Latest / Classic Fiction Book Collection / The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran

Transcript

The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran · Classic Fiction Book Collection

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The coming of the ship. Al Mustapha, the Chosen and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the Beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: had waited twelve years in the city of Orpheles for
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: his ship that was to return and bear him back
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to the isle of his birth. And in the twelfth year,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: on the seventh day of Eolul, the month of reaping,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: he climbed the hill without the city walls, and looked seaward,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and he beheld his ship coming with the mist. Then
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the gates of his heart were flung open, and his
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: joy flew far over the sea. And he closed his
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul. But
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: as he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and he thought in his heart, how shall I go
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: in the spirit? Shall I leave this city? Long were
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the days of pain I have spent within its walls,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: and long were the nights of a lonness. And who
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: can depart from his pain and his loneness without regret?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: these streets, And too many are the children of my
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: withdraw from them without a burden and an ache. It
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: is not a garment I cast off this day, but
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: is it a thought I leave behind me, but a
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst. Yet I
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: cannot tarry longer. The sea that calls all things unto
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: her calls me, and I must embark. For to stay
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: though the hours burn in the night is to freeze
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and crystallize, and be bound in a mold. Fain would
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I take with me all that is here? But how
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: shall I A voice cannot carry the tongue and the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: lips that gave it wings? Alone? Must it seek the ether?
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: And alone, and without his nest shall the eagle fly
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: across the sun? Now, when he reached the foot of
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the hill, he turned again towards the sea, and he
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: saw his ship approaching the harbor, and upon her prow
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the mariners, the men of his own land, and his
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: soul cried out to them, and he said, sons of
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: my ancient mother, you riders of the tides, how often
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: have you sailed in my dreams? And now you come
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: in my awakening, which is my deeper dream. Ready am
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I to go? And my eagerness, with sails full set,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: awaits the wind. Only another breath while I breathe in
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: this still air, Only another loving look cast backward. And
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: then I shall stand among you, a seafarer among seafarers,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: and you, vast sea, sleepless mother, who alone are peace
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and freedom. To the river and the stream. Only another winding.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Will this stream make only another murmur in this glade.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: And then and I shall come to you, a boundless
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: drop to a boundless ocean. And as he walked, he
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: saw from afar men and women leaving their fields and
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: their vineyards, and hastening towards the city gates. And he
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: heard their voices calling his name, and shouting from field
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to field, telling one another of the coming of his ship.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: And he said to himself, shall the day of parting
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: be the day of gathering? And shall it be said
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: that my eve was in truth my dawn. And what
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: shall I give unto him who has left his plow
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: in mid furrow, or to him who has stopped the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: wheel of his wine press. Shall my heart become a tree,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: heavy laden with fruit, that I may gather and give
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: unto them, And shall my desires flow like a fountain
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: that I may fill their cups? Am I? A harp
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: that the hand of the Mighty may touch me, or
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a flute that his breath may pass through me. A
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: seeker of silences? Am I? And what treasure have I
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: found in silences? That I may dispense with confidence? If
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: this is my day of harvest, in what fields have
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I sowed the seed? And in what unremembered seasons? If
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: this indeed be the hour in which I lift up
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: my lantern, it is not my flame that shall burn
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: therein empty and dark. Shall I raise my lantern, and
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the guardian of the night shall fill it with oil,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and he shall light it. Also these things he said
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: in words, but much in his heart remained unset, for
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: he himself could not speak his deeper secret. And when
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: he entered into the city, all the people came to
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: meet him, and they were crying out to him as
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: with one voice. And the elders of the city stood
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: forth and said, go not yet away from us. A
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: noontide have you bid in our twilight? And your youth
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: has given us dreams to dream. No stranger are you
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: among us, nor a guest but our son and our
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: dearly beloved, suffer not yet our eyes to hunger for
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: your face. And the priests and the priestesses said unto him,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: let not the waves of the sea separate us now,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: and the years you have spent in our midst become
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: a memory. You have walked among us a spirit, and
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: your shadow has been a light upon our faces. Much
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: have we loved you, But speechless was our love, And
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: with veils has it been veiled? Yet? Now what a
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: cries aloud unto you, and would stand revealed before you?
