Perceiving with divine insight

The Valleys depict different world-views. As Bahá’u’lláh states:

Thus it hath been made clear that these stages depend on the vision of the wayfarer. In every city he will behold a world, in every Valley reach a spring, in every meadow hear a song.34

To have knowledge of each Valley is not enough. One cannot comprehend it from the outside. To be a “wayfarer” is a question of residence, not familiarity.

This is a good time to review something from the Valley of Knowledge. In Persian there are two words commonly used for knowledge, Ilm and Irfán. They are as different as studying about the ocean, and swimming in it.

The translation “valley of knowledge” is not really accurate, given the common meaning of this word. The Persian text says “Marifat"; which my dictionary translates as meaning "insight into divine matters" (the word is derived fromIrfán, which can mean wisdom or insight).

It means that those in the valley of knowledge have come to fully appreciate and trust God’s planning. This is no simple matter. Even Moses failed this test, as Muhammad relates in the story of Khidr:

So [Moses] found one of Our servants (Khidr), on whom We had bestowed Mercy from Ourselves and whom We had taught knowledge from Our own Presence.

Moses said to him: “May I follow thee, on the footing that thou teach me something of the (Higher) Truth which thou hast been taught?”

(The other) said: “Verily thou wilt not be able to have patience with me!”

“And how canst thou have patience about things about which thy understanding is not complete?”

Moses said: “Thou wilt find me, if God so will, (truly) patient: nor shall I disobey thee in aught.”

The other said: “If then thou wouldst follow me, ask me no questions about anything until I myself speak to thee concerning it.”

So they both proceeded: until, when they were in the boat, he scuttled it. Said Moses: “Hats thou scuttled it in order to drown those in it? Truly a strange thing hast thou done!”

He answered: “Did I not tell thee that thou canst have no patience with me?”

Moses said: “Rebuke me not for forgetting, nor grieve me by raising difficulties in my case.”

Then they proceeded: until, when they met a young man, he slew him. Moses said: “Hats thou slain an innocent person who had slain none? Truly a foul (unheard of) thing hast thou done!”

He answered: “Did I not tell thee that thou canst have no patience with me?”

(Moses) said: “If ever I ask thee about anything after this, keep me not in thy company: then wouldst thou have received (full) excuse from my side.”

Then they proceeded: until, when they came to the inhabitants of a town, they asked them for food, but they refused them hospitality. They found there a wall on the point of falling down, but he set it up straight. (Moses) said: “If thou hadst wished, surely thou couldst have exacted some recompense for it!”

He answered: “This is the parting between me and thee: now will I tell thee the interpretation of (those things) over which thou wast unable to hold patience.

“As for the boat, it belonged to certain men in dire want: they plied on the water: I but wished to render it unserviceable, for there was after them a certain king who seized on every boat by force.

“As for the youth, his parents were people of Faith, and we feared that he would grieve them by obstinate rebellion and ingratitude (to God and man).

“So we desired that their Lord would give them in exchange (a son) better in purity (of conduct) and closer in affection.

“As for the wall, it belonged to two youths, orphans, in the Town; there was, beneath it, a buried treasure, to which they were entitled: their father had been a righteous man: So thy Lord desired that they should attain their age of full strength and get out their treasure – a mercy (and favour) from thy Lord. I did it not of my own accord. Such is the interpretation of (those things) over which thou wast unable to hold patience.”35

Bahá’u’lláh also refers to this story in the Seven Valleys, by quoting Rúmí’s verse:

  If Khidr did wreck the vessel on the sea,  
  Yet in this wrong there are a thousand rights.[^3]

All events happen for our benefit

God works mysterious good in our lives, which is not fathomable to those lacking “insight into divine matters”. It has been stated often that all of God’s workings, whether they appear good or evil to us, benefit His faithful ones in the end:

Whatsoever occurreth in the world of being is light for His loved ones and fire for the people of sedition and strife. Even if all the losses of the world were to be sustained by one of the friends of God, he would still profit thereby, whereas true loss would be borne by such as are wayward, ignorant and contemptuous. Although the author of the following saying had intended it otherwise, yet We find it pertinent to the operation of God’s immutable Will: “Even or odd, thou shalt win the wager.” The friends of God shall win and profit under all conditions, and shall attain true wealth. In fire they remain cold, and from water they emerge dry. Their affairs are at variance with the affairs of men. Gain is their lot, whatever the deal. To this testifieth every wise one with a discerning eye, and every fair-minded one with a hearing ear.36

