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06 - The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty four, on pleasure. Then a hermit who visited
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  Speaker 1: the city once a year came forth and said, speak
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  Speaker 1: to us of pleasure. And he answered, saying, pleasure is
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  Speaker 1: a freedom song, but it is not freedom. It is
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  Speaker 1: the blossoming of your desires, but it is not their fruit.
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  Speaker 1: It is a depth calling unto a height, but it
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  Speaker 1: is not the deep nor the high. It is the
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  Speaker 1: caged taking wing, but it is not space encompassed. I,
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  Speaker 1: in very truth, pleasure is a freedom song, and I
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  Speaker 1: fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart.
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  Speaker 1: Yet I would not have you lose your hearts in
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  Speaker 1: the singing. Some of your youth seek pleasure as if
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  Speaker 1: it were all, and they are judged and rebuked. I
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  Speaker 1: would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them,
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  Speaker 1: for they shall find pleasure, but not her alone. Seven
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  Speaker 1: are her sisters, and the least of them is more
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  Speaker 1: beautiful than pleasure. Have you not heard of the man
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  Speaker 1: who was digging in the earth for roots and found
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  Speaker 1: a treasure? And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret,
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  Speaker 1: like wrongs committed in drunkenness. But regret is they be
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  Speaker 1: clouding of the mind, and not as chastisement. They should
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  Speaker 1: remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest
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  Speaker 1: of a summer. Yet if it comforts them to regret,
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  Speaker 1: let them be comforted. And there are among you those
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  Speaker 1: who are neither young to seek nor old to remember,
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  Speaker 1: And in their fear of seeking and remembering, they shun
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  Speaker 1: all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.
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  Speaker 1: But even in their foregoing is their pleasure. And thus
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  Speaker 1: they too find a treasure, though they dig for roots
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  Speaker 1: with quivering hands. But tell me who is he that
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  Speaker 1: can offend the spirit? Shall the nightingale offend the stillness
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  Speaker 1: of the night, or the firefly the stars? And shall
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  Speaker 1: your flame or your smoke burden the wind? Think you,
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  Speaker 1: the spirit is the still pool, which you can trouble
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  Speaker 1: with a staff. Oftentimes, in denying your self pleasure, you
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  Speaker 1: do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.
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  Speaker 1: Who knows, but that which seems omitted today waits for tomorrow.
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  Speaker 1: Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need,
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  Speaker 1: and will not be deceived. And your body is the
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  Speaker 1: harp of your soul, and it is yours to bring
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  Speaker 1: forth sweet music from it. Or confused sounds. And now
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  Speaker 1: you ask in your heart, how shall we distinguish that
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  Speaker 1: which is good in pleasure from that which is not good.
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  Speaker 1: Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall
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  Speaker 1: learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to
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  Speaker 1: gather honey of the flower. But it is also the
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  Speaker 1: pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
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  Speaker 1: For to the bee, a flower is a fountain of life,
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  Speaker 1: and to the flower, a bee is a messenger of love.
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  Speaker 1: And to both be and flower, the giving and the
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  Speaker 1: receiving of pleasure is in need and an ecstasy. People
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  Speaker 1: of Orpheles, be in your pleasures like the flowers and
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  Speaker 1: the bees. Chapter twenty five on beauty, And a poet said,
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  Speaker 1: speak to us of beauty. And he answered, where shall
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  Speaker 1: you seek beauty? And how shall you find her unless
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  Speaker 1: she herself be your way and your guide? And how
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  Speaker 1: shall you speak of her except she be the weaver
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  Speaker 1: of your speech. The aggrieved and the injured say, beauty
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  Speaker 1: is kind and gentle, like a young mother, half shy
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  Speaker 1: of her own glory, she walks among us. And the
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  Speaker 1: passionate say, nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread,
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  Speaker 1: like the tempest. She shakes the earth beneath us and
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  Speaker 1: the sky above us. The tired and the weary say,
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  Speaker 1: Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
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  Speaker 1: Her voice shields to our silences, like a faint light
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  Speaker 1: that quivers in fear of the shadow. But the restless say,
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  Speaker 1: we have heard her shouting among the mountains, and with
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  Speaker 1: her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating
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  Speaker 1: of wings, and the roaring of lions. At night, the
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  Speaker 1: watchmen of the city say, Beauty shall rise with a
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  Speaker 1: dawn from the east. And at noontide, the toilers and
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  Speaker 1: the wayfarer say, we have seen her leaning over the
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  Speaker 1: earth from the windows of the sunset. In winter, say
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  Speaker 1: the snow bound, she shall come with the spring leaping
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  Speaker 1: upon the hills, and in the summer heat. The reapers say,
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  Speaker 1: we have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and
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  Speaker 1: we saw a drift of snow in her hair. All
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  Speaker 1: these things have you said of beauty. Yet in truth
