New Acropolis Presents "THE MADMAN" by Khalil Gibran Lúcia Helena Galvão | 2022 Hello! Welcome to our chat today, Where we prepare a small tribute to Gibran, Khalil Gibran. We are going through the 91st anniversary of the death of this great Lebanese poet and painter.
Gibran was born in 1883 and died in 1931. He lived only 48 years. It's been 91 years since Gibran passed away.
We are walking towards the centenary of the loss of such an important poet, of such an expressive figure in human history. Our dear Gibran, as everyone knows, was born in Lebanon and died in the United States. He leaves behind a work that is written partly in his mother tongue and partly in English.
Today, in particular, to pay homage to him for the passing of these 91 years, Let's take a book, which is the first published in English, which is a history book called "the madman". The Madman was published in 1918. and it is the first work published entirely in English.
A series of stories are woven into it, all of them with a very strong symbolic content. In total, in this book, "The Madman", we have 26 little stories. Some of them tiny all this with a very large symbolic load and content.
What impresses me, those who know me know, that here on the New Acropolis YouTube channel, I have already had the opportunity to lecture on each chapter of Khalil Gibran's Prophet. I gave a specific talk on Gibran's relationship with Mary Haskell, the great love of the prophet and I really like this author. I am particularly impressed with this book by "the madman".
because he creates stories with perfection out of the ordinary. He imagines unusual situations. Today there is a skill in our days.
which is called narration. Storytelling is the ability to create stories that convey very deep content. Gibran, long before this fashion appeared, was already a great storyteller, because he knew how to create stories with a moral background, of impressive beauty, a very profound moral lesson.
And some, because of Gibran's character, the profile with which he expressed himself, a bit complex to understand. So on this date we come together to talk a little bit more, once again about Kalhil Gibran. Taking this book "The Madman", I am going to comment on two of his stories, the first two.
First the one called "The Madman" and the second called God. The idea is to quickly read this story to them. and then go back piece by piece, commenting on what she wants to say, in what it indicates, in what it suggests.
When I read the Prophet, I used to say that my intention was to take Gibran out of 2D and make him 3D. That is, to make it more appetizing, more human, more experiential. It is very difficult for someone to read Gibran and not say: Wow!
How gorgeous! But that doesn't mean you understand. His way of expressing himself generates a poetic envelope, a captivating beauty, but there is not necessarily understanding of the content you are transmitting, with what you say.
So my proposal, loving Gibran as I do, is to combine philosophy with this poetic vision of Gibran's life, and with Philosophy it opens the contents, opens the understanding of what is proposed Because Gibran doesn't make empty envelopes. In addition to having beautiful packaging, it has a lot of content in everything it says. It brings a very clear message to humanity.
This is very interesting for us to know and work on a bit. So, first let's meet "The madman". It is well known, this poem is on the internet, a prose poem like everything Gibran does, but perhaps they did not stop to analyze it little by little.
So, as I proposed, we are working with Gibran's 1918 book The Madman. with the first two stories. I will read the story first just read, then come back commenting piece by piece.
Welcome to our trajectory. Let's go there! ?
THE MADMAN 1st story from the book "the madman" by Khalil Gibran The Madman. You ask me how I went mad. The thing was like this: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke up from a deep sleep and noticed that all my masks had been stolen.
Yeah! The seven masks I had made and worn in my seven lives. So I ran without a mask through the streets full of people shouting: thieves, thieves, bloody thieves.
Men and women laughed at me, and some locked themselves in their houses for fear of me. And when I got to the market square, a young man, who was standing on the roof of the house, shouted, pointing his finger at me: - He's crazy. I looked up to see, and the sun was beating down on my bare face, and my soul was filled with love for the sun, and since then I have never wanted to wear a mask again.
Then I shouted, as if in a trance: - Blessed! Blessed are the thieves who stole my masks. So I went mad and found a lot of freedom and security in my madness.
The freedom of loneliness and the security of never being understood, because those who understand us make us their slaves. But don't let me take too much pride in my safety. Even the jailed thief is not safe from meeting another thief.
