anguish. He said aloud:
“Yesterday, I was grazing my sheep in the
green valley, enjoying my existence, sounding
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my flute, and holding my head high. Today I am
a prisoner of greed. Gold leads into gold, then
into restlessness, and finally into crushing misery.
“Yesterday, I was like a singing bird, soaring
freely here and there in the fields. Today, I am a
slave to fickle wealth, society’s rules, city’s cus-
toms, purchased friends, and pleasing the people
by conforming to the strange and narrow laws
of humanity. I was born to be free and enjoy the
bounty of life, but I find myself like a beast of
burden so heavily laden with gold that its back
is breaking.
“Where are the spacious plains, the sing-
ing brooks, the pure breeze, the closeness of
nature? Where is my deity? I have lost all! Naught
remains save loneliness that saddens me, gold
that ridicules me, slaves who curse me to my
back, and a palace that I have erected as a tomb
for my happiness, and in whose greatness I have
lost my heart.
“Yesterday, I roamed the prairies and the hills
together with the Bedouin’s daughter. Virtue was
our companion, love our delight, and the moon
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our guardian. Today, I am among women with
shallow beauty who sell themselves for gold and
diamonds.
“Yesterday, I was carefree, sharing with the
shepherds all the joy of life—eating, playing,
working, singing, and dancing together to the
music of the heart’s truth. Today, I find myself
among the people like a frightened lamb among
the wolves. As I walk in the roads, they gaze at
me with hateful eyes and point at me with scorn
and jealousy, and as I steal through the park, I
see frowning faces all about me.
“Yesterday, I was rich in happiness and today
I am poor in gold.
“Yesterday I was a happy shepherd looking
upon his herd as a merciful king looks with plea-
sure upon his contented subjects. Today, I am a
slave standing before my wealth, my wealth that
robbed me of the beauty of life I once knew.
“Forgive me, my Judge! I did not know that
riches would put my life into fragments and lead
me into the dungeons of harshness and stupid-
ity. What I thought was glory is naught but an
eternal inferno.”
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He gathered himself wearily and walked
slowly toward the palace, sighing and repeat-
ing, “Is this what people call wealth? Is this the
god I am serving and worshipping? Is this what
I seek of the earth? Why can I not trade it for
one particle of contentment? Who would sell me
one beautiful thought for a ton of gold? Who
would give me one moment of love for a hand-
ful of gems? Who would grant me an eye that
can see others’ hearts, and take all in my coffers
in barter?”
As he reached the palace gates, he turned
and looked toward the city as Jeremiah gazed
toward Jerusalem. He raised his arms in woeful
lament and shouted:
“Oh, people of the noisome city, who are
living in darkness, hastening toward misery,
preaching falsehood, and speaking with stupid-
ity! Until when shall you remain ignorant? Until
when shall you abide in the filth of life and
continue to desert its gardens? Why wear your
tattered robes of narrowness while the silk rai-
ment of nature’s beauty is fashioned for you? The
lamp of wisdom is dimming; it is time to furnish
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it with oil. The house of true fortune is being
destroyed. It is time to rebuild it and guard it.
The thieves of ignorance have stolen the treasure
of your peace. It is time to retake it!”
At that moment, a poor man stood before
him and stretched forth his hand for alms. As
he looked at the beggar, his lips parted, his eyes
brightened with a softness, and his face radi-
ated kindness. It was as if the yesterday he had
lamented by the lake had come to greet him. He
embraced the pauper with affection and filled
his hands with gold. And with a voice sincere
with the sweetness of love, he said, “Come back
tomorrow and bring with you your fellow suffer-
ers. All your possessions will be restored.”
He entered his palace, saying, “Everything in
life is good, even gold, for it teaches a lesson.
“Money is like a stringed instrument. He who
does not know how to use it properly will hear
only discordant music.
“Money is like love. It kills slowly and pain-
fully the one who withholds it, and it enlivens
the one who turns it upon his fellow human
beings.”
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GIFTS OF THE EARTH
To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall
not want if you but know how to fill your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that
you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and
kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and
others to hunger.
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GIVING AND GAINING
You are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for
yourself.
For when you strive for gain, you are but
a root that clings to the earth and sucks at
her breast.
Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, “Be
like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your
abundance.”
For to the fruit, giving is a need, as receiving
is a need to the root.
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HIGH AND LOW
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous
cannot rise beyond the highest that is in each
one of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot
fall lower than the lowest that is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with
the silent knowledge of the whole tree, so the
wrong doer ca
nnot do wrong without the hidden
will of you all.
Like a procession, you walk together towards
your god self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
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SEEKING
They say to me, “A bird in the hand is worth ten
in the bush.”
