And a man said, “Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.”
And he answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always know in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”
Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
– Khalil Gibran
Submitted by:
Hema
Postscript:
Sometimes when reading Gibran, I lose the sense of how relatively recently he lived and died, and think of him as being contemporaneous with the Meera and Rumi – he’s a mystic and a bhakta, alright.
You can read more about Gibran here and here. This site has a lot of his writing available online.
Tagged: free verse, Khalil Gibran, philosophy