Beautiful, right? It is an attractive story, beautiful, but often, as we said, a bit enigmatic. What does it mean to wake up in this primordial time, When many of the gods had not yet been created, and realize that his seven masks had been stolen?
So let's take it piece by piece, shall we discuss it? Let's go there? !
You ask me how I went mad. The thing was like this: one day, long before many gods were born, I woke up from a deep sleep and noticed that all my masks had been stolen. It must be the most primordial thing in the universe if we consider this cosmogenesis, That moment when the universe is born is the act of putting on masks.
Many traditions from the past, many philosophies, many Eastern traditions. They say that the universe, in the beginning, was unity. And when the cycle of manifestation begins, it divides, first in spirit and matter; then spirit, matter and form, the primordial triad; then the four elements: water, earth, air and fire; then five and so on.
Until we reach the decade again and the one adds to zero and we return to the primordial unit. That decade of which Pythagoras spoke so much, which tells the history of the universe. But you see, this initial moment when unity ceases and the multiplicity begins it's the first time we wear a mask.
Ultimately, what are we? Unit. All of us, faces, channels, moments of unity, in the illusion of time and space, We are all an integral part of the one, we are the same, and when the multiplicity comes, we begin to play roles.
First we are spirit or matter. So we are spirit, matter or form. So we are earth, water, air or fire.
And then we are Lucía, Luana, João, José, we are wearing masks. Each partiality, each particularity, each division is a mask. When we often pretend to be respected, to be accepted for who we are, is it important to do it?
It is important. Inclusion is a great virtue. But it is also very important that we know that what we are at this moment, we are and we are not.
It is one mask among many. All masks must be respected, but we must also seek to know his face behind him. If you take universal traditions, I don't know of exceptions, If we're going to take the whole Indian system, If we take Plato's own Myth of the Cave, with his dream of freeing himself and going to the light, if we are going to take the system of the Egyptian Kybalion.
And there it goes. . .
We will always find a trajectory back to unity. That is, evolution as a process of tearing off masks. It's like you can imagine, I have already given this example in several lectures, you must remember, that we are on the edge of a beach, in the sand, and that we make a groove in the sand and then another groove.
We can say that we have two slots, or we can say that we have the sand momentarily differentiated. Soon the wind blows and everything goes back to what it always was, just sand. The grooves are a temporary superficial impression, an impression, a mask How fast time takes, fast they take care of carrying the winds of life.
That is, we can defend the role we have and the role of the other. Defends the right and respect for all masks, but what we can't do is forget what we really are behind all the masks, what is the unit This is important to understand. It says that one day, before many gods were created, that is, in the primordial time, he finally woke up and realized that their masks had been stolen.
It means that you have overcome something called the heresy of separateness. For those who know the Voice of the Silence of Helena Blavatsky, she cites a Tibetan tradition, which says that the greatest evil in the world is the heresy of separation. Like what we now call egoism, that is, there is an illusory line that separates me from you There are people who say that what happens to you has nothing to do with what happens to me.
So that your loss is a gain for me, your suffering can be joy for me, your pain can be fulfillment for me. Hence the violence and all kinds of dishonesty, corruption, deceit of man by man. From there is born all the evil that affects humanity.
And we are also going to see that the entire lighting process, be it Satori, be it Samadhi, be it whatever, the whole process of enlightenment consists in drawing that line, this illusory dividing line and rediscover unity. Then he says in a very primordial time, One day he wakes up and suddenly his masks have been stolen, they had taken away For some reason that was the moment of awakening. And it will continue saying: "yes, the seven masks I had made and worn in my seven lives.
" Seven is an extremely symbolic number. various traditions speak of the repetition of the seven in nature, in the seven colors of the rainbow, in the seven musical notes, in the seven holes in our head, seven is always associated with a sacred number, represents a complete cycle of evolution. For India seven are the vehicles of the human being, the quaternary and the triad.
