Kahlil Gibran
“All that you see was and is for your sake. The numerous books, uncanny markings, and beautiful thoughts are the ghosts of souls who preceded you.”
- Khalil Gibran
“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but what he aspires to.”
- Khalil Gibran
I was so happy to discover that we lived in the same area of Greenwich Village; we were both immigrants, who loved calling New York City our home. "Born on January 6, 1883, in Lebanon, and educated in Beirut, Boston, and Paris, Khalil Gibran found himself drawn to NYC. From 1911 until his death in 1931, he lived in an artist studio in Greenwich Village, where he created paintings, wrote philosophy and poetry."
What Hesse meant to me during my teenage years, Gibran became after I turned 18. His quest to remove all the masks from his soul, became my personal quest, too.
The Madman
by
Kahlil Gibran
(1918)
You ask me how I became a madman.
It happened thus:
One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen,—the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives,—I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.
And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “He is a madman.”
I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time.
For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more.
And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.”
Thus I became a madman.
The Prophet
(The Prophet is a book of 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf.)
...
Love
Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love."
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them.
And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
The Wanderer
by
Kahlil Gibran
(1932)
THE POMEGRANATES
There was once a man who had many pomegranate trees in his orchard.
And for many an autumn he would put his pomegranates on silvery trays outside of his dwelling, and upon the trays he would place signs upon which he himself had written,
"Take one for aught. You are welcome."
But people passed by and no one took of the fruit.
Then the man bethought him, and one autumn he placed no pomegranates on silvery trays outside of his dwelling, but he raised this sign in large lettering:
"Here we have the best pomegranates in the land, but we sell them for more silver than any other pomegranates."
And now behold, all the men and women of the neighborhood came rushing to buy.