It is not so hard to “understand” that God means us well in all things. It is an entirely different thing to “know” – to have the necessary insight – to behold something terrible occurring, and yet praise God for allowing it. The atrocities of war are most often used as proof of this. Yet the Seven Valleys say of the wayfarers in the path of Knowledge: “And if he meeteth with injustice he shall have patience, and if he cometh upon wrath he shall manifest love.”37

I will copy here the story of the lover and the beloved, from the Seven Valleys, since it shows Bahá’u’lláh’s own elucidation of this theme:

There was once a lover who had sighed for long years in separation from his beloved, and wasted in the fire of remoteness. From the rule of love, his heart was empty of patience, and his body weary of his spirit; he reckoned life without her as a mockery, and time consumed him away. How many a day he found no rest in longing for her; how many a night the pain of her kept him from sleep; his body was worn to a sigh, his heart’s wound had turned him to a cry of sorrow. He had given a thousand lives for one taste of the cup of her presence, but it availed him not. The doctors knew no cure for him, and companions avoided his company; yea, physicians have no medicine for one sick of love, unless the favor of the beloved one deliver him.

At last, the tree of his longing yielded the fruit of despair, and the fire of his hope fell to ashes. Then one night he could live no more, and he went out of his house and made for the marketplace. On a sudden, a watchman followed after him. He broke into a run, with the watchman following; then other watchmen came together, and barred every passage to the weary one. And the wretched one cried from his heart, and ran here and there, and moaned to himself: “Surely this watchman is Izrá’íl, my angel of death, following so fast upon me; or he is a tyrant of men, seeking to harm me.” His feet carried him on, the one bleeding with the arrow of love, and his heart lamented. Then he came to a garden wall, and with untold pain he scaled it, for it proved very high; and forgetting his life, he threw himself down to the garden.

And there he beheld his beloved with a lamp in her hand, searching for a ring she had lost. When the heart-surrendered lover looked on his ravishing love, he drew a great breath and raised up his hands in prayer, crying: “O God! Give Thou glory to the watchman, and riches and long life. For the watchman was Gabriel, guiding this poor one; or he was Isráfíl, bringing life to this wretched one!”

Indeed, his words were true, for he had found many a secret justice in this seeming tyranny of the watchman, and seen how many a mercy lay hid behind the veil. Out of wrath, the guard had led him who was athirst in love’s desert to the sea of his loved one, and lit up the dark night of absence with the light of reunion. He had driven one who was afar, into the garden of nearness, had guided an ailing soul to the heart’s physician.

Now if the lover could have looked ahead, he would have blessed the watchman at the start, and prayed on his behalf, and he would have seen that tyranny as justice; but since the end was veiled to him, he moaned and made his pliant in the beginning. Yet those who journey in the garden land of knowledge, because they see the end in the beginning, see peace in war and friendliness in anger.38

We are all familiar with this “watchman”, and some of us have found the “beloved” on the other side of the wall. But how many can say that we pray before the discovery?

O Son of Man! My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy. Hasten thereunto that thou mayest become an eternal light and an immortal spirit. This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it.39

O Son of Man! For everything there is a sign. The sign of love is fortitude under My decree and patience under My trials.40

The elimination of fear

Each Valley seems to represent a spiritual station. Knowledge (divine insight), appears to be the station of: “God doeth as He pleaseth.” As someone else wrote, we become like the Sufi who is delighted at being thwarted, because he knows that God is pushing his life in a better direction – albeit invisibly at the start.

This station is called “the last plane of limitation” in the Seven Valleys. A question: Do you think this station is also being described in the following quote, from the Kitáb-i-`Ahd?

We fain would hope that the people of Bahá may be guided by the blessed words: `Say: all things are of God.’ This exalted utterance is like unto water for quenching the fire of hate and enmity which smouldereth within the hearts and breasts of men. By this single utterance contending peoples and kindreds will attain the light of true unity.

If so, might this verse – this Word, this station – be the one that Bahá’u’lláh refers to elsewhere in these words?

In the treasuries of the knowledge of God there lieth concealed a knowledge which, when applied, will largely, though not wholly, eliminate fear… A word hath, likewise, been written down and recorded by the Pen of the Most High in the Crimson Book [this refers to the Kitáb-i-`Ahd] which is capable of fully disclosing that force which is hid in men, nay of redoubling its potency. We implore God – exalted and glorified be He – to graciously assist His servants to do that which is pleasing and acceptable unto Him.