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  Speaker 1: you spoke not of her, but of needs unsatisfied. And
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  Speaker 1: beauty is not in need but an ecstasy. It is
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  Speaker 1: not a mouth thirsting, nor an empty hand stretched forth,
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  Speaker 1: but rather a heart inflamed, and a soul enchanted. It
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  Speaker 1: is not the image you would see, nor the song
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  Speaker 1: you would hear, but rather an image you see though
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  Speaker 1: you close your eyes, and a song you hear though
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  Speaker 1: you shut your ears. It is not the sap within
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  Speaker 1: the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
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  Speaker 1: but rather a garden forever in bloom, and a flock
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  Speaker 1: of angels forever in flight, People of orphiles. Beauty is
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  Speaker 1: life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life,
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  Speaker 1: and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at
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  Speaker 1: itself in a mirror. But you are eternity, and you
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  Speaker 1: are the mirror. Chapter twenty six on religion. And an
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  Speaker 1: old priest said, speak to us of religion. And he said,
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  Speaker 1: have I spoken this day of aught? Else is not
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  Speaker 1: religion and all deeds and all reflection, and that which
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  Speaker 1: is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a
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  Speaker 1: surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands
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  Speaker 1: hew the stone or tend the loom. Who can separate
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  Speaker 1: his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations,
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  Speaker 1: Who can spread his hours before him? Saying this for God,
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  Speaker 1: and this for myself, this for my soul, and this
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  Speaker 1: other for my body. All your hours are wings that
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  Speaker 1: be through space from self to self. He who wears
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  Speaker 1: his morality, but as his best garment were better naked,
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  Speaker 1: the wind and the sun will tear no holes in
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  Speaker 1: his skin. And he who defines his conduct by ethics
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  Speaker 1: imprisons his song bird in a cage. The freest song
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  Speaker 1: comes not through bars and wires. And he to whom
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  Speaker 1: worshiping is a window to open but also to shut,
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  Speaker 1: has not yet visited the house of his soul, whose
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  Speaker 1: windows are from dawn to dawn. Your daily life is
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  Speaker 1: your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it,
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  Speaker 1: take with you your all. Take the plow and the forge,
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  Speaker 1: and the mallet and the lute, the things you have
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  Speaker 1: fashion and necessity, or for delight. For in reverie you
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  Speaker 1: cannot rise above your achievements, nor fall lower than your failures.
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  Speaker 1: And take with you all men, for in adoration you
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  Speaker 1: cannot fly higher than their hopes, nor humble yourself lower
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  Speaker 1: than their despair. And if you would know God be
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  Speaker 1: not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you,
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  Speaker 1: and you will see him playing with your children. And
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  Speaker 1: look into space. You shall see him walking in the cloud,
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  Speaker 1: outstretching his arms in the lightning, and descending in rain.
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  Speaker 1: You shall see him smiling in flowers, then rising and
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  Speaker 1: waving his hands in trees. Chapter twenty seven on death.
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  Speaker 1: And then Almitra spoke, saying, we would ask now of death.
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  Speaker 1: And he said, you would know the secret of death.
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  Speaker 1: But how shall you find it unless you seek it
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  Speaker 1: in the heart of life. The owl, whose night bound
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  Speaker 1: eyes are blind unto the day, cannot unveil the mystery
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  Speaker 1: of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,
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  Speaker 1: open your heart wide unto the body of life. For
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  Speaker 1: life and death are one, even as the river and
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  Speaker 1: the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes
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  Speaker 1: and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond, And
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  Speaker 1: like sea dreaming beneath the snow, your heart dreams of spring.
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  Speaker 1: Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate
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  Speaker 1: to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling
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  Speaker 1: of the shepherd when he stands before the King, whose
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  Speaker 1: hand is to be laid upon him in honor? Is
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  Speaker 1: the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall
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  Speaker 1: wear the mark of the king. Yet is he not
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  Speaker 1: more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to
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  Speaker 1: die but to stand naked in the wind and to
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  Speaker 1: melt into the sun. And what is it to seize
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  Speaker 1: breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides,
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  Speaker 1: that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered.
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  Speaker 1: Only when you drink from the river of silence shall
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  Speaker 1: you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top,
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  Speaker 1: then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth
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  Speaker 1: shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. And
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  Speaker 1: now it was evening, and Almitra the cirrus, said, bless
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  Speaker 1: it be this day and this place and your spirit
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  Speaker 1: that is spoken. And he answered, was it I who spoke?
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  Speaker 1: Was I not also a listener? End of section