Kahlil Gibran and My Self-Improvement

[RonPrice]

STUPENDOUS

Kahlil Gibran once wrote that Bahá'u'lláh’s Arabic writings were the most stupendous literature that ever was written. Of ‘Abdu’l-Baha he wrote that “for the first time I saw form noble enough to be a receptacle for the Holy Spirit.” This Lebanese writer who has sold more books than all the American poets from Auden to Whitman, Gibran died in 1931. But he possesses a spectacular durability and a burgeoning reputation.

In my early years as a teacher, back in 1968, a film was made about Gibran. It was called “The Broken Wings.” When I retired from teaching thirty years later in 1999 I was given one of the latest biographies on Gibran, one of the two that had come out in 1998. Gibran had hung around in the popular marketplace all my adult life. From my earliest years in which books became important, somewhere in about 1962, Gibran’s soulful, doleful portrait stared at me from desks when I studied history and philosophy; it followed me into primary and high schools and would pop up in the most unpredictable places from Baffin Island in the NWT of Canada to Zeehan Tasmania in Australia.

Gibran was, it seemed, an institution and a phenomenon and the author of the most widely-read book of the 20th century, "The Prophet."1-Ron Price with thanks to Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet, Oneworld, Oxford, 1998.

You seem to have followed me
like a shadow, like some second-
cousin in my religious life, out
there in the book shops, a copy
with a friend kept in their bag
or on a home-shelf. You died
just when we were getting our
organization together around
the finest writing in Arabic ever
created by the pen of a human.

You had the cadences of the King
James Version in tantalizing paradox,
eternal pronunciamentos, some said
a patented blend of emptiness and
pretension from a man who craved
tranquillity and obscurity back home.

But the age was becoming more complex
and your simple solutions would not do,
would not be enough for our troubled age.
Ours was an age for falcons and eagles
not the simple, sweet flying birds,
aphorisms for the unpredictable tempest
that was shaking our world apart.
Still, you were eloquent and beautiful
and your lonely voice reached millions,
for you had touched the world of the
Imagination that would save us all,
the world of that stupendous writing
from the greatest Being to have lived.

[Stella]

Originally Posted by RonPrice

You seem to have followed me
like a shadow, like some second-
cousin in my religious life, out
there in the book shops, a copy
with a friend kept in their bag
or on a home-shelf. You died
just when we were getting our
organization together around
the finest writing in Arabic ever
created by the pen of a human.

You had the cadences of the King
James Version in tantalizing paradox,
eternal pronunciamentos, some said
a patented blend of emptiness and
pretension from a man who craved
tranquillity and obscurity back home.

But the age was becoming more complex
and your simple solutions would not do,
would not be enough for our troubled age.
Ours was an age for falcons and eagles
not the simple, sweet flying birds,
aphorisms for the unpredictable tempest
that was shaking our world apart.
Still, you were eloquent and beautiful
and your lonely voice reached millions,
for you had touched the world of the
Imagination that would save us all,
the world of that stupendous writing
from the greatest Being to have lived.

Ron, first welcome to the forum!

You are right, Gebran is just perfect for self-improvement, lets say an in-depth improvement!
When I am reading his words, its like a fountain of timeless wisdom, I guess his popularity wont dim in the future neither.

[Omeros]

جبران وكيف لا انجذب الى عنوان يحمل اسم من عباقرة التاريخ او الحري بي قوله من المجددين الناهضين بالثقافة واللغة العربية
كم وضعوه في الميزان وتحت المجهر الا انهم لم ينقضوا بمستوى واحد من فكره واسلوبه قد يكونون قد ضربوا بحياته وشرحوا حياته الا ان نصوصه لم يمسوّها ان كان من الناحية الشعرية الاعجاز والايعاز والصور الفكرية التي صورت واقع خياله او بعثرت معادلات الواقع . جبران قد لا نكتفي القول به الا انه بالنهاية انيان مرّ على اعين التاريخ وان مرّ جبران في يوم من الايام وان كلن التاريخ يعيد نفسه فهذا يعني ان الوجود يشرف على اسطول فكر ومعرفة . ولا يمكننا ان ننكر ان جبران ربما هو عبقري الا ان التاريخ شهد الملايين من العباقرة كسقراط الذي نفض بمفهوم الانا المتحدة ومات من اجل الانا الفردية كما ان نزار قبانب صفع العالم العربي الاف الصفعات ونهض باللغة بعد ان حملت النهضة ذيولها عن ملاحم التاريخ.
شكرا

[coralie]

Gibran is one of the greatest philosopher/writer/poet... of our time


THE PROPHET
=================

Love



Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love."

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them.

And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."

And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.