"It
is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind, That you, alone
and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto
yourself. And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait
a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
Like
the ocean is your god-self; It remains for ever undefiled. And
like the ether it lifts but the winged. Even like the sun is
your god-self; It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it
the holes of the serpent. But your god-self does not dwell alone
in your being. Much in you is still man, and much in you is not
yet man, But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist
searching for its own awakening. And of the man in you would
I now speak.
For
it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that
knows crime and the punishment of crime.
Oftentimes
have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he
were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder
upon your world. But I say that even as the holy and the righteous
cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, So
the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which
is in you also.
And
as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge
of the whole tree, So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without
the hidden will of you all.
Like
a procession you walk together towards your god-self. You are
the way and the wayfarers. And when one of you falls down he
falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and
surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
And
this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts: The murdered
is not unaccountable for his own murder, And the robbed is not
blameless in being robbed. The righteous is not innocent of the
deeds of the wicked, And the white-handed is not clean in the
doings of the felon.
Yea,
the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured, And still
more often the condemned is the burden-bearer for the guiltless
and unblamed. You cannot separate the just from the unjust and
the good from the wicked; For they stand together before the
face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven
together. And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall
look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.
If
any of you would bring judgment the unfaithful wife, Let him
also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his
soul with measurements.
And
let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the
offended. And 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? And how prosecute you him who in action
is a deceiver and an oppressor, Yet who also is aggrieved and
outraged?
And
how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than
their misdeeds? Is not remorse the justice which is administered
by that very law which you would fain serve? Yet you cannot lay
remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.
Unbidden
shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.
And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you
look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?
Only
then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one
man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self
and the day of his god-self, And that the corner-stone of the
temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation."
Authors
Details:Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran is a poet, philosopher and
artist. His poetry has been transalated into more than
twenty languages.
He was born in Lebanon in 1883 and he died in 1931. |
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