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04 - The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen on laws. Then a lawyer said, but what
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  Speaker 1: of our laws? Master? And he answered, you delight in
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  Speaker 1: laying down laws, yet you delight more in breaking them,
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  Speaker 1: like children playing by the ocean, who build sand towers
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  Speaker 1: with constancy and then destroy them with laughter. But while
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  Speaker 1: you build your sand towers, the ocean brings more sand
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  Speaker 1: to the shore. And when you destroy them, the ocean
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  Speaker 1: laughs with you fairly. The ocean laughs always with the innocent.
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  Speaker 1: But what of those to whom life is not an ocean,
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  Speaker 1: and mad made laws are not sand towers, But to
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  Speaker 1: whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel
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  Speaker 1: with which they would carve it in their own likeness.
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  Speaker 1: What of the cripple who hates dancers. What of the ox,
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  Speaker 1: who loves his yoke and deems the elk and deer
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  Speaker 1: of the forest stray and vagrant things. What of the
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  Speaker 1: old serpent, who cannot shed his skin and calls all
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  Speaker 1: others naked and shameless. And of him who comes early
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  Speaker 1: to the wedding feast, and when overfed and tired, goes
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  Speaker 1: his way saying that all feasts are violation, and all
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  Speaker 1: feasters lawbreakers. What shall I say of these? Say that
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  Speaker 1: they two stand in the sunlight, But with their backs
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  Speaker 1: to the sun, they see only their shadows. And their
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  Speaker 1: shadows are their laws. And what is the sun to
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  Speaker 1: them but a castor of shadows? And what is it
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  Speaker 1: to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and trace
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  Speaker 1: their shadows upon the earth? But you who walk facing
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  Speaker 1: the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?
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  Speaker 1: You who travel with the wind? What weather vane shall
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  Speaker 1: direct your course? What man's laws shall bind you? If
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  Speaker 1: you break your yoke but upon no man's prison door?
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  Speaker 1: What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble
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  Speaker 1: against no man's iron chains? And who is he that
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  Speaker 1: shall bring you to judgment? If you tear off your garment,
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  Speaker 1: yet leave it in no man's path? People of Orpheles,
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  Speaker 1: you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the
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  Speaker 1: strings of the lyre, But who shall command the skylark
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  Speaker 1: not to sing? Chapter fourteen on freedom? And an orator said,
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  Speaker 1: speak to us of freedom? And he answered, at the
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  Speaker 1: city gate, and by your fireside, I have seen you
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  Speaker 1: prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, even as slaves
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  Speaker 1: humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he
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  Speaker 1: slays them aye. In the grove of the temple, and
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  Speaker 1: in the shadow of the citadel, I have seen the
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  Speaker 1: freest among you where they're freedom as a yoke and
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  Speaker 1: a handcuff, And my heart bled within me. For you
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  Speaker 1: can only be free when even the desire of seeking
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  Speaker 1: freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease
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  Speaker 1: to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
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  Speaker 1: You shall be free. Indeed, when your days are not
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  Speaker 1: without a care, nor your nights without a want and
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  Speaker 1: a grief, but rather when these things girdle your life,
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  Speaker 1: and yet you rise above them, naked and unbound. And
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  Speaker 1: how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless
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  Speaker 1: you break the chains which you, at the dawn of
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  Speaker 1: your understanding, have fastened around your noon hour. In truth,
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  Speaker 1: that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains.
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  Speaker 1: Though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.
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  Speaker 1: And what is it but fragments of your own self.
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  Speaker 1: You would discard that you may become free if it
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  Speaker 1: is an unjust life law, you would abolish. That law
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  Speaker 1: was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
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  Speaker 1: You cannot erase it by burning your law books, nor
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  Speaker 1: by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour
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  Speaker 1: the sea upon them. And if it is a despot,
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  Speaker 1: you would dethrone. See first, that is thrown erected within
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  Speaker 1: you is destroyed. For how can a tyrant rule the
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  Speaker 1: free and the proud but for a tyranny and their
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  Speaker 1: own freedom, and a shame and their own pride. And
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  Speaker 1: if it is a care, you would cast off that
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  Speaker 1: cart has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
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  Speaker 1: And if it is a fear, you would dispel. The
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  Speaker 1: seat of that fear is in your heart and not
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  Speaker 1: in the hand of the feared. Verily, all things move
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  Speaker 1: within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and
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  Speaker 1: the dreaded, the repugnant, and the cherished pursued, and that
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  Speaker 1: which you would escape. These things move within you as
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  Speaker 1: lights and shadows impairs they cling. And when the shadow
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  Speaker 1: fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes
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  Speaker 1: a shadow to another light. And thus your freedom, when
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  Speaker 1: it loses its fetters, becomes itself the fetter of a
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  Speaker 1: greater freedom. Chapter fifteen on reason and Passion. And the
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  Speaker 1: priestess spoke again and said, speak to us of reason
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  Speaker 1: and passion. And he answered, saying, your soul is oftentimes
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  Speaker 1: a battlefield upon which your reason and your judgment wage
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  Speaker 1: war against your passion and your appetite. Would that I
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  Speaker 1: could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might
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  Speaker 1: turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into
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  Speaker 1: oneness and melody. But how shall I unless you use
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  Speaker 1: be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements.
