Gibranian “spirituality” is a concept not unconnected to “morality”, a very practical aspect of day-to-day human life. Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) is a “reformer” and a “people’s philosopher” – very different from, and perhaps, opposed to the philosophy of the philosophers (often in their ivory towers). What Gibran said and advocated is moral philosophy. Ghougassian, a Gibran scholar, was of the opinion that Gibran through his writings and paintings attempted to reform “the social woes caused by injustice, ineffective traditions, and the unnatural laws that hurt the innate laws of human nature”. (Joseph P. Ghougassian, Kahlil Gibran: Wings of Thought – The People’s Philosopher, New York: Philosophical Library, 1973.)
For Ghougassian these are the chief concerns that Gibran expressed in his Spirits Rebellious. This was translated into English by H.M. Nahmad, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948; London: Heineman, 1949). The basic message of this book is put through four stories – “Madame Rose Hanie”, “The Cry of Graves”, “Khalil the Heretic”, and “The Bridal Couch”. These stories inform that the laws of the Church and the State are human made, and at present, these social laws are much decayed.
Elsewhere Gibran wrote about this social decay, dirt and deterioration thus: “If you wish to take a look at the decayed teeth of Syria, visit its schools where the sons and daughters of today are preparing to become the men and women of tomorrow.”
“Visit the courts and witness that acts of the crooked and corrupted purveyors of justice. See how they play with the thoughts and minds of the simple people as a cat plays with a mouse.”
“Visit the homes of the rich where conceit, falsehood, and hypocrisy reign. But don’t neglect to go through the huts of the poor as well, where dwell fear, ignorance and cowardice.”
“Then visit the nimble-fingered dentists, [metaphorically the leaders], possessors of delicate instruments, dental plasters and tranquilizers, who spend their days filling the cavities in the rotten teeth of the nation to mask the decay.” (Quoted from “Decayed Teeth” of Kahlil Gibran, Thoughts and Meditations, translated by Anthony R. Ferris, New York: The Citadel Press, 1960).
And Gibran poetically proclaimed that these laws of the Church and State prevent growth, “the individual to develop a self-identity”. For according to Kahlil Gibran, there can be no spiritual wellness, or health, and the human spirit will not be free if these areas of our society are not renewed and made to serve the needs of humans.
For Gibran, to be closer to God necessarily amounts to be closer to people. And he saw that religious and political leadership with all its structural paraphernalia of his time was far removed from the people and their concerns. And he perceived these institutions, both religious and political, as self-serving, prompting in him a rebellion against the leadership and revolting against the institutions, including his Maronite Catholic Church.
As for Gibran’s followers, according to Ghougassian, Gibran is a prophet, like the prophets of the Hebrew tradition, playing the “same effective social role in educating the minds in spirituality”. And Gibran’s writings on social woes are similar to that of the Hebrew poetic literature. For Gibran, like William Blake, was very much influenced by the Bible. And his spirituality was pragmatic and firmly rooted in compassion towards the more “feeble” segment of the society, whom Jesus called the anāwim, the needy ones, demanding more equity.
Gibran’s Spirits Rebellious, according to some of the early biographers, whom Ghougassian used in his study, was burnt in Beirut by the then ruling Turkish Government, and Gibran was exiled. The Maronite Church too joined the state in punishing Gibran by her own excommunication. Later biographers, however, do not seem to find evidence for this inhuman acts of the Church and State!
Gibran saw in those organizations of his time, which he was critiquing, a sense of hypocrisy, shallowness, lack of love and forgiveness, leading, to a dearth of freedom for the human spirit. He believed human spirit was endowed with a forward thrust and toward the infinite. And Gibran saw how these self-serving institutions were enslaving the human spirit from leaping towards limitless expanse of life.
At the end what I hope to communicate is that Gibran despite his rebellion, particularly against his own Maronite Church, remained an intensely spiritual person promoting, joyously, spiritual values. In fact, Gibran himself said that he was deeply spiritual though we do not see him as a practising Christian, refusing even a Christian burial at the end.
As for Gibran a person who is spiritual “does not embrace a religion” and one who embraces a religion really “has no religion”, meaning is not spiritual. In this sense Gibran is a mystic who had no inclination for any “formulated” or organized religion. He was inclined towards an intrinsic spirituality that is often described as “esoteric” religion, different from, if not opposed to “exoteric” religion. Gibran had no space for any extrinsic religion in his psyche. Gibran believed that “the extrinsic religion”, like that of any organized church, including his own Maronite Church, “promotes racial and ethnic bigotry, religious prejudice” leading the followers not only towards a religious competition but also “to discrimination, segregation and denials” of other beliefs and practices.
Ghougassian is not wrong in considering Gibran’s condemnatory stance of the religion too harsh. But what Gibran condemned was only the forms of “extrinsic” religions while upholding and even promoting intrinsic religion even when it came from beyond the Christian boundary. However, the Maronite Church that condemned Gibran was harsher and irrational in her dismissal without considering carefully Gibran’s thought on the “intrinsic” nature of religion.
In a letter to his cousin Nakhli Gibran, Kahlil Gibran wrote: “The people in Syria are calling me heretic, and the intelligentsia in Egypt vilifies me, saying, ‘He is the enemy of just laws, of family ties, and of old traditions.’ Those writers are telling the truth, because I do not love man-made laws and I abhor the traditions that our ancestors left us. This hatred is the fruit of my love for the sacred and spiritual kindness, which should be the source of every law upon the earth, for kindness is the shadow of God in man. I know that the principles upon which I base my writings are echoes of the majority of the people of the world, because the tendency toward a spiritual independence is to our life as the heart to the body.”
