Gibran on Love

In The Eye of the Prophet, Gibran talks of the spirit of the new age. He wants to speak of what he calls "a winged word".  He thinks that he has "come in order to live in the glory of Love in the light of Beauty". He says, "On this earth I live and no one can drive me away from the spheres of Life. If my eyes are torn, I shall feel joy as I listen to the songs of Love and the melodies of Beauty. And if my ears are cut off I shall feel pleasure intouching the upper air, in the sighs of lovers and the fragrance of Beauty. And finally if my mouth is stopped, I shall live with my soul. For the soul is the daughter of Love and Beauty. I have come into this world with a purpose, to be for everyone and with everyone. And that which I accomplish today in solitude, the masses will form into its echo Tomorrow. What is spoken today by one heart alone will be spoken Tomorrow by thousands of hearts."  I think that he has succeeded like few others in the the 20th century. His books have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Chinese.

In this blog, I shall let him speak about love in his own words. So here goes.

Love is the only seed that grows and flowers without the help of the sections.

Love is the only freedom that exists in the world, for it lifts the spirit so high that men and the phenomena of nature cannot change its course.

Men and women can only find love after a sad and revealing separation, bitter patience and desperate efforts.

When we lose a friend we are comforted and consoled by seeing around us those who remain. When we lose our fortune we think about it for a time. Then knowing that the efforts which assured us of opulence will return to assist us, w forget it. But if we lose love, where can we go to seek peace of mind?

The ardors of the heart spread out like the branches of the cedar. If the love tree loses a branch, it will certainly suffer, but it will not die as a result. Instead it will breathe all its vitality into the neighboring branch which will grow larger to fill the empty space.

Oh how wretched is the man who suddenly learns that his beloved wife, whose heart he had been trying to buy, through work by day and vigilance by night, has offered her intimate secrets and her ardent love to another, who thus knows happiness. Oh how wretched is the woman who awakens at the end of her careless youth and sees her husband grant her all the honors and advantages of a sumptuous life,without, alas, filling her head with the immortal draught of love for which she yearns.

A limted love wants to possess the beloved being, but he whose self is a vast ocean only seeks his own shores.

Those who have not been chosen by love as its disciples cannot hear its appeal.

Hell lies not in torture. Hell lies in an empty heart.

In short, Gibran thinks that love is something which doesn't stop and brooks no obstacles, lifts man above the nature, is always fraught with pain as well as joy, requires infinite patience, will always look for its fulfiulment, does not seek to only to possess, appeals only to those who has love in his/her heart and whose absence is hell. I shall leave to another blog his view on Beauty and art.