, we became industrialized societies – that means we need cogs in the wheels. We don’t need human beings anymore; we need some nut and bolt which fits into the system we have created. Well we are partially successful as we have quite a few nuts.
你一定得看看森林里的鹿。每天大概八点半，它们会成群结对地来到这儿。它们什么也不做，只是吃草、嬉戏。正在拉车的阉牛看到它们，会说：“这些没用的鹿，一天到晚什么也不做。”能有什么办法呢？大象也什么都不做。它不会嬉戏，而是看到什么就横冲直撞过去。但是这样没问题。这才是这些动物该有的样子。很不幸，我们处于工业化社会——工业化社会里，轮子里要有轮齿。我们的社会不再需要人，只需要能符合我们设计的体系的螺帽螺栓。我们已取得部分成功了，我们现在有很多螺帽了（译者注：这里一语双关，nuts在这里指螺帽同时也有疯子的意思）。
Because of that, everybody looks abnormal. Probably the fifty percent that you think are abnormal are probably normal human beings. The other fifty percent are machine turned out. I don’t want to make such a sweeping judgment but it is unfortunate that we are going this way. We are not thinking of living, we are thinking of productivity, so we are trying to produce machines which will produce more.
就因为这样，所有人都看起来不正常。你认为不正常的那50%的人也许才是正常人。剩下的50%是机器制造批量生产的。我不想一竿子打死一船人，但是很不幸这个社会正朝着这个方向发展。我们想的不是生活，而是生产力，所以我们想造能提高产量的机器。
Because of that, any machine that does not produce what you think it must produce suddenly looks abnormal. It is not necessary that all of us should be equally capable. Some can walk, some can crawl, some can fly, it is all right. Why are we setting this nonsensical idea that only if somebody is able to do this much, he is a normal human being? It is not necessary to set that. It is a crime to label a child as this or that because he has no clue what this stupid game is you are playing and already he is labeled, and he has to carry it for the rest of his life because you are comparing your child to your neighbor’s child.
就因为这样，如果一台机器不能产出你认为它本该产出的东西，突然它就显得很不正常。不是所有人都该具备同等能力。有人能走路，有人能爬行，有人能飞翔。这没问题的。为什么我们觉得只有能做这个能做那个的人才是正常人？这种设定是不必要的。给孩子贴上这样那样的标签是一种罪过。孩子根本都还没搞清楚你在玩什么愚蠢游戏，就已经被贴上标签，你用这些标签把他和邻居家孩子比较，他余生都要扛着这个标签度过。
The education system is not going to change tomorrow, but at least you don’t have to label those who are with you right now. It is all right that he cannot do what somebody else does. You do not know what he may do. I should tell you this. A few doctors came from the United States. They were in Mysore and without telling me they decided to visit my father. My father’s idea of success is you must become a doctor. His whole life’s dream was to be a doctor and he became one. And his dream was that all four of his children should become doctors. One by one, we failed him; I was the hopeless hope. When I was eleven, twelve years of age, I declared, ‘No way is that going to happen.’ So these doctors wanted to know something about their Guru when he was not one. They asked, ‘Please tell us something about Sadhguru when he was young.’ My father thought and said, ‘He was such a dull boy. But now he has become a genius.’
我们无法在朝夕之间改变教育体系，但至少不必给身边的人贴上标签。如果其他人能做的事，你的孩子不能做到，这不要紧，因为你不知道他可能能做什么。我给你讲讲这件事吧。有几个从美国来的医生去了迈索尔，在我不知情的情况下，他们去拜访了我父亲。在我父亲眼里，成功就是必须成为一名医生。他一生的梦想就是做医生，并且他做到了。他希望他的四个孩子也都做医生。但是一个接一个，都让他失望了；我是他最后的希望。我十一二岁的时候，跟他讲：“我是绝不可能做医生的。”所以这些美国来的医生想知道，他们的古鲁在成为古鲁之前是怎样一个人。他们对我父亲说：“请给我们讲讲萨古鲁年轻时候的事吧。”父亲沉思了一会儿，说：“他那时候真的很迟钝。但是现在，他成了个天才。”
If you make him feel ashamed of what he is not able to see, he may never speak about what he is able to see…如果你让他对自己弄不明白的东西感到羞愧，那么他永远不会告诉你他能发现什么……
Maybe you have fifty percent geniuses in your classroom and you are missing the whole point. They cannot go by your systems of A B=C. He doesn’t understand; it doesn’t make any sense. Why is A B equal to C? Simply because somebody says so. Maybe he can’t fix his mind into that framework, but you don’t know what is happening in his mind. You don’t know what he is able to see. If you make him feel ashamed of what he is not able to see, he may never speak about what he is able to see, and you don’t know what you are missing by that. He may be seeing something that nobody has seen.
也许你班级里有一半的学生是天才，你全然不知。这些学生与你“A B=C”的体系格格不入。他们搞不明白这个体系；这个体系在他看来一点都不合情理。A B为什么等于C？很简单，因为有人这样说。他无法调整自己的头脑来适应这个框架，而你也不知道他的脑袋在思考什么。你不知道他所能看到的东西。如果你让他对自己弄不明白的东西感到羞愧，那么他永远不会告诉你他能发现什么……你不知道你会因此错过什么。也许他能看到没有人看到过的东西。
The ingenuity of a human being may do much more than education could ever do. Does it mean to say we don’t need education? No, that is not the point. What is needed is to build a human body and human mind to its full capacity and have the necessary balance to be able to use it. Towards what? It need not be towards anything. If human beings walk sensibly, if they live sensibly, it is good enough. The purpose of life is life alone. Fulfillment of life is in experiencing life in all its dimensions and that will remain a possibility only when we remain seekers of Truth and not believers of instructions or dogma that is thrown at us either by teachers or priests or pundits or scriptures that they all fall back on.
一个人靠天分创造的东西，比通过受教育创造的东西要多得多。那意思是我们不需要教育了吗？不，重点不是这个。我们需要的是，让人的身体和头脑发挥极致的潜能，并拥有必要的平衡去充分运用它们。为了什么？不需要为什么。如果人类能够明智地走路，明智地生活，就已经足够。生命的唯一目的就是生命本身。能从生命所有的维度去体验生命，就是生命的圆满。只有你不盲信学校老师教给你的书本知识、牧师给你的布道、学者给你的讲义、或者经书给你的信条，只有你始终追寻真理，这才能成为可能。
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