少年派的奇幻漂流 Chapter 20

Chapter 20,He was a Sufi, a Muslim mystic. He sought fana, union with God, and his relationship with God was personal and loving. "If you take two steps towards God," he used to tell me, "God runs to you!",He was a very plain-featured man, with nothing in his looks or in his dress that made memory cry hark. I'm not surprised I didn't see him the first time we met. Even when I knew him very well, encounter after encounter, I had difficulty recognizing him. His name was Satish Kumar. These are common names in Tamil Nadu, so the coincidence is not so remarkable ¹. Still, it pleased me that this pious ² baker ³, as plain as a shadow and of solid health, and the Communist biology teacher and science devotee, the walking mountain on stilts ⁵, sadly afflicted ⁶ with polio in his childhood, carried the same name. Mr. and Mr. Kumar taught me biology and Islam. Mr. and Mr. Kumar led me to study zoology ⁷ and religious studies at the University of Toronto. Mr. and Mr. Kumar were the prophets of my Indian youth.,We prayed together and we practised dhikr, the recitation of the ninety-nine revealed names of God. He was a hafiz, one who knows the Qur'an by heart, and he sang it in a slow, simple chant. My Arabic was never very good, but I loved its sound. The guttural eruptions ⁸ and long flowing vowels ⁹ rolled just beneath my comprehension like a beautiful brook ¹⁰. I gazed into this brook for long spells of time. It was not wide, just one man's voice, but it was as deep as the universe.,I described Mr. Kumar's place as a hovel. Yet no mosque ¹¹, church or temple ever felt so sacred to me. I sometimes came out of that bakery feeling heavy with glory. I would climb onto my bicycle and pedal that glory through the air.,One such time I left town and on my way back, at a point where the land was high and I could see the sea to my left and down the road a long ways, I suddenly felt I was in heaven. The spot was in fact no different from when I had passed it not long before, but my way of seeing it had changed. The feeling, a paradoxical mix of pulsing energy and profound peace, was intense and blissful. Whereas before the road, the sea, the trees, the air, the sun all spoke ¹² differently to me, now they spoke one language of unity ¹³. Tree took account of road, which was aware of air, which was mindful of sea, which shared things with sun. Every element lived in harmonious ¹⁴ relation with its neighbour, and all was kith and kin ⁴. I knelt a mortal; I rose an immortal ¹⁵. I felt like the centre of a all circle coinciding with the centre of a much larger one. Atman met Allah.,The presence of God is the finest of rewards.

,These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响 。,Alexander is a pious follower of the faith.亚历山大是个虔诚的信徒
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