But I say, “A bird and a feather in the bush
are worth more than ten birds in the hand.”
Your seeking after that feather is life with
winged feet—nay, it is life itself.
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FREEDOM
And an orator said, “Speak to us of freedom.”
And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside, I have
seen you prostrate yourself and worship your
own freedom, even as slaves humble them-
selves before a tyrant and praise him, though he
slays them.
Aye, in the grove of the temple and in the
shadow of the citadel, I have seen the freest
among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a
handcuff.
And my heart bled within me, for you can
only be free when even the desire of seeking
freedom becomes a harness to you, and when
you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a
fulfilment.
You shall be free indeed when your days
are not without a care nor your nights without
a want and a grief, but rather when these things
girdle your life and yet you rise above them,
naked and unbound.
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And how shall you rise beyond your days
and nights unless you break the chains that you,
at the dawn of your understanding, have fas-
tened around your noon hour?
In truth, that which you call freedom is the
strongest of these chains, though its links glitter
in the sun and dazzle the eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self
you would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that
law was written with your own hand upon your
own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law
books nor by washing the foreheads of your
judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone,
see first that his throne erected within you is
destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the
proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom
and a shame in their own pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that
care has been chosen by you rather than
imposed upon you.
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And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat
of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand
of the feared.
Verily, all things move within your being
in constant half embrace, the desired and the
dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the
pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and
shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more,
the light that lingers becomes a shadow to
another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its
fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater
freedom.
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LIMITS
When you reach the end
of what you should know,
you will be at the beginning
of what you should sense.
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OWL EYES
The owl whose night-bound eyes
are blind unto the day
cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,
open your heart wide to the body of life.
For life and death are one,
even as the river and the sea are one.
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VOICES
I said to Life,
“I would hear Death speak.”
And Life raised her voice a little higher and said,
“You hear him now.”
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OCEAN AND FOAM
You have been told that, even like a chain, you
are as weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth.
You are also as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to
reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its
foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame
upon the seasons for their inconsistency.
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BLESSING DARKNESS
Is it not a dream that none of you
remember having dreamt
that built your city and
fashioned all there is in it?
If you could hear the whispering of the dream,
you would hear no other sound.
But you do not see,
nor do you hear,
and it is well.
The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted
by the hands that wove it,
and the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced
by those fingers that kneaded it.
And you shall see.
And you shall hear.
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Yet you shall not deplore
having known blindness,
nor regret having been deaf.
For you shall know
the hidden purposes in all things,
and you shall bless darkness
as you would bless light.
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AGREEMENT
Once every hundred years, Jesus of Nazareth
meets Jesus of the Christian
in a garden among the hills of Lebanon.
And they talk long.
And each time, Jesus of Nazareth goes away
saying to Jesus of the Christian,
“My friend, I fear we shall never, never agree.”
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JESUS AND PAN
The voice of Sarkis, an old Greek shepherd,
called the Madman:
In a dream, I saw Jesus and my God Pan sit-
ting together in the heart of the forest.
They laughed at each other’s speech, with
the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of
Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long.
Pan spoke of earth and her secrets, and of
his hoofed brothers and his horned sisters, and
of dreams. And he spoke of roots and their nest-
lings, and of the sap that wakes and rises and
sings to summer.
And Jesus told of the young shoots in the
forest, and of flowers and fruit, and the seed that
they shall bear in a season not yet come.
He spoke of birds in space and their singing
in the upper world. And he told of white harts in
the desert wherein God shepherds them.
And Pan was pleased with the speech of the
new God, and his nostrils quivered.
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And in the same dream, I beheld Pan and
Jesus grow quiet and still in the stillness of the
green shadows.
And then Pan took his reeds and played to
Jesus.
The trees were shaken and the ferns trem-
bled, and there was a fear upon me.
And Jesus said, “Good brother, you have the
glade and the rocky height in your reeds.”
Then Pan gave the reeds to Jesus and said,
“You play now. It is your turn.”
And Jesus said, “These reeds are too many
for my mouth. I have this flute.”
And he took his flute and he played. And I
heard the sound of rain in the leaves, and the
singing of streams among the hills, and the fall-
ing of snow on the mountain top.
The pulse of my heart, which had once
beaten with the wind, was restored again to the
wind, and all the waves of my yesterdays were
upon my shore, and I was again Sarkis the shep-
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herd. And the flute of Jesus became the pipes of
countless shepherds calling to countless flocks.
Then Pan said to Jesus, “Your youth is more
kin to the reed than my years. And long ere this
Kahlil Gibran's Little Book of Life Page 8