The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys

The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys


by Bahá’u’lláh




Edition 1, (November 2, 2005)





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                                 CONTENTS


Baha’i Terms of Use
The Seven Valleys of Bahá’u’lláh
   The Valley of Search
   The Valley of Love
   The Valley of Knowledge
   The Valley of Unity
   The Valley of Contentment
   The Valley of Wonderment
   The Valley of True Poverty and Absolute Nothingness
The Four Valleys
   The Four Valleys
   The First Valley
   The Second Valley
   The Third Valley
   The Fourth Valley






THE SEVEN VALLEYS OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH


_In the Name of God, the Clement, the Merciful._

Praise be to God Who hath made being to come forth from nothingness;
graven upon the tablet of man the secrets of preexistence; taught him from
the mysteries of divine utterance that which he knew not; made him a
Luminous Book unto those who believed and surrendered themselves; caused
him to witness the creation of all things (Kullu Shay’) in this black and
ruinous age, and to speak forth from the apex of eternity with a wondrous
voice in the Excellent Temple(1): to the end that every man may testify,
in himself, by himself, in the station of the Manifestation of his Lord,
that verily there is no God save Him, and that every man may thereby win
his way to the summit of realities, until none shall contemplate anything
whatsoever but that he shall see God therein.

And I praise and glorify the first sea which hath branched from the ocean
of the Divine Essence, and the first morn which hath glowed from the
Horizon of Oneness, and the first sun which hath risen in the Heaven of
Eternity, and the first fire which was lit from the Lamp of Preexistence
in the lantern of singleness: He who was Aḥmad in the kingdom of the
exalted ones, and Muḥammad amongst the concourse of the near ones, and
Maḥmúd(2) in the realm of the sincere ones. “...by whichsoever (name) ye
will, invoke Him: He hath most excellent names”(3) in the hearts of those
who know. And upon His household and companions be abundant and abiding
and eternal peace!

Further, we have harkened to what the nightingale of knowledge sang on the
boughs of the tree of thy being, and learned what the dove of certitude
cried on the branches of the bower of thy heart. Methinks I verily inhaled
the pure fragrances of the garment of thy love, and attained thy very
meeting from perusing thy letter. And since I noted thy mention of thy
death in God, and thy life through Him, and thy love for the beloved of
God and the Manifestations of His Names and the Dawning-Points of His
Attributes—I therefore reveal unto thee sacred and resplendent tokens from
the planes of glory, to attract thee into the court of holiness and
nearness and beauty, and draw thee to a station wherein thou shalt see
nothing in creation save the Face of thy Beloved One, the Honored, and
behold all created things only as in the day wherein none hath a mention.

Of this hath the nightingale of oneness sung in the garden of
Ghawthíyyih.(4) He saith: “And there shall appear upon the tablet of thine
heart a writing of the subtle mysteries of ‘Fear God and God will give you
knowledge’;(5) and the bird of thy soul shall recall the holy sanctuaries
of preexistence and soar on the wings of longing in the heaven of ‘walk
the beaten paths of thy Lord’,(6) and gather the fruits of communion in
the gardens of ‘Then feed on every kind of fruit.’”(7)

By My life, O friend, wert thou to taste of these fruits, from the green
garden of these blossoms which grow in the lands of knowledge, beside the
orient lights of the Essence in the mirrors of names and
attributes—yearning would seize the reins of patience and reserve from out
thy hand, and make thy soul to shake with the flashing light, and draw
thee from the earthly homeland to the first, heavenly abode in the Center
of Realities, and lift thee to a plane wherein thou wouldst soar in the
air even as thou walkest upon the earth, and move over the water as thou
runnest on the land.