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  Speaker 1: Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the
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  Speaker 1: sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or
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  Speaker 1: your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift,
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  Speaker 1: or else be held at a standstill in mid seas.
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  Speaker 1: For reason, ruling alone is a force confining, and passion
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  Speaker 1: unattended is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: let your soul exalt your reason to the height of
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  Speaker 1: passion that it may sing, and let it direct your
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  Speaker 1: passion with reason, that your passion may live through its
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  Speaker 1: own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix, rise above its
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  Speaker 1: own ashes. I would have you consider your judgment and
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  Speaker 1: your appetite even as you would two loved guests in
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  Speaker 1: your house. Surely you would not honor one guest above
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  Speaker 1: the other, For he who is more mindful of one
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  Speaker 1: loses the love and the faith of both. Among the hills,
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  Speaker 1: when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars,
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  Speaker 1: sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows,
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  Speaker 1: then let your heart say in silence, God rests in reason.
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  Speaker 1: And when the storm comes and the mighty wind shakes
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  Speaker 1: the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of
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  Speaker 1: the sky, then let your heart say in awe, God
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  Speaker 1: moves in passion. And since you are a breath in
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  Speaker 1: God's sphere and a leaf in God's forest, you too
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  Speaker 1: should rest in reason and move in passion. Chapter sixteen
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  Speaker 1: on pain, And a woman spoke, saying, tell us of pain,
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  Speaker 1: And he said, your pain is the breaking of the
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  Speaker 1: shell that encloses your understanding, even as the stone of
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  Speaker 1: the fruit must break that its heart may stand in
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  Speaker 1: the sun. So much you no pain, And could you
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  Speaker 1: keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of
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  Speaker 1: your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than
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  Speaker 1: your joy. And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
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  Speaker 1: even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass
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  Speaker 1: over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through
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  Speaker 1: the winters of your grief. Much of your pain is
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  Speaker 1: self chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the
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  Speaker 1: physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the
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  Speaker 1: physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility. For
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  Speaker 1: his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the
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  Speaker 1: tender hand of the unseen, and the cupp he brings,
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  Speaker 1: though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the
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  Speaker 1: clay which the potter has moistened with his own sacred tears.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter seventeen, on self Knowledge. And a man said, speak
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  Speaker 1: to us of self knowledge. And he answered, saying, your
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  Speaker 1: hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and
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  Speaker 1: the nights, But your ears thirst for the sound of
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  Speaker 1: your heart's knowledge. You would know in words that which
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  Speaker 1: you have always known in thought. You would touch with
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  Speaker 1: your fingers the naked body of your dreams. And it
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  Speaker 1: is well you should. The hidden wellspring of your soul
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  Speaker 1: must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea, and
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  Speaker 1: the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to
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  Speaker 1: your eyes. But let there be no scales to weigh
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  Speaker 1: your unknown treasure, And seek not the depths of your
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  Speaker 1: knowledge with d staff or sounding line. For self is
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  Speaker 1: a sea, boundless and measureless. Say not I have found
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  Speaker 1: the truth, But rather I have found a truth. Say
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  Speaker 1: not I have found the path of the soul. Say
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  Speaker 1: rather I have met the soul walking upon my path.
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  Speaker 1: For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks
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  Speaker 1: not upon a line. Neither does it grow like a reed.
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  Speaker 1: The soul unfolds itself like a lotus of countless pedals.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter eighteen, on teaching, Then said a teacher speak to
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  Speaker 1: us of teaching. And he said, no man can reveal
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  Speaker 1: to you ought but that which already lies half asleep
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  Speaker 1: in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher, who walks
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  Speaker 1: in the shadow of the temple among his followers, gives
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  Speaker 1: not of his wisdom, but rather of his faith than
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  Speaker 1: his lovingness. If he is indeed wise, he does not
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  Speaker 1: bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather
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  Speaker 1: leads you to the threshold of your own mind. The
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  Speaker 1: astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space,
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  Speaker 1: but he cannot give you his understanding. The musician may
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  Speaker 1: sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space,
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  Speaker 1: but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the
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  Speaker 1: rhythm nor the voice that echoes it. And he who
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  Speaker 1: is versed in the science of numbers can tell of
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  Speaker 1: the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct
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  Speaker 1: you hither. For the vision of one man lends not
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  Speaker 1: its wings to another man. And even as each one
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  Speaker 1: of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each
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  Speaker 1: one of you be alone in his knowledge of God
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  Speaker 1: and in his understanding of the Earth. End of section.