The Little Book of Life's Wisdom

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The Little Book of Life's Wisdom Page 8

by Kahlil Gibran


  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

 

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