The Beloved: Reflections on the Path of the Heart

The Beloved Kahlil Gibran's writings on love, marriage, and the spiritual union of souls are rendered in exquisite translations in this beautiful collection of prose and poetry. The stories and poetry of this volume deal with romantic and spiritual ideals. Rooted in his own life experience and that of men and women in the Near East, Gibran speaks of the bitter pain of arranged marriages where love is sacrificed for worldly aims ('Rose al-Hani' and 'The Bridal Bed'). Gibran saw women as the particular victioms of rigid social customs and expectations and of standards that made marriage an economic transaction. For him, the love of a man and a woman was a pure emotion and was not to be compromised. He also recounts the joys of a love that begins beyond time in the shelter of God's love and finds expression in the perfect union of a man and a woman in this world. ('World of Love' 'Communion', 'The Life of Love', 'At the Gate of the Temple', and 'The beloved'),