Seven is a number that represents that he completed a full cycle, that is to say, for seven lives, that this is symbolic, no one can say how many experiences he lived, many. The seven represents that it has closed a cycle. After living so many experiences, he realizes, wakes up, and those masks that he had treasured, all those details: I am so-and-so, I don't like so-and-so, I deny such a thing, I accept such a thing, I prefer this, I reject that, All these fantasies and illusions are gone and only the experience he obtained through them remained, the experience that led him to the understanding of unity.
Then suddenly he wakes up and the masks are gone. The masks were stolen, in quotes, the masks were exceeded. The time has come to overcome them.
Who took it? Who were the thieves who took the masks? The Dharma, the law of the universe, the law of necessity.
Because I no longer needed them, therefore, he took the masks to finally have the merit of seeing his true face. He wakes up and becomes insecure and fearful. and furious at not finding those things with which he identified, what is the next passage.
I ran without a mask through the streets full of people shouting: - Thieves, thieves, bloody thieves! I mean, it's like imagining that you feel naked, always looking at the world from behind masks, masks, masks. Suddenly you wake up and you're naked and it's like you miss the prison, because it protected you.
It's like you missed that mask because it protected your face. You did not protect! In fact, it isolated your face from the world, it isolated your face from the light, from the truth, but when we lose them, for us it's a reality check.
That shock of reality that, in various traditions, is said that man has when he reaches wisdom. It is one thing to seek wisdom, to be a philosopher, it is another thing to be a sophos, a sage. He always suffers from this reality shock, this kind of initial insecurity.
until you get used to living in another world, where things are clearer, more lucid, where the winds of passions cannot reach. He gets scared and runs through the streets missing that illusion that protected him for so long. And generally we curse these adversities, in quotes adversities, that steal our masks, as if they were our enemies.
When we are in a difficult situation, that makes us mature, grow, be better human beings, until we understand that a mask has been torn from us, that made us grow and mature, we hated it and cursed the thieves of our mask. Illusion that we had to be something we are not. An event arrives in life and it hits you hard and takes away that illusion.
You hate it. Damn thief! And at some point, you feel like a weight has been lifted from your face, that a weight has been lifted from your life.
But until you understand this, curse the thieves, the events, the adversities that stole a mask from his face. And this happens not only when we come to wisdom, but also in our daily lives. Any event that is harsh enough to rip off a mask.
. . and sometimes we are so attached that it takes the skin with it.
He takes a mask off us and we hate him, we feel victims, we feel aggrieved, and until we recover and realize that we are freer now, that he is now more mature, that he is now at another level of consciousness, until then, the feeling is one of revolt, sometimes despair and sometimes nakedness. That is exactly what it reports here. Continuing it will say: - Men and women laughed at me and some locked themselves at home for fear of me.
Look how interesting, people laugh and lock themselves at home. Every time someone outside that world of yours appears, of their values There is a book by a modern writer named Steven Pressfield, I gave a talk about him, a talk called How to Overcome Your Inner Limits, and in that book, at a certain point, Steven Pressfield says: - There is a tacit agreement that all together we will sink into mediocrity. When someone wakes up, they are considered a traitor, because someone who wakes up exposes everyone else and shows that they could have reacted.
That is to say, when someone differs from a crowd that is completely alienated, crowded, clinging to their masks, when someone tears off their mask, when someone wakes up, He is either ridiculed or attacked. And you have to be prepared for that. because imagine, an example that I always tell because I find it interesting, which is somewhat enlightening, That moment when we were little that no one had studied for the exam and we studied and took notes.
Our little colleagues are furious, do you know why? If no one had taken a grade, it was the teacher's fault, but since we take it out, we expose the whole gang and we showed that it was possible for everyone to take notes, that what happened was accommodation. A person who reacts and rips off his mask is annoying.
And the one who bothers will be ridiculed or attacked. So, at a certain point, we have to know how to face this rejection, this ridicule, this exclusion from the group, this isolation, until we meet in that place where are those who have also torn off their mask. The great pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus used to say that those who sleep return to their private worlds, but those who look have a world in common.
And it is precisely in this world of those who look may you find those who dared to tear off their masks, those whose masks were stolen. And then, in this world, you recognize each other, and you recognize each other. So it's interesting to realize that this loneliness of rejection is temporary.