For Ghougassian these are the chief concerns that Gibran expressed in his Spirits Rebellious. This was translated into English by H.M. Nahmad, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948; London: Heineman, 1949). The basic message of this book is put through four stories – “Madame Rose Hanie”, “The Cry of Graves”, “Khalil the Heretic”, and “The Bridal Couch”. These stories inform that the laws of the Church and the State are human made, and at present, these social laws are much decayed.
Elsewhere Gibran wrote about this social decay, dirt and deterioration thus: “If you wish to take a look at the decayed teeth of Syria, visit its schools where the sons and daughters of today are preparing to become the men and women of tomorrow.”
“Visit the courts and witness that acts of the crooked and corrupted purveyors of justice. See how they play with the thoughts and minds of the simple people as a cat plays with a mouse.”
“Visit the homes of the rich where conceit, falsehood, and hypocrisy reign. But don’t neglect to go through the huts of the poor as well, where dwell fear, ignorance and cowardice.”
“Then visit the nimble-fingered dentists, [metaphorically the leaders], possessors of delicate instruments, dental plasters and tranquilizers, who spend their days filling the cavities in the rotten teeth of the nation to mask the decay.” (Quoted from “Decayed Teeth” of Kahlil Gibran, Thoughts and Meditations, translated by Anthony R. Ferris, New York: The Citadel Press, 1960).
And Gibran poetically proclaimed that these laws of the Church and State prevent growth, “the individual to develop a self-identity”. For according to Kahlil Gibran, there can be no spiritual wellness, or health, and the human spirit will not be free if these areas of our society are not renewed and made to serve the needs of humans.
For Gibran, to be closer to God necessarily amounts to be closer to people. And he saw that religious and political leadership with all its structural paraphernalia of his time was far removed from the people and their concerns. And he perceived these institutions, both religious and political, as self-serving, prompting in him a rebellion against the leadership and revolting against the institutions, including his Maronite Catholic Church.
As for Gibran’s followers, according to Ghougassian, Gibran is a prophet, like the prophets of the Hebrew tradition, playing the “same effective social role in educating the minds in spirituality”. And Gibran’s writings on social woes are similar to that of the Hebrew poetic literature. For Gibran, like William Blake, was very much influenced by the Bible. And his spirituality was pragmatic and firmly rooted in compassion towards the more “feeble” segment of the society, whom Jesus called the anāwim, the needy ones, demanding more equity.
Gibran’s Spirits Rebellious, according to some of the early biographers, whom Ghougassian used in his study, was burnt in Beirut by the then ruling Turkish Government, and Gibran was exiled. The Maronite Church too joined the state in punishing Gibran by her own excommunication. Later biographers, however, do not seem to find evidence for this inhuman acts of the Church and State!
Gibran saw in those organizations of his time, which he was critiquing, a sense of hypocrisy, shallowness, lack of love and forgiveness, leading, to a dearth of freedom for the human spirit. He believed human spirit was endowed with a forward thrust and toward the infinite. And Gibran saw how these self-serving institutions were enslaving the human spirit from leaping towards limitless expanse of life.
At the end what I hope to communicate is that Gibran despite his rebellion, particularly against his own Maronite Church, remained an intensely spiritual person promoting, joyously, spiritual values. In fact, Gibran himself said that he was deeply spiritual though we do not see him as a practising Christian, refusing even a Christian burial at the end.
As for Gibran a person who is spiritual “does not embrace a religion” and one who embraces a religion really “has no religion”, meaning is not spiritual. In this sense Gibran is a mystic who had no inclination for any “formulated” or organized religion. He was inclined towards an intrinsic spirituality that is often described as “esoteric” religion, different from, if not opposed to “exoteric” religion. Gibran had no space for any extrinsic religion in his psyche. Gibran believed that “the extrinsic religion”, like that of any organized church, including his own Maronite Church, “promotes racial and ethnic bigotry, religious prejudice” leading the followers not only towards a religious competition but also “to discrimination, segregation and denials” of other beliefs and practices.
Ghougassian is not wrong in considering Gibran’s condemnatory stance of the religion too harsh. But what Gibran condemned was only the forms of “extrinsic” religions while upholding and even promoting intrinsic religion even when it came from beyond the Christian boundary. However, the Maronite Church that condemned Gibran was harsher and irrational in her dismissal without considering carefully Gibran’s thought on the “intrinsic” nature of religion.
In a letter to his cousin Nakhli Gibran, Kahlil Gibran wrote: “The people in Syria are calling me heretic, and the intelligentsia in Egypt vilifies me, saying, ‘He is the enemy of just laws, of family ties, and of old traditions.’ Those writers are telling the truth, because I do not love man-made laws and I abhor the traditions that our ancestors left us. This hatred is the fruit of my love for the sacred and spiritual kindness, which should be the source of every law upon the earth, for kindness is the shadow of God in man. I know that the principles upon which I base my writings are echoes of the majority of the people of the world, because the tendency toward a spiritual independence is to our life as the heart to the body.”
Gibranism, I maintain, that in spite of its anti-institutionalism, including anti-clericalism, still carries with it a sensible and a relevant spirituality to induce renewal. And this renewal is essential for the continuing safety and health of human life. Hence, Gibranism proclaimed through parables – prosaic and poetic - despite its ambiguity deserves a closer examination.
[More on this subject could be found in Henry Victor, “Scarecrow Spirituality: Exploring Gibranianism”, Religious Studies and Theology, Volume 24, Number 2, (2005), pp. 59-80.]
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