Kahlil Gibran - Thoughts and Meditations

Perfection

You ask me, my brother, when will man reach
perfection. Hear my answer:
Man approaches perfection when he
feels that he is in an infinite space and a sea
without a shore,
An everlasting fire, an unquenchable
light,
A calm wind or a raging tempest, a thundering
sky or a rainy heaven,
A singing brook or a wailing rivulet, a tree abloom
in Spring, or a naked sapling in Autumn,
A rising mountain or a descending valley,
A fertile plain or a desert.

When man feels all these, he has already
reached halfway to perfection. To attain his goal
he must then perceive
that he is a child dependent upon his mother,
A father responsible for his family,
A youth lost in love,
An ancient wrestling against his past,
A worshipper in his temple, a criminal in
his prison,
A scholar amidst his parchments,
An ignorant soul stumbling between the darkness of his night
and the obscurity of his day,
A nun suffering between the flowers of her faith and
the thistles of her loneliness,
A prostitute caught between the fangs of her weakness and the claws of her needs,
A poor man trapped between his bitterness and his submission,
A rich man between his greed and his conscience,
A poet between the most of his twilight and the rays of his dawn.

Who can experience, see, and understand these things can reach perfection and become a shadow of God's Shadow.

---- Kahlil Gibran