Kahlil Gibran

Qu'est-ce que l'Absolu ? Dieu existe-t-il ?

A God who plays with children and in whose heart we live

À la fois personnel et impersonnelCela se déduit de sa doctrine

Gibran built no theology, but his English work sketches a God at once intimate and cosmic. In The Prophet, Almustafa advises not to seek God as a solver of riddles: it is enough to look around to see Him playing with the children, walking in the clouds, smiling in the flowers and waving His hands in the trees. This God diffused in nature is also Someone in whom one dwells: when you love, the book says, do not say that God is in your heart, but rather that you are in the heart of God. Gibran also speaks of a divine self in each person, greater than the small self, towards which man grows. His Jesus, the Son of Man and his Arabic stories distrust churches that lock God into dogmas at the service of power.

Qui suis-je ? Existe-t-il un vrai soi ?

A soul that unfolds like a lotus of countless petals

Une âme en évolutionIl le dit expressément

In The Prophet, Gibran presents the self as a sea boundless and measureless, impossible to chart: whoever claims to have found the truth should say he has found a truth, because the soul walks upon all paths and unfolds itself like a lotus of countless petals. In man there coexist a divine self, comparable to the ocean or the sun, and a part that is not yet fully human, shapeless and clumsy, seeking its own awakening. Life consists in growing towards that greater self. And this growth does not end with death: in the book's farewell, Almustafa announces that after a brief rest upon the wind another woman shall bear him. Gibran thinks of the self as a process, not a finished substance.

Pourquoi souffrons-nous ?

Pain is the shell that breaks so that understanding may be born

Le karma et l'apprentissage de l'âmeIl le dit expressément

In The Prophet, Gibran gives pain a meaning of growth: pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses understanding, like the stone of the fruit that must break so its heart may stand in the sun. Much of suffering, he adds, is self-chosen: it is the bitter potion by which the physician within heals the sick self. And sorrow enlarges: the deeper it carves into one's being, the more joy one can contain, for joy and sorrow are inseparable. The same Gibran, in his early Arabic stories, denounced the suffering inflicted by the clergy and the feudal lords on the poor and on the women of Lebanon. But in his mature work pain is above all a school of the soul.

Que se passe-t-il après la mort ?

To die is to melt into the sun; and another woman shall bear me

Renaissance selon le karmaIl le dit expressément

In The Prophet, when Almitra asks him about death, Almustafa replies that to know its secret one must seek it in the heart of life, for life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. To die is not to vanish but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun, to let the breath be freed from its restless tides so that it may seek God unencumbered. And in the book's farewell the prophet announces his return: a little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear him. Gibran thus combines two images, dissolution into the greater life and return to another existence, without fixing them in a doctrine. What there is not in his work is fear: death belongs to the same movement as life.

Comment atteint-on la libération ou le salut ?

Free when we break the chains we ourselves have forged

Par la connaissance directeCela se déduit de sa doctrine

Gibran proposes no doctrine of salvation; what his work describes is an inner liberation. In The Prophet, Almustafa warns those who prostrate themselves before freedom that they will be free not when their days are without a care, but when cares girdle their life and yet they rise above them naked and unbound. The chains that weigh on them, he says, they have forged themselves, and what they would cast off is a fragment of their own self. The path is self-knowledge: the heart knows in silence the secrets of the days and the nights, and that knowledge must be allowed to reach words without trying to measure it. To be freed is to recognise the greater self waiting within and to stop identifying with the small one.

Faut-il un maître ?

The teacher only leads to the threshold of one's own mind

Le maître est à l'intérieurIl le dit expressément

In The Prophet, when a teacher asks him to speak of teaching, Almustafa replies that no one can reveal to another anything but what already lies half asleep in the dawning of his own knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple among his followers gives not of his wisdom but of his faith and his lovingness; if he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but leads you to the threshold of your own mind. The vision of one lends not its wings to another: each must stand alone in his knowledge of God. Gibran, who lived surrounded by readers who treated him as a prophet, always distrusted that role; his Almustafa teaches and departs.

