BY G. M.
Kahlil Gibran, who passed away about sixteen years
ago, was, and is, an authentic visionary and voice of the East. He hailed from
Mount Lebanon, which has been known for ages to waft the breeze and buoyancy,
emanating from the invisible heights of spiritual seeking after the Eternal.
His works, therefore, both in Arabic and English, have on them a clearly
visible seal and sanction of the soul. And so they are an abiding inspiration
to all those who are earnest enquires of the ways and workings, intuitions and
intimations of the Spirit “which bloweth where it listeth”.
His masterpiece is The Prophet which, like
several other writings of his, has been translated into over a score of the
world’s languages. But lately his earlier books, Tears and Laughter and Spirits
Rebellious, reprinted in U. S., America, have been for the first time
exhibited on some of the bookstalls in India. They, however, only confirm the
original impression that he is a monarch among mystics.
Who is a mystic? He is a person who, as the
root-meaning of the word reveals, sees with his eyes shut! But he sees with his
inner eyes, and what he thus sees is an unending expanse of wonder. And is not
wonder the beginning as well as the end of all poetry and philosophy?
This wonderland of the Spirit, of which the
variegated world without is but a poor and pale reflection, is an archway–a
rainbow. And like the physical rainbow it is also a child of sun and shower, of
laughter and tears–“tears that purify my heart and reveal to me the secret of
life and its mystery; laughter that brings me closer to my fellow-men.”
And so the poet sings of this ever-present rainbow
of life. Between the two ends of this seven-coloured archway are gathered
together Man and Woman, Nature and Human Nature, Birth and Death, Sorrow and
Joy, Fortune, true and false, Love, pure and profane, Truth and Tradition, Time
and Eternity, and God and Creation.
And now listen to his flute with all its varied
strains, hearing which one’s sense of wonder–almost atrophied under the
artificialities and ambitions of today,–may in all probability be deepened and
dynamised, nay, divinised:
God: “The starting place,
the endless ocean of love and beauty which is God.”
Soul: “Soul is love,
strength, fortune, beauty, anticipation, eternity, wisdom.”
“In the silence of the night the soul visits the
Beloved and enjoys the sweetness of His presence.”
“The eternal soul is never contented; it ever seeks
exaltation.”
“In the depth of my soul there is a wordless song.
It is a song composed by contemplation, published by silence, understood by
love.”
Fortune: “Real fortune
comes not from outside but begins in the Holy of Holies of Life.”
Woman: “Woman is your own
reflection: whatever you are she is, wherever you live she will be. She is like
religion if not interpreted by the ignorant, and like a moon if not veiled with
clouds, and like a breeze if not poisoned with impurities.”
Beauty and love: “One hour
devoted to the pursuit of Beauty and Love is worth a full century of glory.
From that hour comes man’s Truth; in that hour the soul sees for herself the
Natural Law; that hour was the inspiration of the Song of Solomon; that hour
was the birth of the Sermon on the Mount; that hour was the hegira of
Muhammad……This is life exalted for but an hour, but the hour is treasured by
Eternity as a jewel.”
“I am the poet’s elation, and the artist’s revelation and the musician’s
inspiration. I appear to a heart’s cry; I shun a demand.”
Man: “Man and I are
sweethearts. But alas! between us has appeared a rival who brings us misery.
Her name if substance, who has enticed him into the dungeon of
selfishness…..But he will find me not except in God’s acts. He will find me
only by coming to the house of simplicity which God has built at the brink of
the stream of affection.”
“Speak not of peoples and laws and kingdoms, for the whole earth is my
birthplace and all humans are my brothers.” “I was here from the moment of the
beginning and here I am still. And I shall remain here until the end of the
world....I roamed in the infinite sky and soared in the ideal world, and
floated through the firmament. But, here I am, prisoner of measurement.”
Song of the Flower: “I am a star
fallen from the blue tent upon the green carpet. But I look up high to see only
the light and never look down to see my shadow. This is wisdom which man must
learn.”
Song of the Rain: “I am the sigh
of the sea, the laughter of the field, the tears of heaven. So with love-sighs
from the deep sea of affection, laughter from the colourfull field of the
spirit, tears from the endless heaven of memories.”
Death: “Talk not of my
departure with sighs in your hearts; close your eyes and you will see me with
you for evermore.”
Humanity: “I love the
earth with all of myself because it is the haven of humanity, the manifest
spirit of God….But the children are busy singing their clan’s anthem; they are
busy sharpening the swords and cannot hear the cry of their mothers.”
A mystic, because of his vision of the whole,
rebels against the segments of the Circle of Life in which mankind, in the
main, delights to take shelter, despite the witness of the wise that a
short-cut eventually turns out to be invariably the longest route. Therefore,
his is a spirit rebellious and so he protests against the conventions of
society, canons of the Church and codes of the Court, based as these are, more
often than not, on an imperfect and, consequently, unjust view of the pith and
marrow of man’s personality. The sacred institution of marriage, the kingly
human quality of compassion and the divinity of truth have been desecrated.
Matrimony has become a matter of money, the court is not a temple but a tomb of
justice, as the Church is the graveyard of Godliness. And so the mystic sings
of Love:
“Love descends upon our souls by the will of God.”
“True love makes union a paradise.”
He weeps at the callousness and cruelty of the
Court:
“Oh, Bravery, this is your sword, buried now in the earth! Oh, Love, these are your flowers scorched by fire! Oh, Lord Jesus, this is thy Cross, submerged in the obscurity of the night.”
And lamenting that the Church has reduced Truth to
a travesty, he proclaims:
“The true light is that which emanates from within
man and reveals the secrets of the heart to the soul, making it happy and
contented with life. Truth is like the stars; it does not appear except from
behind the obscurity of the night. Truth is like all beautiful things in the
world; it does not disclose its desirability except to those who first feel the
influence of falsehood. Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content
in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
“He who does not see the kingdom of heaven in this
life will never see it in the coming life.”
Thus Kahlil Gibran, by sharing of his wisdom of the
spirit, fulfils his destiny as a mystic-poet:
“Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my
window to direct the stranger through the dark.”