Enter by yourself

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
~ Chinese Proverb

Chance to reborn

It is never late to ask yourself

'Am I ready to change my life,
am I ready to change myself?'

However old we are,
whatever we went through,
it is always possible to reborn.

If each day is a copy of the last one,
what a pity!
Every breath is a chance to reborn.
But to reborn into a new life,
you have to die before dying.

~ Shamsuddin Tabrizi

Face to face with truth

When we are face to face with truth,

the point of view of Krishna, Buddha, Christ,
or any other Prophet, is the same.

When we look at life from the top of the mountain,
there is no limitation;
there is the same immensity.

~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

An impartial eye

If you truly loved yourself,
you could never hurt another.

Those who experiences the unity of life
sees their own Self in all beings,
and all beings in their own Self,
and looks on everything with an impartial eye.

Those who knows life flows,
feels no wear or tear,
needs no mending or repair.

In the end
these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go.

~ Siddhārtha Gautama

The path

There lived among the hills a woman and her son, and he was her first-born and her only child.

And the boy died of a fever whilst the physician stood by.

The mother was distraught with sorrow, and she cried to the physician and besought him saying, “Tell me, tell me, what was it that made quiet his striving and silent his song?”

And the physician said, “It was the fever.”

And the mother said, “What is the fever?”

And the physician answered, “I cannot explain it. It is a thing infinitely small that visits the body, and we cannot see it with the human eye.”

The physician left her. And she kept repeating to herself, “Something infinitely small. We cannot see it with our human eye.”

And at evening the priest came to console her. And she wept and she cried out saying, “Oh, why have I lost my son, my only son, my first-born?”

And the priest answered, “My child, it is the will of God.”

And the woman said, “What is God and where is God? I would see God that I may tear my bosom before Him, and pour the blood of my heart at His feet. Tell me where I shall find Him.”

And the priest said, “”God is infinitely vast. He is not to be seen with our human eye.”

Then the woman cried out, “The infinitely small has slain my son through the will of the infinitely great! Then what are we? What are we?”

At that moment the woman’s mother came into the room with the shroud for the dead boy, and she heard the words of the priest and also her daughter’s cry. And she laid down the shroud, and took her daughter’s hand in her own hand, and she said, “My daughter, we ourselves are the infinitely small and the infinitely great; and we are the path between the two.”

The quest

A thousand years ago two philosophers met on a slope of Lebanon, and one said to the other, “Where goest thou?”


And the other answered, “I am seeking after the fountain of youth which I know wells out among these hills. I have found writings which tell of that fountain flowering toward the sun. And you, what are you seeking?”

The first man answered, “I am seeking after the mystery of death.”

Then each of the two philosophers conceived that the other was lacking in his great science, and they began to wrangle, and to accuse each other of spiritual blindness.

Now while the two philosophers were loud upon the wind, a stranger, a man who was deemed a simpleton in his own village, passed by, and when he heard the two in hot dispute, he stood awhile and listened to their argument.

Then he came near to them and said, “My good men, it seems that you both really belong to the same school of philosophy, and that you are speaking of the same thing, only you speak in different words. One of you is seeks the fountain of youth, and the other seeks the mystery of death. Yet indeed they are but one, and as they dwell in you both.”

Then the stranger turned away saying, “Farewell sages.” And as he departed he laughed a patient laughter.

The two philosophers looked at each other in silence for a moment, and then they laughed also. And one of them said, “Well now, shall we not walk and seek together.”

Excerpted from 'The Wanderer' by Kahlil Gibran

The two poems

Many centuries ago, on a road to Athens, two poets met, and they were glad to see one another.

And one poet asked the other saying, “What have you composed of late, and how goes it with your lyre?”

And the other poet answered and said with pride, “I have but now finished the greatest of my poems, perchance the greatest poem yet written in Greek. It is an invocation to Zeus the Supreme.”

Then he took from beneath his cloak a parchment, saying, “Here, behold, I have it with me, and I would fain read it to you. Come, let us sit in the shade of that white cypress.”

And the poet read his poem. And it was a long poem.

And the other poet said in kindliness, “This is a great poem. It will live through the ages, and in it you shall be glorified.”

And the first poet said calmly, “And what have you been writing these late days?”

And the other another, “I have written but little. Only eight lines in remembrance of a child playing in a garden.” And he recited the lines.

The first poet said, “Not so bad; not so bad.”

And they parted.

And now after two thousand years the eight lines of the one poet are read in every tongue, and are loved and cherished.

And though the other poem has indeed come down through the ages in libraries and in the cells of scholars, and though it is remembered, it is neither loved nor read.

Excerpted from 'The Wanderer' by Kahlil Gibran

The old, old wine

Once there lived a rich man who was justly proud of his cellar and the wine therein. And there was one jug of ancient vintage kept for some occasion known only to himself.

The governor of the state visited him, and he bethought him and said, “That jug shall not be opened for a mere governor.”

And a bishop of the diocese visited him, but he said to himself, “Nay, I will not open that jug. He would not know its value, nor would its aroma reach his nostrils.”

The prince of the realm came and supped with him. But he thought, “It is too royal a wine for a mere princeling.”

And even on the day when his own nephew was married, he said to himself, “No, not to these guests shall that jug be brought forth.”

And the years passed by, and he died, an old man, and he was buried like unto every seed and acorn.

And upon the day that he was buried the ancient jug was brought out together with other jugs of wine, and it was shared by the peasants of the neighbourhood. And none knew its great age.

To them, all that is poured into a cup is only wine.

Excerpted from 'The Wanderer' by Kahlil Gibran