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And ever has it been? That love knows not its
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: own depth until the hour of separation. And others came
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: also and entreated him, But he answered them not. He
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: only bent his head, and those who stood near saw
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: his tears falling upon his breast. And he and the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: people proceeded to towards the great square before the temple,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and there came out of the sanctuary a woman whose
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: name was Almetra, and she was a cirus. And he
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: looked upon her with exceeding tenderness, for it was she
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: who had first sought and believed in him, when he
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: had been but a day in their city. And she
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: hailed him, saying, Prophet of God, in quest of the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: uttermost long have you searched the distances for your ship,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And now your ship has come, and you must needs go.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Deep is your longing for the land of your memories
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and the dwelling place of your greater desires. And our
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: love could not bind you, nor our needs hold you.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Yet this we ask ere you leave us, that you
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: speak to us and give us of your truth, and
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: we will give it unto our children, and they unto
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: their children, and it shall not perish in your alone.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: You have watched with our days, and in your wakefulness
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: you have listened to the weeping and the laughter of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: our sleep. Now, therefore, disclose us to ourselves, and tell
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: us all that has been shown you, of that which
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: is between birth and death. And he answered, people of orphiles,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: of what can I speak save of that which is
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: even now moving within your souls. End of chapter one,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Chapter two on love. Then said Almetra, speak to us
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: of love. And he raised his head and looked upon
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the people, and there fell a stillness upon them, And
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: with a great voice, he said, when love beckons to you,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: follow him, though his ways are hard and steep, and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: when his wings enfold you. Yield to him, though the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: he speaks to you, believe in him, though his voice
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: may shatter your dreams. As the north wind lays waste
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the garden. For even as love crowns you, so shall
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and shake them and their clinging to the earth like
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: sheaves of corn. He gathers you unto himself. He threshes
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: you to make you naked. He sifts you to free
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: needs you until you are pliant, And then he assigns
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: bread for God's sacred feast. All these things shall Love
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: do unto you, that you may know the secrets of
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: life's heart. But if in your fear you would seek
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: of love's threshing floor into the seasonless world, where you
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: shall laugh but not all of your laughter, and weep
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not, nor
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: would it be possessed. For love is sufficient unto love.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: And when you love, you should not say God is
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: in my heart, but rather I am in the heart
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of God, and think not. You can direct the course
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: But if you love and must needs, have desires, let
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: these be your desires. To melt and be like a
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: running brook that sings its melody to the night, To
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: know the pain of too much tenderness, to be wounded
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: by your own understanding of love, and to bleed willingly
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and give thanks for another day of loving. To rest
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy, To return
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: home at eventide with gratitude, and then to sleep with
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: a prayer for the beloved. In your heart, and a
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: song of praise upon your lips. End of chapter chapter
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: three on marriage. Then Almetri spoke again and said, and
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: what of marriage? Master? And he answered, saying, you were
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Aye,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: you shall be together, even in the silent memory of God.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: but make not a bond of love. Let it rather
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Fill each other's cup, but drink not from one cup.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Give one another of your bread, but eat not from
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the same loaf. Sing and dance together, and be joyous.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: But let each one of you be alone, even as
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the strings of a lute are alone, though they quiver
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: each other's keeping, for only the hand of life can
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: for the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Four on Children and a woman who held a babe
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: against your bosom, said, speak to us of children, And
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: he said, your children are not your children. They are
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: come through you, but not from you. And though they
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: are with you, yet they belong not to you. You
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: may give them your love, but not your thoughts, for
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: seek not to make them like you, For life goes
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: not backward, nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: from which your children, as living arrows, are sent forth.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: and he bends you with his might, that his arrows
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: may go swift and far. Let your bending in the
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: archer's hand be for gladness, for even as he loves
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: that is stable. Chapter five. On giving, then said a
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: rich man, speak to us of giving. And he answered,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: you give but little when you give of your possessions.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: For what are your possessions but things you keep and
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: guard for fear you may need them tomorrow and tomorrow.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: What shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the Holy City? And what is fear of need? But
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: need itself? Is it not dread of thirst? When you're
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: well is full the thirst that is unquenchable. There are
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: those who give little of the much which they have,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and they give it for recognition, and their hidden desire
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: makes their gifts unwholesome. And there are those who have
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: little and give it all. These are the believers in
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: never empty. There are those who give with joy, and
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: that joy is their reward. And there are those who
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: give with pain, and that pain is their baptism. And
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: there are those who give and know not pain in giving,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: They give as in Yonder Valley, the myrtle breathes its
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: fragrance into space. Through the hands of such as these,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: God speaks and from behind their eyes he smiles upon
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the earth. It is well to give when they asked,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: but it is better to give unasked, through understanding and
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: to the open handed. The search for one who shall
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: receive is joy greater than giving, and is there aught.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: You would withhold all you have shall some day be given.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: yours and not your inheritors. You often say I would give,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: but only to the deserving. The trees in your orchard,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: give that they may live. For to withhold is to perish. Surely,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: he who is worthy to receive his days and his
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: nights is worthy of all else from you. And he
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: deserves to fill his cup from your little stream. And
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: what desert greater shall there be than that which lies
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: in the courage and the confidence, nay, the charity of receiving.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And who are you that men should rend their bosom
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: naked and their pride unabashed. See first that you yourself
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: deserve to be a giver and an instrument of giving.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: For in truth, it is life that gives unto life.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: While you who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: and you receivers, and you are all receivers. Assume no
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: and upon him who gives. Rather rise together with the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: giver on his gifts as on wings. For to be
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: overmindful of your debt is to doubt his generosity. Who
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: has the free hearted Earth for mother, and God for father.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: On eating and drinking, Then an old man, a keeper
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: of an inn, said, speak to us of eating and drinking.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And he said, would that you could live on the
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant, be
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and rob the newly born of its mother's milk to
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: quench your thirst, let it then be an active worship.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: And let your board stand an altar on which the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: for that which is purer and still more innocent in man,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: When you kill a beast, say to him in your heart,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: by the same power that slays you, I too am slain,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: and I too shall be consumed, for the law that
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: mightier hand. Your blood and my blood is naught but
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: the sap that feeds the tree of heaven. And when
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: in your heart. Your seeds shall live in my body,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And your fragrance shall be my breath. And together we
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: shall rejoice through all the seasons. And in the autumn,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: when you gather the grapes of your vineyards for the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: wine press, say in your heart, I too am a vineyard,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and my fruit shall be gathered for the wine press,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And like new wine, I shall be kept in eternal vessels.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: be in your heart a song for each cup. And
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: let there be in the song a remembrance for the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the wine press.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: And on warm work, then a plowman said, speak to
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: us of work, And he answered, saying, you work, that
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: you may keep pace with the earth and the soul
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: of the earth. For to be idle is to become
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: life's procession that marches in majesty and proud submission towards
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the infinite. When you work, you are a flute through
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Which of you would be a read dumb and silent
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: when all else sings together in unison always. You have
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: been told that work is a curse and labor a misfortune.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: But I say to you that when you work, you
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: fulfill a part of Earth's furthest dream a sign to
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: you when that dream was born. And in keeping yourself
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: with labor, you are, in truth loving life. And to
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: love life through labor is to be intimate with life's
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: inmost secret. But if you and your pain call birth
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: an affliction, and the support of the flesh a curse
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: is written. You have been told also that life is darkness,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and in your weariness you echo what was said by
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: the weary, And I say that life is indeed darkness,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: save where there is urge, and all urge is blind,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: save where there is knowledge, and all knowledge is vain.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Save when there is work, and all work is empty
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: save when there is love. And when you work with love,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: you bind yourself to yourself and to one another and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: to God. And what is it to work with love?
