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03 - The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran · Wisdom of the Ages Library

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  Chapter eight, on Joy and Sorrow. Then a woman said, speak to
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  us of joy and sorrow. And he answered, your joy is your sorrow
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  unmasked, And the self same well from which your laughter arises was oftentimes filled
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  with your tears. And how else can it be. The deeper that sorrow
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  carves into your being. The more joy you can contain. Is not the
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  cup that holds your wine, the very cup that was burned in the potter's
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  oven. And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood
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  that was hollowed with knives. When you are joyous, look deep into your
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  heart, and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow
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  that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again in your
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  heart, and you shall see that, in truth you are weeping for that
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  which has been your delight. Some of you say joy is greater than sorrow,
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  and others say, nay, sorrow is the greater. But I say
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  unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits
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  alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your
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  bed. Verily, you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
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  Only when you are empty. Are you at standstill and balanced when the
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  treasure keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver. Needs, must
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  your joy or your sorrow rise or fall? Chapter nine on Houses. Then
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  a mason came forth and said, speak to us of houses. And he
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  answered, and said, build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness.
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  Ere you build a house within the city walls. And even as you have
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  homecomings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant
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  and alone. Your house is your larger body. It grows in the sun
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  and sleeps in the stillness of the night. And it is not dreamless.
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  Does not your house dream and dreaming? Leave the city for grove or hilltop?
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  Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a
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  sower scatter them in forest and meadow. Would the valleys were your streets,
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  and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards,
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  and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments. Ah,
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  But these things are not yet to be. In their fear, your forefathers
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  gathered you two near together, And that fear shall endure a little longer,
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  a little longer shall your city walls, separate your hearths from your fields,
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  And tell me, people of or fellies, what have you in these houses?
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  And what is it you guard with fastened doors? Have you peace,
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  the quiet urge that reveals your power? Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches
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  that span the summits of the mind. Have you beauty that leads the heart
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  from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain? Tell me,
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  have you these in your houses? Or have you only comfort? And the
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  lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest,
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  and then becomes a host, and then a master, ay, and it
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  becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge, makes puppets of your larger
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  desires. Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron. It
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  lulls you to sleep, only to stand by your bed and jeer at the
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  dignity of the flesh. It makes mock of your sound senses and lays them
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  in thistle down like fragile vessels. Verily, the lust for comfort murders the
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  passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral. But you,
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  children of space, you restless in rest you shall not be trapped nor
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  tamed. Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast. It shall
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  not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards
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  the eye. You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors,
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  nor bend your heads that they strike not against the ceiling, nor fear
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  to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down. You shall not dwell in
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  tombs made by the dead for the living. And though of magnificence and splendor,
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  your house shall not hold your secret, nor shelter your longing. For
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  that which is boundless in you abides the mansion of the sky, whose door
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  is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of
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  night. Chapter ten on clothes, and the weaver said, speak to us
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  of clothes, And he answered, your clothes conceal much of your beauty,
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  Yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom
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  of privacy, you may find in them a harness and a chain. Would
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  that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and
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  less of your raiment. For the breath of life is in the sunlight,
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  and the hand of life is in the wind. Some of you say it
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  is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear, And I say,
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  ay, it was the north wind. But shame was as loom,
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  and the softening of the sinews was his thread. And when his work was
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  done, he laughed in the forest. Forget not that modesty is for a
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  shield against the eye of the unclean, And when the unclean shall be no
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  more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind.
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  And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet, and the
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  winds long to play with your hair. Chapter eleven on buying and selling.
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  And a merchant said, speak to us of buying and selling. And he
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  answered, and said to you, the earth yields her fruit, and you
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  shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands. It is
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  in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
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  Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but
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  lead some to greed and others to hunger. When in the market place you
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  toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards, meet the weavers and the potters,
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  and the gatherers of spices, Invoke, then, the Master's spirit of
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  the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning
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  that weighs value against value, And suffer not the barren handed to take part
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  in your transactions. Who would sell their words for your labor To such men,
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  you should say, come with us to the field, or go with
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  our brothers to the sea, and cast your net, for the land and
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  the sea shall be bountiful to you, even as to us. And if
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  there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, buy of their
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  gifts also, for they too are gatherers of fruit in frankincense. And that
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  which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your
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  soul. And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one has gone
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  his way with empty hands, For the master Spirit of the earth shall not
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  sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.
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  Chapter twelve, on crime and punishment. Then one of the judges of
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  the city stood forth and said, speak to us of crime and punishment.
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  And he answered, saying, it is when your spirit goes wandering upon the
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  wind that you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore
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  unto yourself. And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait awhile,
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  unheeded, at the gate of the blessed. Like the ocean is your god
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  self. It remains forever undefiled, and like the ether it lifts, but
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  the winged, even like the sun, is your god self. It knows
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  not the ways of the mole, nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
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  But your God Self dwells not alone in your being. Much in you
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  is still man, and much in you is not yet man, but a
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  shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist, searching for its own awakening.
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  And of the man in you would I now speak, for it is he,
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  and not your god self, nor the pigmy in the mist, that
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  knows crime and the punishment of crime. Oftentimes have I heard you speak of
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  one who commits a wrong, as though he were not one of you,
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  but a stranger unto you, and an intruder upon your world. But I
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  say that, even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest
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  which is in each one of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot
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  fall lower than the the lowest, which is in you also, And as
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  a single leaf turns not yellow, but with the silent knowledge of the whole
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  tree, so the wrongdoer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you.
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  All like a procession, you walk together towards your God's Self. You are
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  the way and the wayfarers. And when one of you falls down, he
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  falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone, Aye.
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  And he falls for those ahead of him, who, though faster and surer,
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  afoot, yet remove not the stumbling stone. And this also, though
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  the word lie heavy upon your hearts. The murdered is not unaccountable for his
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  own murder, and the robbed is not blameless in being robbed. The righteous
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  is not innocent of the deeds the wicked, and the white handed is not
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  clean in the doings of the felon. Yea. The guilty is oftentimes the
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  victim of the injured, and still more often the condemned is the burden bearer
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  for the guiltless and unblamed. You cannot separate the just from the unjust,
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  and the good from the wicked, For they stand together before the face of
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  the sun. Even as the black thread and the white are woven together.
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  And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth,
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  and he shall examine the loom. Also, if any of you would
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  bring to judgment the unfaithful wife, let him also weigh the heart of her
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  husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements. And let him who
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  would lash the offender, look unto the spirit of the offended. And if
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  any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the axe unto
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  the evil tree, let him see to its roots, And verily he will
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  find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless,
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  all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth. And you,
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  judges, who would be just? What judgment pronounce you upon him who,
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  though honest in the flesh, yet is a thief in spirit? What penalty
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  lay you upon him whose slays in the flesh, yet is himself slain in
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  the spirit. And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and
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  an oppressor, yet who also is aggrieved and outraged? And how shall you
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  punish those whose remorses already greater than their misdeeds is not remorse the justice which
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  is administered by that very law which you would fain serve. Yet you cannot
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  lay remorse upon the innocent, nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.
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  Unbidden shall it call in the night that men may wake and gaze upon
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  themselves. And you, who would understand justice, how shall you Unless you
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  look upon all deeds in the fullness of light. Only then shall you know
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  that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the
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  night of his pigmy self and the day of his god self. And that
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  the corner stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its
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  foundation. End of section