Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, Speak to us of Crime and Punishment.
And he answered, saying:
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.
Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged.
Even like the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self dwells not alone in your being.
Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,
But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist that knows crime and the punishment of crime.

I continuously feel sad and sorry for Kahlil Gibran. He does not really belong to the crowd. He belongs to the highest peaks of human consciousness, but he knows not the way.

It seems he is basically a poet, but once in a while, in his dreams, he has seen the sunlit peaks of his consciousness too. He has tried his best to convey whatever his dreams have revealed to him – but dreams don’t reveal the truth.

At the most, the best dream is nothing but a full-moon night shadowed, reflected in a lake. If the lake is silent – no ripples, no wind blowing and disturbing it – it becomes a mirror and one can see the moon in that mirror. But it is not the real moon, it is only the reflection. A small pebble thrown in the lake, and the silver of the moon will be spread in ripples all over, and the moon disappears.

So is the case, unfortunately, with Kahlil Gibran. When he describes the moon he is really describing the reflection of the moon. The reflection is almost exactly like the moon, and sometimes even more beautiful. The lake also enhances the beauty; the silence surrounding the lake also makes the dream richer. But howsoever rich a dream may be, it is still a dream.

Again I can make the distinction between the poet and the mystic: the poet at the most sees the reflection; the mystic sees the moon. So they are very close, and sometimes the poet comes to describe the moon so realistically that almost anyone can be deceived. Moreover, the poet has an articulateness which is not necessary for a mystic, so you can be deceived. The mystic may look ordinary in his expression, and the poet is able to decorate his dreams according to his own articulateness.

I feel sad and sorry for Kahlil Gibran, that he remained satisfied with the reflection in the lake. He never thought about what the reflection was of. He was a great dreamer, and his dreams brought magic to his words. Again and again you will see him coming very close to the truth, but he goes on missing the point.

Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, Speak to us of Crime and Punishment.
And he answered, saying:
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind that you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.

This can never be said by a man who is awakened, who has seen the real moon. In fact, he will say just the contrary.