We will quickly find those who also took off their mask and who have a world in common, everyone who looks. But there is this loneliness and this immediate rejection of those who have torn off the masks, and that's what he feels here. everyone laughed at me everyone pointed at me, everyone laughed at me.
And now he no longer wore masks, he was a stranger, and this stranger tends to be rejected. In a society where everyone has to be the same and think the same and live the same, the one who achieves the authenticity of a face without masks tends to be rejected. And when I got to the market square, a young man who was standing on the roof of the house he shouted, pointing his finger at me: - It's the mad one!
I raised my eyes to see. The sun bathed my naked face, and my soul was filled with love for the sun, and since then I have never wanted to wear a mask again. That is, at that moment he raises his face.
to respond to a noise, a noise that makes you look up. Look upwards, that is, at the level of values, of virtues, at the most subtle. While only looking at the concrete world, he is rejected for not having more masks, for not being like the others.
But when he looks up, he realizes that he is now light, and light symbolizes wisdom, the light symbolizes values, the light now touches your face. The light and he are as one, he merges with the light, and this perception of light makes him fall in love with her. Light is always a metaphor for wisdom.
While ignorance is always associated with darkness, darkness. Then he feels the light on his face and falls in love with the light, and evidently, he no longer cares about the masks. Now feel the sunlight, feel the wisdom, and now this is your world, the world of those who no longer wear masks.
Continuing, he will say: - Then I screamed as if I were in a trance. - Blessed, blessed thieves who stole my masks. This is that moment when we look back, remember an adversity and say: - When I lived it was painful, but today I know that I would not be what I am if it were not for her.
Blessed difficulty that made me what I am, because otherwise I would be repeating to this day, living that same experience. Blessed difficulty that promoted me to what I am. So, at that moment, he enters a state of grace.
"Blessed Thieves Who Stole My Masks", where he realizes he has outgrown illusions. That, in fact, what he called thieves were the laws of life. was the beneficent hand of the Dharma that lifted all that weighed him down, that led him away from his straight path.
And then he enters a state of ecstasy and thanksgiving for the laws of life, that allowed him to reach that direct vision of the light, where he recognized himself as part of the light. And it will continue saying: - So I went mad and found a lot of freedom and security in my madness, the freedom of loneliness and the security of never being understood, because those who understand us make us their slaves. Look how interesting this is, in a world where mechanistic reason rules, superficial, linked to the banal that frames human beings in a common life, Every time they understand you, it means that they have labeled you, they have framed you.
Who flees from this mechanical world, this world of masks it is not understood, at least not for a banal reason for that practical reason, for that reason that fits the human being into previous models and forces it to repeat itself endlessly. Not for a massive reason. So I will never be understood, not by this world, because every time they understand something, they label it, they frame it, they fit it, box, and you no longer have any freedom.
Thus he found the security of being out of understanding in a world that everything he understands limits, cuts the wings of things and fits into prefabricated categories. And he will continue saying: - But do not let me take too much pride in my security, Not even a jailed thief is safe from running into another thief. That is to say, it does not mean that that moment when the sun bathed my face and I felt part of the sun, at a certain moment, that same state of consciousness it will not be surpassed by an even greater one.
That is to say, perhaps this, which at this moment, is the maximum freedom for me, in a natural process of growth it becomes another mask that nature will also remove. By the time we reach unity, many masks will drop along the way. This step that we now climb seems to us to have the most rarefied air, that has a much broader vision of reality, it seems the apex, but it is not yet.
And once we get used to that pace and conquered all the beauty and all the vision that this pass offers, it's time to grow again. Then the thieves come and steal this mask of ours again. I mean, be careful.
Never think that we are at the end point. We had a moment where the merit of our search, of our walk and some light touched our face. But the journey always continues.
Beware of the vanity of those who believe they have arrived, that they have some truth, who owns something What we have is a continuous movement towards unity. And that's the first story, "The Madman". GOD 2nd story from the book "the madman" by Khalil Gibran The second story is called God.
It is a very beautiful vision of a human being trying to meet God for four months. He will describe this search for that encounter. Once again, I'll read the story and then we'll go back to work on each point.
