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03 - The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter eight, on Joy and Sorrow. Then a woman said,
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  Speaker 1: speak to us of joy and sorrow. And he answered,
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  Speaker 1: your joy is your sorrow unmasked, And the self same
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  Speaker 1: well from which your laughter arises was oftentimes filled with
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  Speaker 1: your tears. And how else can it be. The deeper
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  Speaker 1: that sorrow carves into your being. The more joy you
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  Speaker 1: can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine,
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  Speaker 1: the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven.
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  Speaker 1: And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the
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  Speaker 1: very wood that was hollowed with knives. When you are joyous,
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  Speaker 1: look deep into your heart, and you shall find it
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  Speaker 1: is only that which has given you sorrow that is
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  Speaker 1: giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again in
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  Speaker 1: your heart, and you shall see that, in truth you
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  Speaker 1: are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some
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  Speaker 1: of you say joy is greater than sorrow, and others say, nay,
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  Speaker 1: sorrow is the greater. But I say unto you, they
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  Speaker 1: are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone
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  Speaker 1: with you at your board, remember that the other is
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  Speaker 1: asleep upon your bed. Verily, you are suspended like scales
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  Speaker 1: between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty.
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  Speaker 1: Are you at standstill and balanced when the treasure keeper
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  Speaker 1: lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver. Needs,
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  Speaker 1: must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall? Chapter
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  Speaker 1: nine on Houses. Then a mason came forth and said,
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  Speaker 1: speak to us of houses. And he answered, and said,
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  Speaker 1: build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness. Ere
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  Speaker 1: you build a house within the city walls. And even
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  Speaker 1: as you have homecomings in your twilight, so has the
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  Speaker 1: wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone. Your house
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  Speaker 1: is your larger body. It grows in the sun and
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  Speaker 1: sleeps in the stillness of the night. And it is
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  Speaker 1: not dreamless. Does not your house dream and dreaming? Leave
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  Speaker 1: the city for grove or hilltop? Would that I could
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  Speaker 1: gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower
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  Speaker 1: scatter them in forest and meadow. Would the valleys were
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  Speaker 1: your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you
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  Speaker 1: might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the
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  Speaker 1: fragrance of the earth in your garments. Ah, But these
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  Speaker 1: things are not yet to be. In their fear, your
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  Speaker 1: forefathers gathered you two near together, And that fear shall
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  Speaker 1: endure a little longer, a little longer shall your city walls,
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  Speaker 1: separate your hearths from your fields, And tell me, people
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  Speaker 1: of or fellies, what have you in these houses? And
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  Speaker 1: what is it you guard with fastened doors? Have you peace,
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  Speaker 1: the quiet urge that reveals your power? Have you remembrances,
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  Speaker 1: the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind.
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  Speaker 1: Have you beauty that leads the heart from things fashioned
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  Speaker 1: of wood and stone to the holy mountain? Tell me,
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  Speaker 1: have you these in your houses? Or have you only comfort?
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  Speaker 1: And the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters
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  Speaker 1: the house as a guest, and then becomes a host,
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  Speaker 1: and then a master, ay, and it becomes a tamer,
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  Speaker 1: and with hook and scourge, makes puppets of your larger desires.
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  Speaker 1: Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
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  Speaker 1: It lulls you to sleep, only to stand by your
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  Speaker 1: bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh. It
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  Speaker 1: makes mock of your sound senses and lays them in
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  Speaker 1: thistle down like fragile vessels. Verily, the lust for comfort
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  Speaker 1: murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning
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  Speaker 1: in the funeral. But you, children of space, you restless
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  Speaker 1: in rest you shall not be trapped nor tamed. Your
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  Speaker 1: house shall be not an anchor but a mast. It
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  Speaker 1: shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound,
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  Speaker 1: but an eyelid that guards the eye. You shall not
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  Speaker 1: fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor
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  Speaker 1: bend your heads that they strike not against the ceiling,
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  Speaker 1: nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
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  Speaker 1: You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead
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  Speaker 1: for the living. And though of magnificence and splendor, your
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  Speaker 1: house shall not hold your secret, nor shelter your longing.
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  Speaker 1: For that which is boundless in you abides the mansion
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  Speaker 1: of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and
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  Speaker 1: whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter ten on clothes, and the weaver said, speak to
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  Speaker 1: us of clothes, And he answered, your clothes conceal much
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  Speaker 1: of your beauty, Yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And
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  Speaker 1: though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy, you
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  Speaker 1: may find in them a harness and a chain. Would
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  Speaker 1: that you could meet the sun and the wind with
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  Speaker 1: more of your skin and less of your raiment. For
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  Speaker 1: the breath of life is in the sunlight, and the
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  Speaker 1: hand of life is in the wind. Some of you
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  Speaker 1: say it is the north wind who has woven the
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  Speaker 1: clothes we wear, And I say, ay, it was the
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  Speaker 1: north wind. But shame was as loom, and the softening
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  Speaker 1: of the sinews was his thread. And when his work
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  Speaker 1: was done, he laughed in the forest. Forget not that
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  Speaker 1: modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean,
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  Speaker 1: And when the unclean shall be no more, what were
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  Speaker 1: modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind.
