Kahlil Gibran

The prophet is asked to speak on pain, and he says that pain is a necessary factor in the awakening of the self and the soul. Without the presence of pain, the self would come to imagine that it had grown to its full awareness. The presence of pain reminds the self that it has not reached its full measure of understanding: "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain" (58). The prophet is saying here that pain is not only inevitable, but also a force for goodness in its catalytic role related to the expansion of human consciousness. To move from darkness into the light, to grow into spiritual enlightenment, pain is necessary for the indiv

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in mind. The "heavy and hard hand" of the physician is "guided by the tender hand of the Unseen," and the cup which burns lips "has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears" (59). In the poem on talking, Gibran begins with negative references to that activity, in contrast to his immediately positive assessment of the role of pain in human development. With respect to talking, Gibran has the prophet declare that talking can be a detriment to such development: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered (66). The negative qualities of talking are clearly emphasized more in this poem than the negative qualities of pain are in the previous poem. The reader has the feeling that, if one or the other, pain or talking, were to be eliminated from human life, Gibran and his poetic prophet would opt for the elimination of talking. Pain seems to be clearly vital to the awakening of the self to its spiritual reality, while talking is helpful at best and more often a hindrance to such awakening. More
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Gibran's Prophet, , pain talking, York Knopf, negative aspects, heavy hard hand, negative aspects pain, pain pain, hard hand, silence aloneness, talking gibran, awakening self, hide truth, talking prophet, reveal truth,
Approximate Word count = 1320
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)