{"id":6813,"date":"2020-07-27T08:33:24","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T15:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=6813"},"modified":"2020-07-27T08:33:24","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T15:33:24","slug":"kahlil-gibran-reason-and-passion-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/27\/kahlil-gibran-reason-and-passion-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Kahlil Gibran – Reason and Passion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reason and Passion
\nby Kahlil Gibran<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

And the priestess spoke again and said: Speak to us of Reason and Passion.
\nAnd he answered, saying:
\nYour soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
\nWould that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
\nBut how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?<\/p>\n

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
\nIf either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
\nFor reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
\nTherefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
\nAnd let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.<\/p>\n

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
\nSurely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.<\/p>\n

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows \u2014 then let your heart say in silence, \u201cGod rests in reason.\u201d
\nAnd when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, \u2014 then let your heart say in awe, \u201cGod moves in passion.\u201d
\nAnd since you are a breath in God\u2019s sphere, and a leaf in God\u2019s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from The Prophet<\/a>, by Kahlil Gibran<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by zabaraorg<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

This is such an interesting section of Kahlil Gibran\u2019s \u201cThe Prophet,\u201d especially the way he emphasizes the positive nature of passion. Religious and spiritual traditions, both East and West, have a tendency to want to control or even suppress passion. Passion is sex. Passion is emotion. Passion is powerful, intense, turbulent.<\/p>\n

Gibran acknowledges that \u201cpassion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.\u201d Passion, without limitation or conscious guidance, can become a chaotic, consuming force in our lives. But he does not say we should get rid of passion or that reason should subjugate it. He speaks in terms of balanced, integrated use of passion in our lives.<\/p>\n

Passion is the engine in our lives. Gibran gives us the image of a ship: passion is the ship\u2019s sails, and reason is the rudder. The sails catch the power of the wind, propelling the ship forward. Passion is power, vitality, life!<\/p>\n

But movement without direction is, at best, meaningless and, at worst, can lead us onto rocks. That is why we need the rudder of reason to intelligently use the power of passion\u2019s movement so that we can reach our destination.<\/p>\n

One is not \u201cgood\u201d and the other \u201cbad.\u201d Both reason and passion are necessary. They must be understood, brought into harmony, used effectively to balance each other.<\/p>\n

This may sound like a bit of a tangent, but I\u2019m reminded of the imagery of the Christian Nativity. In the traditional iconography, we see the infant Christ on a bed of straw in a manger surrounded by animals. In the gospel tale, two animals are mentioned specifically: an ox and an ass. Why those two animals? Esoteric Christian teachings sometimes explain it this way: the ox (an ancient symbol of Venus), represents sensuality and passion; the ass can be seen as embodying either the ego or the reasoning mind. What are they doing in this image of divine birth? Notice that they are not suppressed; the ox and ass are not chained or slaughtered. No, they rest, they are at peace, tamed by the presence of the Christ child. More than that, they are actually protecting the infant, giving him their strength. As one 20th century Christian teacher phrased it, \u201cThey are warming the Christ child with their breath.\u201d Viewed this way, the nativity gives us an image not of suppression, but of harmonious integration of the energies of life in support of the awakening soul.<\/p>\n

I especially like Kahlil Gibran\u2019s summations at the end\u2013<\/p>\n

\u201cGod rests in reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGod moves in passion.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Movement and stillness, when we balance both we have discovered how to dance!<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Kahlil Gibran<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Prophet<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Beloved: Reflections on the Path of the Heart<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nBroken Wings<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nJesus the Son of Man<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nKahlil Gibran: His Life & World<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"Kahlil<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nKahlil Gibran<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Lebanon\/US (1883 \u2013 1931) Timeline<\/a>
\nChristian<\/a><\/a>
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Kahlil Gibran, because of his name, is often assumed to have been a Muslim, but he was actually a Maronite Christian, originally from what is today Lebanon (then part of Syria and the Ottoman Empire).<\/p>\n

His father, also named Kahlil, had drinking problems and gambling debts. This led the senior Gibran to leave his job as an assistant pharmacist, taking work instead as an enforcer for the local Ottoman administrator. He eventually ended up in jail.<\/p>\n

This difficult situation left the family in poverty. As a result, Gibran did not receive a formal education as a young boy, but a local priest taught him to read Arabic and Syriac, as well as stories from the Bible, filling him with an early awareness of the mystical dimensions of Christianity.<\/p>\n

When Gibran was eight, his mother moved the family, including his older half-brother and his two younger sisters, to Boston. Although shy, Gibran quickly learned English and, thanks to a scholarship, started to receive more of a formal education.<\/p>\n

The boy became fascinated by Boston\u2019s world of art and music, visiting galleries and performances. At age 13, his artistic gifts came to the attention of cultural circles in Boston, where he was further introduced to artistic trends.<\/p>\n

Despite this early success, Gibran was sent back to Lebanon to complete his education, where he excelled in poetry.<\/p>\n

He returned to the United States in 1902 in the midst of a family crisis. His mother had cancer, and his older brother and his fourteen-year-old sister had tuberculosis. His sister soon died. The brother, who had been supporting the family with a small hardware store, moved to Cuba to try to recover his health, leaving the young Gibran in the difficult position of having to take over the hardware business. A year later, his brother returned from Cuba, but died soon thereafter. The same year, his mother also died.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of so much death, Gibran sold the family business and threw all of his energy into art and writing and perfecting his English. He also reconnected with the Boston cultural benefactors he had known as a child.<\/p>\n

He began to write columns for an Arabic-language newspaper and later collected these writings into his first published books.<\/p>\n

In 1909, Gibran went to Paris for two years to broaden his artistic training, and he was particularly influenced by the artistic Symbolist movement, with its open embrace of mysticism.<\/p>\n

Returning to America, he began to publish his first Arabic prose-poetry collections through a publisher in Egypt. He became active with Arab intellectual and artistic organizations, promoting the rich culture of the Arab-speaking world, while attempting to address its many problems under Western imperial rule.<\/p>\n

In 1911, Gibran moved to New York. There he met and was influenced Abdul Baha, the leader of the Bahai Faith movement. He also met Carl Jung and was asked to paint the famous psychologist\u2019s portrait, at which time Gibran became intrigued by Jungian philosophy.<\/p>\n

Gibran began to write in his adopted language of English, writing The Madman<\/i>, though it would be rejected by several publishing houses until a small publisher named Alfred Knopf would take a chance on the work.<\/p>\n

When World War I broke out, he worked to free Syria from Ottoman rule, but was frustrated by the messy realities of war and power games of international politics.<\/p>\n

In the years following publication of his best known work, The Prophet<\/i>, Gibran would gain international notoriety.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Kahlil Gibran<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reason and Passion by Kahlil Gibran And the priestess spoke again and said: Speak to us of Reason and Passion. And he answered, saying: Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[358,792,1642,1638,58],"class_list":["post-6813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-kahlil-gibran","tag-nativity","tag-nativity-symbolism","tag-passion","tag-reason"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6814,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6813\/revisions\/6814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}