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  Speaker 1: And forget not that the earth delights to feel your
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  Speaker 1: bare feet, and the winds long to play with your hair.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven on buying and selling. And a merchant said,
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  Speaker 1: speak to us of buying and selling. And he answered,
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  Speaker 1: and said to you, the earth yields her fruit, and
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  Speaker 1: you shall not want if you but know how to
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  Speaker 1: fill your hands. It is in exchanging the gifts of
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  Speaker 1: the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
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  Speaker 1: Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice,
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  Speaker 1: it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
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  Speaker 1: When in the market place you toilers of the sea
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  Speaker 1: and fields and vineyards, meet the weavers and the potters,
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  Speaker 1: and the gatherers of spices, Invoke, then, the Master's spirit
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  Speaker 1: of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify
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  Speaker 1: the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value,
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  Speaker 1: And suffer not the barren handed to take part in
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  Speaker 1: your transactions. Who would sell their words for your labor
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  Speaker 1: To such men, you should say, come with us to
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  Speaker 1: the field, or go with our brothers to the sea,
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  Speaker 1: and cast your net, for the land and the sea
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  Speaker 1: shall be bountiful to you, even as to us. And
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  Speaker 1: if there come the singers and the dancers and the
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  Speaker 1: flute players, buy of their gifts also, for they too
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  Speaker 1: are gatherers of fruit in frankincense. And that which they bring,
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  Speaker 1: though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.
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  Speaker 1: And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one
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  Speaker 1: has gone his way with empty hands, For the master
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  Speaker 1: Spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the
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  Speaker 1: wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter twelve, on crime and punishment. Then one of the
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  Speaker 1: judges of the city stood forth and said, speak to
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  Speaker 1: us of crime and punishment. And he answered, saying, it
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  Speaker 1: is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind that you,
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  Speaker 1: alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore
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  Speaker 1: unto yourself. And for that wrong committed must you knock
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  Speaker 1: and wait awhile, unheeded, at the gate of the blessed.
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  Speaker 1: Like the ocean is your god self. It remains forever undefiled,
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  Speaker 1: and like the ether it lifts, but the winged, even
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  Speaker 1: like the sun, is your god self. It knows not
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  Speaker 1: the ways of the mole, nor seeks it the holes
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  Speaker 1: of the serpent. But your God Self dwells not alone
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  Speaker 1: in your being. Much in you is still man, and
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  Speaker 1: much in you is not yet man, but a shapeless
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  Speaker 1: pigmy that walks asleep in the mist, searching for its
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  Speaker 1: own awakening. And of the man in you would I
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  Speaker 1: now speak, for it is he, and not your god self,
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  Speaker 1: nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and
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  Speaker 1: the punishment of crime. Oftentimes have I heard you speak
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  Speaker 1: of one who commits a wrong, as though he were
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  Speaker 1: not one of you, but a stranger unto you, and
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  Speaker 1: an intruder upon your world. But I say that, even
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  Speaker 1: as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the
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  Speaker 1: highest which is in each one of you, so the
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  Speaker 1: wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the the lowest,
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  Speaker 1: which is in you also, And as a single leaf
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  Speaker 1: turns not yellow, but with the silent knowledge of the
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  Speaker 1: whole tree, so the wrongdoer cannot do wrong without the
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  Speaker 1: hidden will of you. All like a procession, you walk
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  Speaker 1: together towards your God's Self. You are the way and
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  Speaker 1: the wayfarers. And when one of you falls down, he
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  Speaker 1: falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone, Aye.
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  Speaker 1: And he falls for those ahead of him, who, though
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  Speaker 1: faster and surer, afoot, yet remove not the stumbling stone.
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  Speaker 1: And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts.
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  Speaker 1: The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder, and
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  Speaker 1: the robbed is not blameless in being robbed. The righteous
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  Speaker 1: is not innocent of the deeds the wicked, and the
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  Speaker 1: white handed is not clean in the doings of the felon. Yea.
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  Speaker 1: The guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured, and
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  Speaker 1: still more often the condemned is the burden bearer for
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  Speaker 1: the guiltless and unblamed. You cannot separate the just from
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  Speaker 1: the unjust, and the good from the wicked, For they
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  Speaker 1: stand together before the face of the sun. Even as
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  Speaker 1: the black thread and the white are woven together. And
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  Speaker 1: when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into
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  Speaker 1: the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom. Also,
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  Speaker 1: if any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife,
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  Speaker 1: let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales,
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  Speaker 1: and measure his soul with measurements. And let him who
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  Speaker 1: would lash the offender, look unto the spirit of the offended.
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  Speaker 1: And if any of you would punish in the name
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  Speaker 1: of righteousness and lay the axe unto the evil tree,
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  Speaker 1: let him see to its roots, And verily he will
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  Speaker 1: find the roots of the good and the bad, the
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  Speaker 1: fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent
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  Speaker 1: heart of the earth. And you, judges, who would be just?
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  Speaker 1: What judgment pronounce you upon him who, though honest in
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  Speaker 1: the flesh, yet is a thief in spirit? What penalty
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  Speaker 1: lay you upon him whose slays in the flesh, yet
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  Speaker 1: is himself slain in the spirit. And how prosecute you
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  Speaker 1: him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,
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  Speaker 1: yet who also is aggrieved and outraged? And how shall
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  Speaker 1: you punish those whose remorses already greater than their misdeeds
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  Speaker 1: is not remorse the justice which is administered by that
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  Speaker 1: very law which you would fain serve. Yet you cannot
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  Speaker 1: lay remorse upon the innocent, nor lift it from the
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  Speaker 1: heart of the guilty. Unbidden shall it call in the
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  Speaker 1: night that men may wake and gaze upon themselves. And you,
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  Speaker 1: who would understand justice, how shall you Unless you look
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  Speaker 1: upon all deeds in the fullness of light. Only then
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  Speaker 1: shall you know that the erect and the fallen are
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  Speaker 1: but one man standing in twilight between the night of
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  Speaker 1: his pigmy self and the day of his god self.
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  Speaker 1: And that the corner stone of the temple is not
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  Speaker 1: higher than the lowest stone in its foundation. End of
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  Speaker 1: section