- Hey friends it's Juma here,
if you follow me on Instagram you can tell
that I love to soak in the wisdom
of great books and since
reading is part of my lifestyle
I decided to start sharing here on YouTube
the biggest takeaways of
the books that I am reading.
Whether they are about personal growth,
spirituality, how to create
your personal freedom
because it can be very
powerful for you as well.
Whether you are someone
who just wants to add
a new book to your reading list
or if you are someone
who just wants to get
the best juice out of a certain book
in a short period of time.
So the first book that I choose
is "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran,
I think that's how we pronounce it
and in this video I'm going to be sharing
a summary of this book as well
as my biggest three lessons
and how it has impacted my life.
"The Prophet" was my first book
on personal growth kind of
thing from what I remember.
I was 15 years old and it's a book
that speaks to people in
the different stages of life
and that's why I read it
every two years or so.
I just finished reading last week
because every time I read the book
there is always something new to learn.
And a little bit more about
Kahlil Gibran the author,
he was a Lebanese-American
poet and painter
who lived mostly in the
US and also in Paris
and he was born in the 19th century.
The story of the book is about
the wise man, the prophet
who is about to set sail
back to his homeland after
spending 12 years in exile
on an island and as he leaves the people
from that land asks
him to share his wisdom
on the biggest topics of life,
including death, including work, family,
marriage and his answers are so profound.
The book is a short prose poetry book
that you can read in two hours or so
and even though it's a short, thin book
I would still recommend
you to take your own time
to properly digest the nuggets of wisdom
that he shares and to slowly chew on
all of that content 'cause
it's truly beautiful
and life changing I would even say.
And it's a book that has been translated
into more than 50 languages,
it has sold tens of
millions of copies worldwide
and has impacted the lives of many
including history makers like The Beatles,
like John F. Kennedy,
so I am very confident
that this is a book that you could read.
And the biggest takeaways that I got
from "The Prophet" are the following.
The first takeaway is on love and marriage
and the following is written,
"Love one another, but
make not a bond of love:
"let it rather me a moving sea
"between the shores of your souls.
"Fill each others cup but
drink not from one cup.
"Give one another of your bread
"but eat not from the same loaf.
"Sing and dance together and be joyous,
"but let each one of you be alone.
"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."
So the biggest takeaway that I got here
is to create spaces in the togetherness
of two people or of a
romantic relationship.
I believe that there are as many models
of romantic relationships
as there are relationships
and why this poem is so important for me
it's because it has
shaped my belief system
around romantic relationships.
I believe and this is
just my belief system
that we are not here
to find the other half
because we are not a half,
but instead we are here
and we come together
as two whole individuals to rise higher.
It's like vinegar and olive oil
you know we can be immured together,
but we don't really lose our own dreams
and individual insights.
The second biggest
takeaway was on children
and this is what is written:
"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."
I believe that this is beyond parenting,
but it's also about our power as humans
to create and the biggest lessons
that I got here is regardless
if you are a parent,
an artist, an entrepreneur,
you're creation
ultimately does not belong to you,
it belongs to the world.
It's like you are a vessel that is here
to receive the vision, to receive the seed
and then to give it to the world.
It's like you are a
gardener, like the tree
was not created by you and your job
is to take good care of it,
is to kindly water the seed,
it is as well to take
good care of who you are
because you are somehow responsible
to give birth to that creation.
And the third takeaway
was on joy and sorrow
and he says the following:
"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
"And the selfsame well from
which your laughter rises
"was often times filled with your tears.
"And how else can it be?
"The deeper that sorrow
carves into your being,
"the more joy you can contain.
"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."
The biggest lesson here for me
was that in fact it's not that sorrow
and joy are opposites, it's not that
left and right are
opposites, this is not like
love and fear are opposites,
but in fact they are
just two different sides
of the same line, which means that
if you are experiencing sorrow
it's because you also have that joy,
so it's all about understanding
that there is a time for everything
and then one doesn't really
leave without the other.
You know here in Portugal we have a lot
is oh, I'm missing you so much,
like the saudade, right
and it's something that
causes pain, right.
It causes pain but at the same time
we can only miss something
because we somehow have it, isn't it.
So I guess that there are two ways
of looking at something or you are looking
from a place of abundance that okay,
I'm actually feeling this
because I have the opposite
or you can also look at
it from a place of lack
and somehow they are the same.
Does that make sense?
Concluding this is for me a five star book
and it's a book that I really hold dear.
It's a book that has completely changed
and shift and somehow improved my life
and if you have read "The Prophet"
I would love to hear from you.
What were your favorite poems?
What were your favorite
or biggest lessons?
I would love to hear from you
and if you want to hear
more about book reflections
don't forget to subscribe.
I'll be very grateful for that
and I'll see you in the next video.
(intense instrumental music)