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: It is to weave the cloth with threat breads drawn
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: from your heart, even as if your beloved were to
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: even as if you're beloved were to dwell in that house.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: It is to sow seeds with tenderness, and reap the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: fashion with a breath of your own spirit, and to
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: know that all the blessed dead are standing about you
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and watching. Often have I heard you say, as if
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: speaking in sleep, he who works in marble and finds
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the shape of his own soul in the stone is
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: nobler than he who plows the soil, And he who
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: the likeness of man, is more than he who makes
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the sandals for our feet. But I say, not in sleep,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: but in the overweight makefulness of Noontide, that the wind
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the least of all the blades of grass. And he
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: alone is great who turns the voice of the wind
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: into a song made sweeter by his own loving work
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: but only with distaste, it is better that you should
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: and take alms of those who work with joy. For
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: bread that feeds but half man's hunger. And if you
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: grudge the crushing of the grapes, You're grudge distills a
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: poison in the wine. And if you sing, though as
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: angels and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: to the voices of the day and the voices of
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the night. End of Section two, Chapter eight, on joy
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and sorrow. Then a woman said, speak to us of
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: joy and sorrow. And he answered, your joy is your
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: sorrow unmasked. And the self same well from which your
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: laughter arises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: else can it be. The deeper that sorrow carves into
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the cup that holds your wine, the very cup that
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: was burned in the potter's oven, and is not the
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: hollowed with knives. When you are joyous, look deep into
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: your heart, and you shall find it is only that
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: you shall see that, in truth, you are weeping for
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: that which been your delight. Some of you say joy
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: is greater than sorrow, and others say, nay, sorrow is
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the greater. But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Together they come, and when one sits alone with you
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: your bed. Verily, you are suspended like scales between your
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: you at standstill and balanced. When the treasure keeper lifts
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs, must
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: your joy or your sorrow rise or fall? Chapter nine
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: on houses. Then a mason came forth and said, speak
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to us of houses. And he answered and said, build
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness, or you
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: build a house with than the city walls. And even
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: as you have homecomings in your twilight, so has the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone. Your house
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: is your larger body. It grows in the sun and
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: sleeps in the stillness of the night. And it is
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: not dreamless. Does not your house dream and dreaming? Leave
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the city for grove or hilltop? Would that I could
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: scatter them in forest and meadow. Would the valleys were
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: fragrance of the earth in your garments. Ah, But these
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: things are not yet to be. In their fear, your
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: forefathers gathered you two near together, And that fear shall
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: walls separate your hearths from your field? And tell me,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: people of Orpheles, what have you in these houses? And
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: what is it you guard with fastened doors? Have you peace,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the quiet urge that reveals your power? Have you remembrances,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Have you beauty that leads the heart from things fashioned
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: of wood and stone to the holy mountain. Tell me,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: have you these in your houses? Or have you only comfort?
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the house as a guest, and then becomes a host,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and then a master, ay, and it becomes a tamer,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: and with hook and scourge, makes puppets of your larger desires.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: It lulls you to sleep, only to stand by your
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh. It
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: makes mock of your sound senses and lays them in
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: thistle down like fragile vessels. Verily, the lust for comfort
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: in the funeral. But you children of space, you restless.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: In rest. You shall not be trapped nor tamed. Your
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: house shall be not an anchor but a mast. It
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: but an eyelid that guards the eye. You shall not
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: bend your heads that they strike not against the ceiling,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: for the living. And though of magnificence and splendor your
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: house shall not hold your secret, nor shelter your longing
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: for them. That which is boundless in you abides in
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Chapter ten on clothes, and the weaver said, speak to
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: us of clothes, And he answered, your clothes conceal much
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: of your beauty. Yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy, you
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: may find in them a harness and a chain. Would
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: that you could meet the sun and the wind with
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: more of your skin and less of your raiment. For
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the breath of life is in the sunlight, and the
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: hand of life is in the wind. Some of you
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: say it is the north wind who has woven the
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: clothes we wear, And I say, ay, it was the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: north wind. What shame was as loom, and the softening
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of the sinews was his thread. And when his work
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: was done, he laughed in the forest. Forget not that
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: And when the unclean shall be no more, what were
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: And forget not that the earth delights to feel your
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: bare feet, and the winds long to play with your hair.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Chapter eleven on buying and selling. And a merchant said,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: speak to us of buying and selling. And he answered,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and said to you, the earth yields her fruit, and
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you shall not want if you but know how to
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: fill your hands. It is in exchanging the gifts of
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: When in the market place you toilers of the sea
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: and fields and vineyards, meet the weavers and the potters,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and the gatherers of spices, invoke, then the master spirit
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: And suffer not the barren handed to take part in
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: your transactions. Who would sell their words for your labor.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: To such men, you should say, come with us to
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: the field, or go with our brothers to the sea,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: and cast your net, for the land and the sea
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: shall be bountiful to you, even as to us. And
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: if there come the singers and the dancers and the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: flute players, buy of their gifts also, for they too
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: are gatherers of fruit in frankincense. And that which they burn,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: has gone his way with empty hands. For the master
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Chapter twelve, on crime and punishment. Then one of the
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: judges of the city stood forth and said, speak to
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: us of crime and punishment. And he answered, saying, it
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind, that
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: you alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others, and
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: therefore unto yourself. And for that wrong committed must you
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: knock and wait awhile, unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Like the ocean is your god self, it remains forever undefiled,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and like the ether it lifts, but the winged, even
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: like the sun, is your god self. It knows not
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: the ways of the mole, nor seeks it the holes
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: of the serpent. But your God Self dwells not alone
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: in your being. Much in you is still man, and
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: much in you is not yet man, but a shapeless
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: pigmy that walks asleep in the mist, searching for its
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: own awakening. And of the man in you would I
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: now speak, for it is he, and not your god self,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: the punishment of crime. Oftentimes have I heard you speak
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of one who commits a wrong, as though he were
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: not one of you, but a stranger unto you, and
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: an intruder upon your world. But I say that, even
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: which is in each one of you, so the wicked
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: in the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest, which
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: is in you. Also. And as a single leaf turns
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: so the wrongdoer cannot do wrong without the hidden will
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: of you. All, like a procession, you walk together towards
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: your God's Self. You are the way and the wayfarers.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: And when one of you falls down. He falls for
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone. Aye,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: And he falls for those ahead of him, who, though
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: faster and surer, afoot, yet remove not the stumbling stone.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: the murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder, and
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the robbed is not blameless in being robbed. The righteous
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked, and
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the white handed is not clean in the doings of
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the felon. Yea. The guilty is oftentimes the victim of
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: the injured, and still more often the condemned is the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: burden bearer for the guiltless and unblamed. You cannot separate
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: the just from the unjust, and the good from the wicked.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: For they stand together before the face of the sun,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: even as the black thread and the white are woven together.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom. Also,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: if any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and measure his soul with measurements. And let him who
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: would lash the offender, look unto the spirit of the offended.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: And if any of you would punish in the name
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: of righteousness and lay the axe unto the evil tree,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: let him see to its rooms roots, and verily he
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: will find the roots of the good and the bad,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: silent heart of the earth. And you, judges, who would
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: be just? What judgment pronounce you upon him who, though
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: honest in the flesh, yet is a thief in spirit?
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: What penalty lay you upon him whose slays in the flesh,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: yet is himself slain in the spirit? And how prosecute
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: you him who, in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: yet who also is aggrieved and outraged? And how shall
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: you punish those whose remorses already greater than their misdeeds?
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: very law which you would fain serve. Yet you cannot
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: lay remorse upon the innocent, nor lift it from the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: heart of the guilty. Unbidden shall it call in the
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: night that men may wake and gaze upon themselves. And you,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: upon all deeds in the fullness of light. Only then
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: shall you know that the erect and the fallen are
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: but one man standing in twilight between the night of
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: his pigmy self and the day of his god self,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: And that the corner stone of the temple is not
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: higher than the lowest stone in its foundation. End of
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: section Chapter thirteen on laws. Then a lawyer said, but
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: what of our laws? Master? And he answered, you delight
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: in laying down laws, yet you delight more in breaking them,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: like children playing by the ocean, who build sand towers
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: with constancy and then destroy them with laughter. But while
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: you build your sand towers, the ocean brings more sand
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: to the shore. And when you destroy them, the ocean
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: laughs with you fairly. The ocean laughs always with the innocent.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: But what of those to whom life is not an ocean,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: and mad made laws are not sand towers, But to
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: with which they would carve it in their own likeness?
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: What of the cripple who hates dancers, What of the
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: ox who loves his yoke and deems the elk and
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: deer of the forest, stray and vagrant things? What of
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: all others naked and shameless. And of him who comes
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: early to the wedding feast, and when overfed and tired,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: goes his way, saying that all feasts are violation, and
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: all feasters lawbreakers. What shall I say of these? Say
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: backs to the sun, they see only their shadows. And
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: their shadows are their laws. And what is the sun
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: to them but a casture of shadows? And what is
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: it to acknowledge the laws but to stoop down and
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: trace their shadows upon the earth. But you, who walk
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: hold you? You who travel with the wind? What weather
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: vane shall direct your course? What man's laws shall bind you?
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: If you break your yoke but upon no man's prison door?
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: against no man's iron chains? And who is he that
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: shall bring you to judgment? If you tear off your garment,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: yet leave it in no man's path? People of Orpheles,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: strings of the lyre. But who shall command and the
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: skylark not to sing. Chapter fourteen on freedom. And an
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: orator said, speak to us of freedom, And he answered,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: at the city gate and by your fireside, I have
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom, even
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: though he slays them. Aye. In the grove of the temple,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: and in the shadow of the citadel, I have seen
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and a hancuff. And my heart bled within me. For
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: you can only be free when even the desire of
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: You shall be free. Indeed, when your days are not
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: without a care, nor your knights without a want and
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: a grief, but rather when these things girdle your life,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and yet you rise above them, naked and unbound. And
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: you break the chains which you, at the dawn of
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: your understanding, have fastened around your noon hour. In truth,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: And what is it but fragments of your own self?
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: You would discard that you may become free. If it
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: is an unjust law, you would abolish. That law was
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: written with your own hand, upon your own forehead. You
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: cannot erase it by burning your law books, nor by
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: sea upon them. And if it is a despot, you
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: would dethrone. See first, that is thrown erected within you
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: is destroyed. For how can a tyrant rule the free
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: and the proud but for a tyranny and their own freedom,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: and a shame in their own pride. And if it
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: is a care, you would cast off that cart has
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: been chosen by you, rather than imposed upon you. And
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: if it is a fear, you would dispel. The seat
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: of that fear is in your heart, and not in
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: the hand of the feared. Verily, all things move within
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: your being in constant half embrace the desired and the dreaded,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the repugnant, and the cherished, the pursued, and that which
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: you would escape. These things move within you as lights
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: and shadows impairs. They cling, And when the shadow fades
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: and is no more the light that lingers becomes a
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: shadow to another light. And thus your freedom, when it
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: loses its fetters, becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen, on reason and Passion. And the Priestess spoke
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: again and said, speak to us of reason and passion.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: And he answered saying, your soul is oftentimes a battlefield
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: your passion and your appetite. Would that I could be
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: But how shall I unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the lovers of all your elements. Your reason and your
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: passion are the rudder and the sales of your seafaring soul.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: If either your saals or your rudder be broken, you
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: can but toss and drift, or else be held at
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: a standstill in mid seas. For reason, ruling alone is
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: a force confining, and passion unattended is a flame that
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: burns to its own destruction. Therefore, let your soul exalt
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: And let it direct your passion with reason, that your
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the phoenix, rise above its own ashes. I would have
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: you consider your judgment and your appetite, even as you
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: not honor one guest above the other, for he who
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: is more mindful of one loses the love and the
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: faith of both. Among the hills, when you sit in
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: and serenity of distant fields and meadows, then let your
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: heart say in silence, God rests in reason. And when
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: the storm and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, then
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: let your heart say in awe, God moves in passion.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: And since you are a breath in God's sphere and
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: reason and move in passion. Chapter sixteen on pain, And
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: a woman spoke, saying, tell us of pain, And he said,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: break that its heart may stand in the sun. So
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: much you know pain, and could you keep your heart
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy, and
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: and you would watch with serenity through the winters of
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: your grief. Much of your pain is self chosen. It
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: is the bitter potion by which the physician within you
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: his remedy in silence and tranquility. For his hand, though
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: the unseen, and the cup he brings, though it burn
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: potter has moistened with his own sacred tears. Chapter seventeen
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: on self Knowledge. And a man said, speak to us
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: of self knowledge. And he answered, saying, your hearts know insightilence,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: the secrets of the days and the nights, but your
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge. You
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: would know in words that which you have always known
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: in thought. You would touch with your fingers the naked
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: body of your dreams, and it is well you should.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: The hidden wellspring of your soul must needs rise and
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: run murmuring to the sea, and the treasure of your
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes. But let
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure. And
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: sounding line. For self is a sea, boundless and measureless.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Say not I have found the truth, But rather I
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: have found a truth. Say not I have found the
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: path of the soul. Say rather I have met the
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: soul walking upon my path. For the soul walks upon
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: all paths. The soul walks not upon a line. Neither
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: like a lotus of countless pedals. Chapter eighteen on teaching,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Then said a teacher speak to us of teaching. And
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: he said, no man can reveal to you ought but
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the temple among his followers, gives not of his wisdom,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: but rather of his faith than his lovingness. If he
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: is indeed wise, he does not bid you enter the
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: threshold of your own mind. The astronomer may speak to
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: you his understanding. The musician may sing to you of
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: give you the ear which arrests the rhythm, nor the
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: voice that echoes it. And he who is versed in
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: the science of numbers can tell of the regions of
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you hither. For
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: the vision of one man lends not its wings to
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: another man. And even as each one of you stands
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: be alone in his knowledge of God and in his
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: understanding of the Earth and of section Chapter nineteen on friendship.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: At a youth said, speak to us of friendship, And
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: he answered, saying, your friend is your needs answered. He
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: is your field, which you sow with love and reap
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: For you come to him with your hunger, and you
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: seek him for peace. When your friend speaks his mind,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: you fear not the nay and your own mind, nor
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: do you withhold the eye and when he is silent,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: your heart ceases not to listen to his heart. For
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: are born and shared with joy that is unacclaimed. When
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: you part from your friend, you grieve not for that
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: which you love most in him may be clearer in
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: from the plain. And let there be no purpose in
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: seeks aught, but the disclosure of its own mystery is
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: not love, but a net casts forth, and only the
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: unprofitable is caught. And let your best be for your friend.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: If he must know the ebb of your tied, let
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: him know its flood. Also, for what is your friend
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: that you should seek him with hours to kill, Seek
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: him always with ours to live. For it is his
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: to fill your need, but not your emptiness. And in
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: the sweetness of friendship, let there be lefter and sharing
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: of pleasures, For in the do of little things the
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: heart finds its mourning and is refreshed. Chapter twenty on talking.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: And then a scholar said, speak of talking, And he answered, saying,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: you talk when you cease to be at peace with
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: your thoughts. And when you can no longer dwell in
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: the solitude of your heart, you live in your lips.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: And sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: is a bird of spain, that, in a cage of words,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: may indeed unfold its wings, but cannot fly. There are
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: those among you who seek the talkative through fear of
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: being alone. The silence of a loneness reveals to their
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: eyes their naked selves, and they would escape. And there
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought, reveal
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: a truth which they themselves do not understand. And there
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: are those who have the truth within them, but they
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: tell it not in words. In the bosom of such
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: as these, the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence. When you
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: let the spirit in you move your lips and direct
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: your tongue. Let the voice within your voice speak to
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: the ear of his ear, for his soul will keep
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: the truth of your heart. As the taste of the
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: wine is remembered. When the color forgotten and the vessel
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: is no more. Chapter twenty one on time. And an
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: astronomer said, Master, what of time? And he answered, you
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable. You would
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: spirit according to hours and seasons of time. You would
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: watch its flowing. Yet the timeless in you is aware
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: of life's timelessness, and knows that yesterday is but today's memory,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: and tomorrow is today's dream. And that which sings and
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: that first moment which scattered the stars into space. Who
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: among you does not feel that his power to love
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: is boundless? And yet who does not feel that very love,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: though boundless, encompassed within the center of his being, and
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: love deeds to other love deeds. And is not time,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: even as love is undivided and paceless. But if in
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: season encircle all the other seasons, and let today embrace
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: the past with remembrance, and the future with longing. Chapter
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: twenty two, on Good and Evil and one of the
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: elders of the city said, speak to us of good
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and evil. And he answered, of the good in you,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I can speak, but not of the evil. For what
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst. Verily,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: when good is hungry, it seeks food even in dark caves.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: And when it thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: You are good when you are one with yourself. Yet
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: when you are not one with yourself, you are not evil.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: For a divided house is not a den of thieves,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: it is only a divided house. And a ship without
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles, yet sink not
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: to the bottom. You are good when you strive to
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: give of yourself. Yet you are not evil when you
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: seek gain for yourself. For when you strive for gain,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: you are but a root that clings to the earth
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: and sucks at her breast. Surely the fruit cannot say
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: to the root, be like me, ripe and full in
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: ever giving of your abundance. For to the fruit, giving
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: You are good when you are fully awake in your speech.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: tongue staggers without purpose, and even stumbling speech may strengthen
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: a weak tongue. You are good when you walk to
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: your goal firmly and with bold steps. Yet you are
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: not evil when you go thither limping. Even those who
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: limp go not backward. But you, who are strong and swift,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: it kindness. You are good in countless ways, and you
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: are not evil. When you are not good, you are
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: only loitering and sluggard. Pity that the stags cannot teach
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: swiftness to the turtles in your longing, for your giant
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: self lies your goodness. And that longing is in all
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: of you. But in some of you that longing is
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: a torrent, rushing with might to the sea, carrying the
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: And in others it is a flat stream that loses
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: the shore. But let not him who longs much, say
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: to him who longs little, wherefore are you slow and halting?
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: For the truly good? Ask not the naked where is
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: your garment? Nor the houseless, what is befalling your house?
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty three, on prayer. Then the priestess said, speak
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: to us of prayer. And he answered, saying, you pray
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: in your distress and in your need. Would that you
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: might pray also in the fullness of your joy and
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: in your days of abundance. For that is prayer but
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: the expansion of yourself into the living ether. And if
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: it is also for your delight to pour forth the
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: dawning of your heart. And if you cannot but weep,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: come laughing. When you pray, you rise to meet in
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: the air those who are praying at that very hour,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: and whom save in prayer, you may not meet. Therefore,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: but ecstasy and sweet communion. For if you should enter
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: the temple for no other purpose than asking, you shall
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: not receive. And if you should enter into it to
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: humble yourself, you shall not be lifted. Or even if
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: you should enter into it to beg for the good
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: of others, you shall not be heard. It is enough
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: that you enter the temple invisible. I cannot teach you
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: how to pray in words. God listens not to your words,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: save when He himself utters them through your lips. And
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: the forests and the mountains. But you, who are born
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: of the mountains and the forests and the seas, can
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: find their prayer in your heart. And if you but
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: listen in the stillness of the night, you shall hear
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: them saying, in silence, our God, who art our winged self.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: It is Thy will in us that willeth. It is
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: thy desire in us that desireth It is thy urge
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: in us that would turn our knights, which are thine,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: into days which are thine. Also we cannot ask thee
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: born in us. Thou art our need, and in giving
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: us more of thyself, thou givest us all. End of
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: section Chapter twenty four on pleasure. Then a hermit who
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: visited the city once a year came forth and said,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: speak to us of pleasure. And he answered, saying, pleasure
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: is a freedom song, but it is not freedom. It
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: is the blossoming of your desires, but it is not
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: their fruit. It is a depth calling unto a height,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: but it is not the deep nor the high. It
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: is the caged taking wing, but it is not space encompassed. I,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: in very truth, pleasure is a freedom song, and I
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart.
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: Yet I would not have you lose your hearts in
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: the singing. Some of your youth seek pleasure as if
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: it were all, and they are judged and rebuked. I
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: for they shall find pleasure, but not her alone. Seven
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: are her sisters, and the least of them is more
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: beautiful than pleasure. Have you not heard of the man
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: who was digging in the earth for roots and found
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: a treasure? And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: like wrongs committed in drunkenness. But regret is they be
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: clouding of the mind, and not as chastisement. They should
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: of a summer. Yet if it comforts them to regret,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: let them be comforted. And there are among you those
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: who are neither young to seek nor old to remember.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: And in their fear of seeking and remember bring they
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: against it. But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: And thus they too find a treasure, though they dig
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: for roots with quivering hands. But tell me who is
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: he that can offend the spirit? Shall the nightingale offend
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars?
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Think you the spirit is a still pool which you
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: can trouble with a staff. Oftentimes, in denying your self pleasure,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: you do but store the desire in the recesses of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: your being. Who knows, but that which seems omitted today
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: waits for tomorrow. Even your body knows its heritage and
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: its rightful need, and will not be deceived. And your
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: body is the harp of your soul, and it is
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: And now you ask in your heart, how shall we
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: is not good? Go to your fields and your gardens
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: the bee to gather honey of the flower, But it
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: honey to the bee. For to the bee a flower
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: is a fountain of life, and to the flower, a
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: bee is a messenger of love. And to both bee
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: in need and an ecstasy. People of Orpheles, be in
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: your pleasures like the flowers and the bees. Chapter twenty
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: five on beauty, And a poet said, speak to us
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: of beauty. And he answered, where shall you seek beauty?
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: And how shall you find her unless she herself be
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: your way and your guide? And how shall you speak
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: of her except she be the weaver of your speech.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: The aggrieved and the injured say, beauty is kind and gentle,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: like a young mother, half shy of her own glory.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: She walks among us. And the passionate say, nay, Beauty
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: is a thing of might and dread. Like the tempest.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: She shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: The tired and the weary say, beauty is of soft whisperings.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: She speaks in our spirit her voice shields to our silences,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: But the restless say, we have heard her shouting among
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: the mountains, and with her cries came the sound of hoofs,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: and a beating of wings, and the roaring of lions.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: At night, the watchmen of the city say, Beauty shall
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: rise with a dawn from the east, and at noontimee
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: the toilers and the wayfarers say we have seen her
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: In winter, say the snow bound, she shall come with
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: the spring leaping upon the hills, and in the summer
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: heat the reapers say, we have seen her dancing with
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: in her hair. All these things have you said of beauty,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Yet in truth you spoke not of her, but of
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: needs unsatisfied. And beauty is not in need but an ecstasy.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: It is not a mouth thirsting, nor an empty hand
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: stretched forth, but rather a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: It is not the image you would see, nor the
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: song you would hear, but rather an image you see,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: though you close your eyes and a song you hear,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: though you shut your ears. It is not the sap
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: but rather a garden forever in bloom, and a flock
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: of angels forever in flight. People of orphiles. Beauty is
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: itself in a mirror. But you are eternity, and you
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: are the mirror. Chapter twenty six, on religion. And an
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: old priest speak to us of religion, And he said,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: have I spoken this day of aught? Else is not
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: religion all deeds and all reflection, And that which is
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: the stone or tend the loom. Who can separate his
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: Who can spread his hours before him, saying this for God,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: and this for myself, this for my soul, and this
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: other for my body. All your hours are wings that
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: be through space from self to self. He who wears
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: his morality but as his best garment were better naked,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: the wind and the sun will tear no holes in
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: his skin. And he who defines his conduct by ethics
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: in prison his song bird in a cage. The freest
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: song comes not through bars and wires. And he to
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: whom worshiping is a window to open but also to shut,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: has not yet visited the house of his soul, whose
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: windows are from dawn to dawn. Your daily life is
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: take with you your all. Take the plow and the forge,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: and the mallet and the lute, the things you have fashioned,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: and necessity or for delight. For in reverie you cannot
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: rise above your achievements, nor fall lower than your failures.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: And take with you all men, for in adoration you
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: cannot fly higher than their hopes, nor humble yourself lower
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: than their despair. And if you would know God, be
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: and you will see him playing with your children. And
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: look into space. You shall see him walking in the cloud,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: outstretching his arms in the lightning, and descending in rain.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: You shall see him smiling in flowers, then rising and
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: waving his hands in trees. Chapter twenty seven on death.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: And then Almitra spoke, saying, we would ask now of death,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: And he said, you would know the secret of death.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: But how shall you find it unless you seek it
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: in the heart of life. The owl, whose night bound
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: eyes are blind unto the day, cannot unveil the mystery
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: open your heart wide unto the body of life. For
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: life and death are one, even as the river and
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond. And
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: like seeds dreaming beneath the snow, your heart dreams of spring.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: of the shepherd when he stands before the king, whose
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: hand is to be laid upon him in honor. Is
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling that he shall
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die?
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: But to stand naked in the wind, and to melt
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: into the sun and what is it to seize breathing?
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: But to free the breath from its restless tides, that
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered. When
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: you drink from the river of silence, shall you indeed sing?
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: And when you have reached the mountaintop, then you shall
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: then shall you truly dance. And now it was evening,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: and Almitra the cirrus said, bless it be this day
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: and this place, and your spirit that has spoken. And
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: he answered, was it I who spoke? Was I not
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: also a listener? End of section chapter twenty eight The Farewell.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Then he descended the steps of the temple, and all
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: the people followed him. And he reached his ship and
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: stood upon the deck, and facing the people again, he
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: raised his voice and said, people of Orphelies, the wind
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: bids me leave you less hasty than the wind. Yet
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: I must go. We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: begin no day where we have ended another day, and
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: the tenacious plant, and it is in our rightness and
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: our fullness of heart, that we are given to the
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: wind and are scattered. Brief were my days among you,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: and briefer still the words I have spoken. But should
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: in your memory, then I will come again, and with
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: will I speak, yea, I shall return with the tide.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: And though death may hide me and the greater silence
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding, And
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: not in vain will I seek. If aught I have
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: clearer voice and in words more kin to your thoughts.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: I go with the wind, people of orphiles, but not
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: down into emptiness. And if this day is not a
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: fulfillment of your needs and my love, then let it
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: be a promise till another day. Man's needs change, but
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: not his love nor his desire that his love should
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: satisfy his needs. Know therefore that from the greater silence
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: I shall return the mist that drifts away at dawn leaving,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: but dew in the fields shall rise and gather into
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: a cloud, and then fall down in rain, and not
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: unlike the mist have I been in the stillness of
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: the night. I have walked in your streets, and my
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: spirit has entered your houses, and your heart beats were
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: in my heart art, and your breath was upon my face.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: And I knew you all. I knew your joy and
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: And oftentimes I was among you, a lake among the mountains.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: I mirrored the summits in you, and the bending slopes,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: and even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: And to my silence came the laughter of your children
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: in streams, and the longing of your youths in rivers.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: And when they reached my depth, the streams and the
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: rivers ceased, not yet to sing. But sweeter still than laughter,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: and greater than longing, came to me. It was the
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: boundless in you, the vast man, in whom you are
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: all but sells and sinews, he in whose chat all
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: your singing is but a soundless throbbing. It is in
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: the vast Man that you are vast, and in beholding
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: him that I beheld you and loved you. For what
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: What visions, what expectations, and what presumptions can outsoar that
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: flight Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: is the vast man in you. His might binds you
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: to the earth. His might binds you to the earth.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: His fragrance lifts you into space. And in his durability
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: you are deathless. You have been told that, even like
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: This is but half the truth. You are also as
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean, by
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: failures is to cast blame upon them seasons for their inconstancy.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: I you are like an ocean, and though heavy grounded
