Skip to main content

The Prophet Gibran Kahlil. Chapter 26 On Religion


Chapter 26 
On Religion 


AND an old priest said, “Speak to us of Religion.” And he said: Have I spoken this day of aught else? Is not religion all deeds and all reflection, And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom? Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations? Who can spread his hours before him, saying, “This for God and this for myself; “This for my soul and this other for my body”? All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self. He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked. The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin. And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his songbird in a cage. The freest song comes not through bars and wires. And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn. Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When ever you enter into it take with you your all. Take the slough and the forge and the mallet and the lute, The things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight. For in reverie you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures. And take with you all men:
46
For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair. And if you would know God, be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.


 

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Prophet Gibran Kahlil. Chapter 25 On Beauty

Chapter 25  On Beauty  AND a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty. And he answered: Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech? The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle. “Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.” And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. “Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.” The tired and the weary say, “Beauty is of soft whisperings. “She speaks in our spirit. “Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.” But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains, “And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.” At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.” And at noontide the toilers an...
Read more

THOREAU WALDEN POND : Chapter X: Baker Farm

    Chapter X: Baker Farm Sometimes I rambled to pine groves, standing like temples, or like fleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy boughs, and rippling with light, so soft and green and shady that the Druids would have forsaken their oaks to worship in them; or to the cedar wood beyond Flint's Pond, where the trees, covered with hoary blue berries, spring higher and higher, are fit to stand before
Read more

Thoreau WALDEN Chapter VI: Visitors

                                                                      Chapter VI: Visitors I think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my business called me thither. I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted wit...
Read more