In ancient times, when the first flutter of words came to my lips, I climbed the sacred mountain and spoke to God saying: - Master, I am your slave. Your hidden will is my law and I will obey you forever and ever. But God did not answer, and it passed like a mighty storm.
And after a thousand years, I went up to the holy mountain and again spoke to God, saying: - Creator, I am your creation, you molded me out of clay and I owe you everything that is mine. And God did not answer, but passed like a thousand swift wings. And after a thousand years, I ascended the sacred mountain and again spoke to God, saying: - Dad, I'm your son.
With mercy and love you gave me the light and through love and adoration I will inherit your kingdom. And God did not answer, and like the mist that envelops the distant hills, it passed. And after a thousand years, I went up to the holy mountain and again spoke to God, saying: - My God, my goal and my length, I am your yesterday and you are my tomorrow I am your root on earth and you are my flower in heaven, and together we will grow before the face of the sun.
Then God leaned over me and whispered sweet words into my ears, and like a sea encircling a stream that flows towards Him, He engulfed me. And when I went down to the valleys and the plains, God was there too. Beautiful!
Beautiful! Even if we take it without much thought, we realize that there is an intuitive insight into something much deeper here. It means a man who climbs the holy mountain, that is, still the highest that your consciousness has conquered so far and trying to get closer to this mystery that is God.
In each moment of your life that is represented there by this passage of a thousand years, say that there was a walk between one and the other, climbing the sacred mountain to the highest and noblest point that our consciousness has ever reached, and trying to contact God with the best tools we have, and God passing. But the way it happens, it leaves us a message. Let's work through each point of this poem?
! Look how beautiful and how interesting. In ancient times, when the first flutter of words came to my lips, I climbed the sacred mountain and spoke to God, saying: - Master, I am your slave, your hidden will is my law and I will obey you forever and ever.
But God did not answer, and like a mighty storm, it passed. That is, at the beginning, at the top of my consciousness, I realize that there is a being who is God. As if we imagine in the history of mankind that moment when beings place one stone on another and there symbolically represent something that is greater than themselves, something that is metaphysical, that they intuit in nature and turn it into a cult.
But God is there, and I am here. There is a certain feeling of fear towards this God. and a feeling of smallness, as if we were mere slaves, small and insignificant beings, devoid of all value before the greatness of this God.
That is the best you have right now and that is already a lot. He is a being who placed himself on the threshold of the metaphysical and began to extrapolate his purely practical mind. and we begin to place the doors of the metaphysical.
Develop awareness of a larger mind, of what in India is called Manas, Pure Mind, or from Budhi, which is an intuitive insight. He begins to perceive not only in the physical, but in the metaphysical, but a vision where he still feels miserable. and the vision of God is still covered with fear.
And God goes like a storm. Many storms are coming. Many pains, many sufferings, many crises, many adversities, until consciousness can, overcoming them, climb a higher step.
This is exactly what will happen, after going through many storms announced by God, man returns, a thousand years later, to climb the sacred mountain. And after a thousand years, I went up to the holy mountain and again spoke to God, saying: - Creator, I am your creation. You molded me out of clay and to you I owe everything that is mine.
And God did not answer, but passed like a thousand swift wings. That is, in the beginning, God is there and I am here. And I feel small and insignificant and I fear it.
In a second moment, God is there and I am here. But besides the fear, now I have gratitude. I recognize that even in my smallness, there is beauty in me, there is nobility in me, there is something endowed with great value in me, and I already recognize this degree of value within myself, and when I see value in myself, I feel grateful, because I can't thank you for anything.
When man discovers in himself a heart, values, virtues, wisdom or his potential, when he discovers this dignity, he begins to grope within himself and discovering that there is something precious inside, then he feels that he has received a treasure. And he stands before God again, God there and he here. But now he is already grateful, he is no longer a miserable being, he is a being who has something to be thankful for.
It is a second moment, and God passes by like a beating of wings. It means we still have to get off the ground. We're in a good time, you started to feel yourself, He doesn't look completely out, now he's a little in, It is beginning to be noticed, but there is still a need to raise awareness, flap wings.