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: ships await the tide upon your shores. Yet even like
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: an ocean, you cannot hasten your tides. And like the seasons,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: you are also. And though in your winter you deny
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: your spring, yet spring reposing within you, smiles in her
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: drowsiness and is not offended. Think not. I say these
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: things in order that you may say the one to
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: the other. He praised us well he saw, but the
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: good in us. I only speak to you in words
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: of that which you yourselves know in thought. And what
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge. Your
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: thoughts and my words are waves from a sealed memory
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: that keeps records of our yesterdays, and of the ancient
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: days when the earth knew not us nor herself, and
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: of nights when earth was upwrought with confusion. Wise men
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: have come to you to give you of their wisdom.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: I came to take of your wisdom. And behold, I
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: have found that which is greater than wisdom. It is
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: a flame spirit in you, ever gathering more of itself,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: while you heedless of its expansion. Bewail the withering of
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: your days. It is life in quest of life in
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: bodies that fear the grave. There are no graves here.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: These mountains and plains are a cradle and a stepping stone.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Whenever you pass by the field where you have laid
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: your ancestors, look well thereupon, and you shall see yourselves
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: and your children dancing hand in hand. Verily, you often
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: make merry without knowing. Others have come to you, to
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: whom for golden promises made unto your faith you have given,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: but riches and power and glory less than a promise
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: have I given. And yet more generous have you been
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: to me. You have given me my deeper thirsting after life.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: Surely there is no greater gift to a man than
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: that which turns all his aims into parching lips, and
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: all life into a fountain. And in this lies my
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: honor and my reward, that whenever I come to the
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: fountain to drink, I find the living water itself thirsty,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: and it drinks me while I drink it. Some of
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: you have deemed me proud and overshy to receive gifts.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: Too proud indeed am I to receive wages, but not gifts.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: And though I have eaten berries among the hills, when
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: you would have had me sit at your board and
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: slept in the portico of the temple, when you would
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: gladly have sheltered me, Yet was it not loving mindfulness
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: of my days and my nights that made food sweet
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: to my mouth and girdled my sleep with visions? For
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: this I bless you most. You give much, and know
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: not that you give it all. Verily, the kindness that
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone, And
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: the parent to a curse. And some of you have
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: called me aloof and drunk, with my own a loneness.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: And you have said, he holds council with the trees
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: of the forest, but not with men. He sits alone
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: on hilltops and looks down upon our city. True it
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: is that I have climbed the hills and walked in
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: remote places. How could I have seen you, save from
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: a great height or a great distance. How can one
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: be indeed near unless he be far among you called
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: unto me, not in words? And they said, stranger, stranger,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: lover of unreachable heights. Why dwell you among the summits
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: where eagles build their nests? Why seek you the unattainable?
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: What storms would you trap in your net? And what
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky? Come and
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: be one of us, Descend and appease your hunger with
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: our bread, and quench your thirst with our wine. In
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: the solitude of their souls, they said these things. But
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: were their solitude deeper, they would have known that I sought.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: But the secret of your joy and your pain, and
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: I hunted only your larger cells that walked the sky.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: But the hunter was also the hunted, For many of
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: my arrows left my bow only to seek my own breast.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: And the flier was also the creeper. For when my
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: wing were spread in the sun, their shadow upon the
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: earth was a turtle. And I, the believer, was also
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: the doubter. For often have I put my finger in
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: my own wound, that I might have the greater belief
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: in you, and the greater knowledge of you. And it
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: is with disbelief and this knowledge that I say you
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: were not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: or fields. That which is you dwells above the mountain
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: and roves with the wind. It is not a thing
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: that crawls into the sun for warmth, or digs holes
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: into darkness for safety, but a thing free, a spirit
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: that envelops the earth and moves in the ether. If
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: these be vague words, then seek not to clear them.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: not their end. And I fain would have you remain
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: for me as a beginning. Life and all that lives
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: is conceived in the mist, and not in the crystal.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: And who knows, but a crystal is missed in decay.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: This what I have you remember in remembering me, That
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: strongest and most determined. Is it not your breath that
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: has erected and hardened the structure of your bones? And
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: is it not a dream which none of you remember
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: having dreamt, that builded your city and fashioned all there
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: is in it? Could you but see the tides of
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: that breath, you would cease to see all else. And
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: if you could hear the whispering of the dream, you
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: would hear no other sound. But you do not see,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: nor do you hear. And it is well the veil
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: that wove it, and the clay that fills your ears
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it, and
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: you shall see and you shall hear. Yet you shall
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: in all things, And you shall bless darkness as you
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: would bless light. After saying these things, he looked about him,
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: and he saw the pilot of his ship standing by
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: the helm and gazing now at the full sails, and
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: now at the distance. And he said, patient, over, patient
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: is the captain of my ship. The wind blows, and
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: restless are the sails, even the rudder begs direction. Yet
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: quietly my captain awaits my silence. And these my mariners,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: too have heard me patiently. Now they shall wait no longer.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: I am ready. The stream has reached the sea, and
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: once more the great mother holds her son against her breast.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: Fare you well, people of Orphelies. This day has ended.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: It is closing upon us, even as the water lily
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: upon its own. Tomorrow. What was given us here we
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: shall keep. And if it suffices not, then again must
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: we come together and to gather stretch our hands unto
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: the giver. Forget not that I shall come back to
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: you a little while, and my longing shall gather dust
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: and foam for another body a little while, a moment
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: It was but yesterday we met in a dream you
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: have sung to me in my loneness, and I of
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: your longings have built a tower in the sky. But
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: now our sleep is fled, and our dream is over,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: and it is no longer dawn. The nowton tide is
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: upon us, and our half waking has turned to fuller day,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: and we must part. If in the twilight of memory
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: we should meet once more, we shall speak again together,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: and you shall sing to me a deeper song. And
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: build another tower in the sky. So saying, he made
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: a signal to the seamen, and straightway they weighed anchor
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: moved eastward. And a cry came from the people, as
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: from a single heart, and it rose into the dusk,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: had vanished into the mist. And when all the people
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: were dispersed, she he still stood alone upon the sea wall,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: remembering in her heart his saying, a little while, a
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: bear me. This is the end of the prophet by
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: Calil chibrin,