Reflections: The Prophet

Over dinner a couple of nights back, I was asked if I'd read "The Prophet". I shook my head casually, causing my friend to almost choke on her food, stutter in disbelief and immediately instigate a dire book-worm-emergency. I was promptly rushed to the nearest Barnes & Noble, was made to procure the book and was sent back home with an earnest plea to read it the very same night. And here I am, fully cursing myself to have gone past all these years without reading this! And I can't thank my friend enough for her supreme presence of mind to get this book to me right away!

I've heard people who are averse to reading ask me (sarcastically, of course) if I could prescribe one book to them that would answer all questions and spew all the knowledge there is to acquire. I usually evade the question with a smirk, but NOW I can smugly thrust this book into their hands. Through the voice of a Prophet, Gibran succinctly and most exquisitely conveys his views and philosophy concerning the most fundamental themes of our lives - on love, marriage, children, creating our abode, philanthropy, eating, drinking, talking, working, dealing with joys and sorrows, pain, buying and selling, crime and punishment, good and evil, legal systems, freedom, reason, passion, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, perception of time, beauty, pleasure, religion, prayers and on death. In addition to these broad and all-encompassing themes, his verses espouse so many other deep and wise tenets.

After reading Gibran's poetry, one is surely at a loss for words to describe its beauty and astounding metaphors. I'm positive there is not a single adjective in his verses that can be substituted with any other word from our ever-expanding dictionary. It was humbling and gave me goosebumps all the way through. The words inspired me, comforted me, awed me, stirred me to the brink of tears and above all enriched me. Despite having come across many of the verses at some point in my life, the process of going through a 96-paged-Gibran marathon of soaking in his impeccable verses, was immensely gratifying.

The one theme that really surprised me and helped me re-evaluate my perspective was Gibran's philosophy on freedom:

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 fulfillment.
You shall be free 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.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains,
which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened 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 your eyes.

Of course, I want to share every other verse and fill up this whole space, but I've gone through a laborious process to pick just a couple more verses.
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If any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree,
Let him see to its roots;
And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless,
All entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?

I was very impressed with such balanced and wholesome wisdom that Gibran portrays.
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You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
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This book is surely one of my most precious possessions, and probably the one book that I would take with me if I were cast on a lonely island.