Even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.  Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning./Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,/So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth..../All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

If in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,/Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing floor,/Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,  and weep, but not all of your tears.

Let there be spaces in your togetherness,/And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:/Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your soul./Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup./Give one another your bread but eat not from the same loaf./Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,/Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping./For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts./And stand together yet not too near together:/For the pillars of the temple stand apart,/And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Your children are not your children./They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself./They come through you but not from you,/And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give [your children] your love but not your thoughts,/For they have their own thoughts./You may house their bodies but not their souls,/For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams./You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you./For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You give but little when you give of your possessions,/It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

What are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?.../And what is fear of need but need itself?/Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;/They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space./Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

All you have shall some day be given;/Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors’.

In truth it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

Since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship./And let your board stand an alter on which the pure and innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.

To be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

If you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

What is it to work with love?.../It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,/And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

Work is love made visible.

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy./When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been  your delight.

Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.

Does not your house dream? and dreaming, leave the city for grove or hill-top?

Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow./Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments./But these things are not yet to be.

What have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?.../Have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest and then becomes a host, and then a master?

Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

You, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.../That which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and silences of the night.

Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,/For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.

Some of you say, “It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear.”/And I say, Ay, it was the north wind, /But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his thread.

Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.

It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied,/Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

Suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labor.

And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players,—buy of their gifts also./For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.

It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,/That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself,/And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.

Your god-self dwells not alone in your being,/Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man.

Even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,/So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.

As a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,/So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.

When one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone./Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.

If any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife,/Let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements./And let him who would lash the offender look into the spirit of the offended.

How shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?.../You cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty,/Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.

What of those.../To whom life is a rock, and the law a chisel with which they would carve it in their own likeness?.../What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?.../What shall I say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?/They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws,/And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?

You who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?.../[They] can muffle the drum and [they] can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?

You can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without care nor your nights without want and grief,/But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

What is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?.../If it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you./And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.

Things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling./And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light./And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord  and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody./But how shall I unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction./Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;/And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phœnix rise above its own ashes.

Could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;/And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields./And you would watch  with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen./It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self./Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity.

The treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes./But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;/And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line,/For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.”/ Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”/For the soul walks upon all paths.

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge./The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple...does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Let your best be for your friend./If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also./For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?/Seek him always with hours to live./For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures./For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;/And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.

In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered./For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue./Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear.

The timeless in you is aware of life’s timlessness,/And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.

You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps./Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping./Even those that limp go not backward./But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it a kindness.

In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and  that longing is in all of you.

When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet./Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion./For if you enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:.../Even if you enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard./It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.

Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked./I would not judge or rebuke them. I would have them seek./For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone;/Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.

Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being..../Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived./And your body is the harp of your soul,/And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face./But you are life and you are the veil./Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror./But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?/Who can spread his hours before him , saying, “This is for God and this is for myself;/ This is for my soul, and this other for my body?”/All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.

He to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion./When ever you enter into it take with you your all.

If you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles./Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life./For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;/And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring./Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing came to me./It was the boundless in you;/The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews.

It is in the vast man that you are vast.

Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you./His might binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless.

You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link./This is but half the truth.  You are also as strong as your strongest link.

What is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge?/Your thoughts and my words are waves from a sealed memory that keeps records of our yesterdays.

I have found that which is greater than wisdom./It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more of itself,/ While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering of your days.

Whenever you pass by the field where you have laid your ancestors look well thereupon, and you shall see yourselves and your children dancing hand in hand.

The kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone,/And a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse.

I sought but the secret of your joy and your pain,/And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky.

That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind..../A thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether.