Kahlil Gibran on Death

[manitou]

Then Almitra spoke, saying, We would ask now of Death.

 

And he said:

 

You would know the secret of death.

But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?

 

The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

 

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;

And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.

 

Trust he dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

 

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?

Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

 

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing, but t free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and

expand and seek God unencumbered?

 

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

 

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

 

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

 

[3bob]

that which knows the "spirit of death" for what it is, is fearless and free of death or karmic bindings to reciporcal life

[manitou]

"For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

 

 

Does anyone else wonder about the Sun? It was the first object of man's worship - perhaps that is what we will be reverting to. A very wise man once told me that 'souls are in the sun' and I've never forgotten that.

 

Does it not make sense that all suns are One, that we are all emanations of the sun, that all is stardust? And that one of the first things we are all told as children is not to stare into the sun? As though the veil is placed over our understanding from the very onset by being told not to look at it? A flame does not lose its mass to make another flame of equal size, like lighting one match off another.

 

I look forward to standing naked in the wind and melting into the sun. If anyone has had the privilege of tantric sex experiences, does it not feel like you are within the sun? A place so golden and shining that it overwhelms the senses.

 

I wonder.

[Yasjua]

I do wonder about the Sun, quite a bit. I have felt the Sun shine with me as a brother, a teacher, a provider, and many other things. Depending on the state of consciousness, it sometimes feels like it is not only on me, but in me - as close to me as my own heart. I have thought about its hidden presence in all living things and understood its worship while gazing intimately at a leaf. More recently I have contemplated the Sun as a painter. As He rises in the morning his photons are spread all over our good Earth and everything comes to life. Darkness turns into magnificent color and the dance of life resumes from subtle to gross activity. I have thought of how the Sun refracts through our atmosphere and creates the illusion of blue skies, which vanish as the procession of night comes again and reveal the expanse of the cosmos. I have thought of how the Sun is the creator of a very fascinating illusion and I have yet to figure out how to put this into words. It's like the world we live in by day is created over and over by the presence of this light. I don't know, there's something ineffable to the influence of the sun.

[Yasjua]

Regarding Kahlil, I deeply respect his writing, but could never quite understand it. I think the mix of being cryptic and simultaneously highly emotional is a quality I expect of the cosmos, not of human beings, so maybe that's why I don't really "get" him.

[3bob]

the escape velocity of earthly consciousness to sun consciousness is...

[Yasjua]

the escape velocity of earthly consciousness to sun consciousness is...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just kidding...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You just gotta meditate and keep it real, go on walks, appreciate nature, beauty, expand your consciousness, feel your unity with the sun, until you become it.

[manitou]

One hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second.

[3bob]

that is fast but unconditional love is far faster than that, so fast in fact that the entire universe is traversed instantly.

Edited January 6, 2015 by 3bob

[manitou]

Best case scenario is that unconditional love doesn't come and go at all, therefore no speed. I'd love to get to that point. Mine still takes the speed of light to get from point A to point B.

[3bob]

yes, that was what I was trying to allude to with unconditional love. (in the sense of It being so fast that it is already there) Along with an "It" and a "mine" no longer being differentiated.

 

Om

[manitou]

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;

And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.

 

 

 

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

 

 

There is snow on the ground here in Ohio right now; not much, only about an inch. I love the idea that seeds lie beneath the snow, dreaming of the day they will get to sprout forth. But I wonder if this refers to Death dreaming of Life, or Life dreaming of Death? It could refer to either, I think - as the previous sentence is 'In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond'. This could refer to Life dreaming of Death, Death being a very friendly, cuddly, and warm place; particularly if our Awareness lies in the collective of all Awareness after death.

 

 

I wonder if the sentence 'Only when you drink from the river of silence...' could be a reason that my desire to participate on TTB's seems to ebb and flow. I always love the personalities, but sometimes I feel that I have absolutely nothing to say. I'm sort of in that mode right now. Anyone else go through this?

[3bob]

Spirit/soul veiled (or more or less bound) in relative states of the life and death forces knows in its depth that such veils and being under such forces are not its true freedom, thus it seeks on and on, and when coming upon, knowing and being that Truth - then if or when it chooses to move through such forces it will no longer be bound by or to them, and that is one happy son of a gun!

Edited January 7, 2015 by 3bob

[manitou]

Spirit/soul veiled (or more or less bound) in relative states of the life and death forces knows in its depth that such veils and being under such forces are not its true freedom, thus it seeks on and on, and when coming upon, knowing and being that Truth - then if or when it chooses to move through such forces it will no longer be bound by or to them, and that is one happy son of a gun!

I gnow that to be true, 3bob. There is a continuum that cares not whether it is in body or out of body. I see it as being a collective of individual strands intertwined as a mesh; it matters not whether we are here or there. As straw dogs, as it were...the only thing we are certain of is that we will shed this physical body. The only thing in question is the date and time. Does it matter?

 

It knows because it resonates with Truth within, as a vibration on a guitar string. The vibration will stop but the melody continues; a melodic thought from out of the ethers, through the artist, and back into the ethers where it remains continuously.

 

As Kahlil Gibran said above: "Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?"

 

 

He trembles because he cannot see through the veil, and yet is about to be coronated by being unbound by the forces you mention. What a joy, what relief - when one realizes the continuum - and realizes that his trembling should be interpreted not as fear, but see it as trembling in anticipation of the hand that is about to be laid on him, metaphorically. We are gods, individually and collectively, and yet we know it not. So we tremble in fear.

 

A happy son of a gun whose heart is at peace because of non-differentiation.

[3bob]

Thanks for the fine reflections Manitou God bless the poets like Gibran that help us hear and remember the still small voices that speak to us...