10. On Clothes, The Prophet By Khalil Gibran

"And the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes."
"And he answered: Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful."

“The Prophet,” a collection of twenty-six prose poems, delivered as sermons by a fictional wise man in a faraway time and place. First published in 1923, it is full of timeless wisdom. I've separated each poem in order to practice Deep Listening for the wisdom in each verse. I hope you enjoy each word.

Transcript

Greetings and blessings with gratitude and welcome you to this next segment in this segment the Prophet answers a question about clothes posed by the weaver as with the segment on houses you might consider the literal what we wear our homes place of safety and security and of course consider the figurative our body is our home the clothes the things maybe the identities we put on this practice is not one for judgment it's simply a practice of mindful observance with observance we become aware with practice the awareness leads to understanding and wisdom as we continue along the path that awareness and understanding gives us a glimpse of enlightenment unity in truth seeing the real from the unreal removing the veils like garments which just hide the truth wouldn't we be better still to know our truth and preserve it with integrity acting from within not seeking from without as you find your seat stack your spine and prepare to listen let go of the veils allow yourself to feel that connection to your most authentic self your truth your svadharma your flow in the ocean a boundless drop to a boundless sea and flowing at peace and the weaver said speak to us of clothes and he said your clothes conceal much of your beauty yet they hide not the unbeautiful and though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain would that you could meet the Sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your arraignment for the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind and some of you say it is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear and I say I it was the north wind but shame was his loom and the softening of the sinews was his thread and when his work was done he laughed in the forest forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean and when the unclean shall be no more what were modesty but a feather and a fouling of the mind and forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair and so it is with our true self you may know it as your soul Atman, Purusha, Svaradharma, The Sutras of Patanjali tells us the causes of suffering and the first of which is that we forget our true nature ignorance of our true nature in translation and the second is the ego dominated by self-preservation not the true self the physical self and the third and fourth are attachment and aversion we become attached to those things we love and avoid those things we dislike and the fifth final is the fear of our own impermanence the fear of change the fear of death and as we meditate we find stillness the absence of tension a non duality a unity with our true nature seeing that what is real within is and always has been the source physiologically scientists have proven that our bodies cannot grow and defend at the same time you may have heard fight and flight and rest and digest and so it is the chemistry the brain signals the signals create attention this not this that not that and so as we meditate we still the patterns of this consciousness to find the truth the present and once we find that truth and we aspire to be content Santosha content in the knowing that what's real in us lives and shines the light and love and me honors the light and love in you namaste