The prophet's teaching on love is particularly relevant to me at this stage of my life:

"For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself. He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant; And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast."

Look into these books. They may appear simplistic to the jaundiced eye, but they may also provide the inspiration you need to see you through life's travails.


A masterpiece of life's wisdom   May 4, 2001
 36 out of 39 found this review helpful

Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet is a book that has touched many people very deeply since it's publishing in 1923. It has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American edition alone has sold more than four million copies. It is considered both by Gibran himself, and by the general public to be his literary masterpiece. The Story is about a prophet leaving a town, and as he leaves he imparts some of his knowledge to the towns people. Gibran himself was born in Lebanon in 1883. He was a poet, artist, and philosopher. His fame and influence has spread through the world, superceding linguistic and cultural barriers. His poetry has been translated into more than twenty languages, and his drawings and paintings have been distributed and showcased all around the world. In the last twenty years of his life he lived in the United States, and began to write in English. The book The Prophet was written during this time period. His words and pictures change the way that people look at life, and people find them to be an expression of the deepest impulses of man's heart and mind. The Prophet is about a man who is leaving a small town called Orphalese where he has made his home for the past twelve years. He has, for that time period, been waiting for a boat to take him back to the land of his youth. We are not told where that land is, only that he has been waiting to return there for twelve years. The entire book occurs on the date of his departure. As he is about to leave, the townsfolk stop him in the town and request that he tell them about certain things. He talks to them about life's lessons and imparts his wisdom to them. He is asked about giving, and he tells the people to give without recognition, because their reward is their own joy. He also talks about things like marriage, work, friendship and also love. He speaks about each, and more, describing the way that people should deal with each issue. This book is an interesting book. It is ninety-three pages of life's lessons set down in writing. These are words to live by, and tell others to live by. This book is certainly a book that everyone should read. Even if people don't agree with some of the beliefs, they should still read the book, if only to get their mind thinking about life, and it's many quandaries from a different perspective. This book is not unlike the musings of an aging man imparting his life's lessons to an audience of just about anyone whom he can gather to listen to him. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's lessons and stories are wise beyond the ages, and still hold up to be as true today as they were when Gibran wrote them in 1923. The lessons enumerated within this pages are lessons that one would hope were followed by the general population, and I know that if more people read this book, then the world as a whole might become a more easily survivable place.


Deceptively pseudo-scriptural   May 23, 2002
 29 out of 83 found this review helpful

This book was a philosophical touchstone for insecure Boomers of the mid-1970s. Everybody I knew in those days had to be able to discuss it intelligently or risk being thought to have a gap in our characters as people. A folk/ talking blues singer of that era (I forget who) referred to this book in a lyric:

"...a copy of Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet' with all the significant passages highlighted--the whole damn BOOK was highlited..."

In truth, the whole phenomenon was symptomatic of the societal immaturity of my generation as young adults. It taught us all sorts of theoretical concepts of human nature that were not necessarily reflective of the real world--consideration, the dignity of each person, peace, love, repudiation of prejudice--all of this in a world that anything but reflected such beliefs in Gibran's day. And except for the hippy-dippy pseudo-enlightenment we tried to cram down the world's throat in our day, our peculiar era was no better. We just used Gibran and other such philosophers to peer-pressure one another into self-defeating meekness. If someone you knew was erudite enough to understand philosophy but didn't have the moxie to stand up to people when he should, Gibran was the ideal way to make him a bona fide doormat and make him think he liked it. I won't even try to speculate how "relevant" Gibran is nowadays. From the perspective of a sadder but wiser man--or at least not quite as stupid--I give you this Sting lyric from the song "Consider Me Gone" for consideration:

"To search for perfection
Is all very well
But to wait for Heaven
Is to live here in Hell"


The Invisible Revealed   May 30, 2005
 25 out of 27 found this review helpful

I am alive like you, and I am standing beside you.
Close your eyes and look around, you will see me in front of you.
~Gibran's words on his Epitaph

The Prophet captures the teachings of Kahlil Gibran in a comforting story that succinctly touches on everyday topics like love, giving, joy, sorrow, freedom, pain, teaching, friendship and beauty. Within each tiny chapter, profound moments can occur as we are given insight into unfamiliar territory, a place of thought not commonly existing in daily life but familiar to spiritual teachers.

Kahlil Gibran magically explores the connection between sorrow and joy and how the deeper the sorrow you experience, the more joy you can contain. Talking becomes thoughts that can no longer "dwell in the solitude of your heart" so they "live in your lips."

As Almustafa waits for a ship to take him back to the isle of his birth, he climbs a hill outside the city walls and looks out to sea. When his "ship arrives" he is suddenly filled with regret, yet knows he must follow his destiny and return home.

"Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?"

The priests and priestesses ask him to remain in very poetic ways: "Let not the waves of the sea separate us now, and the years you have spent in our midst become a memory."

Almustafa only cries and doesn't seem to speak until a woman named Almitra appears. She is a woman who believed in him and he seems to have great fondness for her. We are not given any insight into their relationship, but his respect for her is unquestioned. She understands he must leave, but asks him to give the city his wisdom. She promises they will pass this wisdom down through the generations.

While viewing pictures of Bsharri in Northern Lebanon, the mountains and the mist are almost a unique doorway into Kahlil Gibran's mind. He lived in a lush region where cascading falls, rugged cliffs and cedar trees influenced his art and writing.

We can imagine his thoughts of home and this book was actually first imagined when he wrote a short story as a teenager. A Bostonian poet, Josephine Peabody, caught Gibran's attention at an art exhibition and she later referred to him as "her young prophet." She also wrote poems about Gibran's life and how she imagined his life in Bsharri. His life is woven into his writing in the most beautiful ways. He names his book for a woman he loves and his writing is infused with spiritual teachings and influences from his journey from Lebanon to New York.

The story has an unassuming plot, but the lessons are eternal and the ending is surprisingly tender. I was left with a sense of longing that is still drifting along with me like the mists of Bsharri. The Prophet is not just a book to read, it is a spiritual journey to experience. It may take three or more days to complete the reading of this tiny book. I could only read about a third at a time because it is saturated in wisdom and many of the chapters want to be read and read again, until they are absorbed into your soul and written on your heart.

"But if you love and must needs have desires,
let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that
sings its melody to the night." ~Kahlil Gibran

~The Rebecca Review