Le monde est-il réel ?

God walks in the clouds and waves His hands in the trees

Manifestation du divinIl le dit expressément

Gibran sees the world as a place of the divine. In The Prophet, whoever would know God need only look around: he will see Him playing with the children, walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain, smiling in flowers and rising to wave His hands in trees. Daily life is the temple and the religion. This vision, heir to romanticism and mysticism, does not make the world an appearance: the earth, work, the body and love have a sacred value in his work, and beauty is almost a revelation; we live, says one of his aphorisms, only to discover it. What Gibran fights is not the world but the institutions that diminish it.

Qu'est-ce que l'amour ?

Love neither possesses nor would be possessed: we are in the heart of God

L'amour de Dieu et du prochainIl le dit expressément

The chapter on love in The Prophet is Gibran's most widely read. Love crowns and crucifies, makes one grow and prunes; it gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself; it possesses not nor would it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love. Whoever loves must not think he can direct the course of love: it is love that, if it finds him worthy, directs his. And its origin is divine: when you love, says Almustafa, do not say that God is in your heart, but rather that you are in the heart of God. In marriage he asks that there be spaces in the togetherness. In Jesus, the Son of Man, love is also charity without frontiers towards the other, the poor and the enemy.

Sommes-nous libres ou tout est-il déterminé ?

You will be free by rising above your bonds, not by lacking them

Un libre arbitre réelCela se déduit de sa doctrine

Gibran does not discuss determinism in philosophical terms, but his work affirms a demanding inner freedom. In The Prophet, freedom does not consist in a life without cares but in rising above them unbound; the chains that weigh are usually those one has forged oneself. In the chapter on reason and passion, the soul is a ship that needs the rudder of reason and the sails of passion: man steers his course, though not the winds. Gibran also insists on shared responsibility: the righteous man is not wholly innocent of the deeds of the wicked, because all are part of one life. Freedom is real, but it is conquered and never purely individual.

Pourquoi méditer ou prier ?

I cannot teach you to pray in words: prayer is the expansion of oneself

La méditation n'est pas une techniqueIl le dit expressément

In The Prophet, when a priestess asks him to speak of prayer, Almustafa answers that people pray in their distress and need, and he wishes they would pray also in the fullness of their joy. Prayer is not asking: it is the expansion of oneself into the living ether. Whoever enters the temple only to ask will receive nothing; it is enough to enter the temple invisible. And he adds that he cannot teach anyone to pray in words, for God listens to no words save those He Himself utters through our lips. In the chapter on religion he goes further: daily life is the temple and the religion, and whoever sets apart one hour for God and another for himself has understood nothing.

La raison peut-elle connaître l'ultime ?

The heart knows in silence what reason merely steers

L'ultime est au-delà du mentalCela se déduit de sa doctrine

Gibran does not despise reason, but he places it. In The Prophet, reason and passion are the rudder and the sails of the seafaring soul: reason alone is a confining force, passion alone a flame that burns itself out; the soul must exalt reason to the height of passion so that it may sing. The deepest knowledge, however, is not reasoned. Your hearts, says Almustafa, know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights, and the ear thirsts to hear that knowledge; but the self is a sea without measure, and one should not try to sound it with a measuring rod. That is why whoever says he has found the truth should say he has found a truth.

Se retirer du monde ou le transformer ?

Work is love made visible, and tyranny must be denounced

S'engager dans le mondeIl le dit expressément

Gibran never preached withdrawal. His early Arabic stories, such as Spirits Rebellious, denounced the oppression exercised by the clergy and feudal lords over the peasants and women of Lebanon, and the book was badly received by the religious authorities. In New York he took part in the life of the Arab emigration, founded the Pen League with other writers and worked for relief to Syria and Mount Lebanon during the famine of the First World War. In The Prophet, spirituality is lived in work, marriage, the house and trade: work is love made visible, and whoever works without love would do better to sit at the temple gate and take alms.