And after a thousand years, again this man returns. And after a thousand years, I ascended the sacred mountain and again spoke to God, saying: - Father, I am your son, with mercy and love you gave birth to me and through love and adoration I will inherit your kingdom. And God did not answer, and like the mist that covers the distant hills it passed.
Look how interesting, at first God is there and I am here, a miserable, despicable, tiny being. I stand before Him like a slave. He is there and I am here, and I am an insignificant being.
In a second moment, God is there, and I am here, but now I already have something significant, and this something significant places me before him with gratitude. In that third moment I am the son, and then God is there, but he is also here, because many of the characteristics of the father are in the son, and you begin to realize the potential of God in you. If God has power, so do I, to the extent of my possibilities, which can be expanded.
If God has love, so do I, I am a son. Therefore, those who pass by me can say that he has the face of the Father, he has the features of the Father. Therefore, I find the attributes of God within me.
And notice that by developing these attributes within me, I get closer and closer to God. It is a moral stage, it is a stage of search for values, where man realizes that his great mission it is the development of the attributes of God that exist within him Now you know it's the son. But you still see what?
A mist that envelops the distant hills. That is, the highest point of the distant hills, it is still shrouded in mist. The highest thing you have not seen yet is the mysteries.
The top of the highest and most distant hills that you have not yet seen, the end point of this mystery is still missing. Keep walking and return to God. And after a thousand years, I went up to the holy mountain and again spoke to God, saying: - My God, my goal and my length, I am your yesterday and you are my tomorrow, I am your root on earth, and you are my flower in heaven, and together we grow before the face of the sun.
Then God leaned over me and whispered sweet words into my ears, and like the sea that surrounds a stream that flows into it, it engulfed me. And when I went down to the valleys and the plains, God was there too. That is, a thousand years later, raising his consciousness to the maximum, He already reaches those hills that are no longer covered in fog, now he sees.
I mean, in the beginning God was there and I was here, and I was afraid of him. In a second moment God was there and I was here, and I was grateful. In a third moment, God was there and he was here and I recognized him in me.
And in that fourth moment there is neither there nor here, God and I are one. He is with me in everything. I am God's episode in time and space.
When I go down the plains there is also God, simply because my voice is the voice of God, my will is the will of God. Through my unity, act on the world. My desires are nothing more than the divine will, my thought, my presence in the world it is simply a channel through which the one manifests itself at a crossroads of space and time.
And where I am, there is God, because there is no more separation, all separation has been overcome. And it no longer exists there or here. God and I are one.
And this is the ultimate process, which is the conquest of unity. The ultimate process that all searches, East and West, medieval mysticism, the mystique of the remotest Indian schools, the mystique of the Zen schools, from the four corners of the world, seek this fusion, in such a way that man realizes that he and God have always been one. And that when I remove all the mists of ignorance, all the mists of separateness, who acts through him is God, and God is where he is.
This is a wonderful poetic vision that shows the extinction of differentiation. The moment we conquered the light. Gibran manages to convey through a poem, a poetic suggestion, one of humanity's most timeless and complex quests, the moment when the separateness will be definitively overcome.
Marguerite Poreti, who writes a wonderful book, The Mirror of Simple and Annihilated Souls, that is the moment when the separated souls are annihilated, the separateness is annihilated. And here we are one. And wherever I am, be it in the highest peaks, in the plains, in the mountains, in the valleys, where I am, there is God because God and I are one.
It no longer exists there or here. So it's a wonderful piece. which demonstrates the level of this great poet that was Kallil Gibran.
It is worth an excellent reflection. I bring it to you so you know a little more. Why do I admire Gibran so much?
Why does a philosopher admire Gibran so much? Because his spirit of combining the beauty of the form with a high philosophical content is rare in history. Many times one knows how to shine the form, make it very perfect, very sonorous, but there is not much to say.
It often has wonderful content, but the form is sometimes a bit crude. It unites wonderful content with perfect form, so what it puts on is timeless. Hence our gratitude to this special being who gave us such beautiful things.
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