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Main Index
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are bound to be closed.
So if you see the statues of Mahavira, Adinatha, Parashunyatha -- you will be surprised: why are they all with closed eyes? They have seen the outside -- now they are seeing the interiority of their being. It is qualitatively different. It is not that it is much more beautiful, no; it is a beauty of a totally different kind.
It is so real that the people who have experienced it have also said that the world is illusory, because they have seen something far more real than the stones and the objects and the mountains and the stars....
These small things show the authenticity of the person. Kahlil Gibran is not just philosophizing; otherwise, he would have forgotten about closing the eyes.
AND HE CLOSED HIS EYES...
And a very significant thing:
AND PRAYED IN THE SILENCES OF HIS SOUL.
Millions of people are praying every day, but not in the silences of their souls. Just words -- Christian words, Hindu words, Mohammedan words, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Arabic....
A prayer that consists of words is not a prayer at all.
A prayer consists only of silences.
And remember, he could have simply said, "And he prayed in the silence of his soul" and you would not have thought even for a single moment. In fact, that would have been more linguistically right: "He prayed in the silence of his soul." But it would have been existentially wrong, because it is not one silence within you; there are layers and layers and layers of silences.
Those who have entered, they know: there are seven layers of silences connecting to seven centers of your body. Each center becomes silent; hence, instead of using the singular "silence", he has used a plural: silences.
And you will be surprised that he is the only person who has used silences. There are other great poets, but they have always used "silence of the soul." Naturally, they are simply repeating what they have heard from generation to generation. It is not their own experience.
Kahlil Gibran's statement, silences of the soul shows that he has not only an intellectual approach, a philosophical approach, a theological approach -- his
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