What is fear but apprehension of the unknown? And what is the station of “All things are of God” but that of welcoming the Unknown? I’ll end by including a verse from the Valley of Knowledge, which so completely empitomizes this attitude:

The wayfarer in this Valley seeth in the fashionings of the True One nothing save clear providence, and at every moment saith: “No defect canst thou see in the creation of the God of Mercy: Repeat the gaze: Seest thou a single flaw?” He beholdeth justice in injustice, and in justice, grace. In ignorance he findeth many a knowledge hidden, and in knowledge a myriad wisdoms manifest.

Quotes from the original Valley of Knowledge

The Conference of the Birds, Mantiqu’t-Tayr, is a story of thirty birds who are all seeking to reach the immortal King. Their guide, the Hoopoe bird, describes to them seven valleys which all must pass through before they can achieve their final destination. It is these seven valleys which Bahá’u’lláh elaborates in His text “The Seven Valleys”.

As a side note, in case some were wondering, the word for “valley” in these texts does not mean a lush ravine between mountains. The word “vádí” refers to what people in the Southwestern USA know as an arroyo. It is a dry river, useful as a guide when making one’s way through a desert.

The following quotes come from two different translations of the Conference of the Birds; all of them are from that book’s Valley of Knowledge (which is also translated as Valley of Understanding, and Valley of Mystic Insight).

When the mystery of the essence of beings reveals itself clearly to [the wayfarer] the furnace of this world becomes a garden of flowers. He who is striving will be able to see the almond in its hard shell. He will no longer be pre-occupied with himself, but will look up at the face of his Friend. In each atom he will see the whole; he will ponder over thousands of bright secrets…

Real knowledge becomes the possession of the true seeker. If it is necessary to seek knowledge in China, then go. But knowledge is distorted by the formal mind, it becomes petrified, like stones. How long must real knowledge continue to be misunderstood? This world, this house of sorrows, is in darkness; but true knowledge is a jewel, it will burn like a lamp and guide you in this gloomy place. If you spurn this jewel you will ever be a prey to regret. If you lag behind you will weep bitter tears. But if you sleep little by night, and fast by day, you may find what you seek. Seek, then, and be lost in the quest.

Of those who dwell in this Valley it is said:

He will perceive the marrow, not the skin --  
the self will disappear; then, from within  
the heart of all he sees, there will ascend  
the longed-for face of the immortal Friend.

A hundred thousand secrets will be known  
when that unveiled, surpassing Face is shown --  
a hundred thousand men must faint and fail  
till one shall draw aside the secret's veil.

Perfected, of rare courage, he must be  
to dive through that immense, uncharted sea.  
If you discern such hidden truths and feel  
joy flood your life, do not relax your zeal!

Though thirst is quenched,  
  though you are bathed in bliss  
beyond all hypothesis,  
though you should reach the throne of God,  
  implore Him still unceasingly:

  "Is there yet anymore?"

The Seven Valleys is “a guide for human conduct”

The following tradition, attributed to the Imám `Alí, is from the book The Way of the Sufi by Idries Shah:

You probably seem to yourself to be a believer, even if you are a believer in disbelief.

But you cannot really believe in anything until you are aware of the process by which you arrived at your position.

Before you do this you must be ready to postulate that all your beliefs may be wrong, that what you think to be belief may only be a variety of prejudice caused by your surroundings – including the bequest of your ancestors for whom you may have a sentiment.

True belief belongs to the realm of real knowledge.

Until you have knowledge, belief is mere coalesced opinions, however it may seem to you.

Coalesced opinions serve for ordinary living. Real belief enables higher studies to be made.

This theme of self-examination is echoed in `Abdu’l-Bahá’s words, where he calls the Seven Valleys “a guide for human conduct”:

It is my hope… that you may search out your own imperfections and not think of the imperfections of anybody else. Strive with all your power to be free from imperfections. Heedless souls are always seeking faults in others. What can the hypocrite know of others’ faults when he is blind to his own? This is the meaning of the words in the Seven Valleys. It is a guide for human conduct. As long as a man does not find his own faults, he can never become perfect. Nothing is more fruitful for man than the knowledge of his own shortcomings. The Blessed Perfection says, “I wonder at the man who does not find his own imperfections.”41

Related meditations from the Hidden Words

Here are some meditations from the Hidden Words which seem to relate to the themes of the Valley of Knowledge:

O Son of Man! Thou art My dominion and My dominion perisheth not; wherefore fearest thou thy perishing? Thou art My light and My light shall never be extinguished; why dost thou dread extinction? Thou art My glory and My glory fadeth not; thou art My robe and My robe shall never be outworn. Abide then in thy love for Me, that thou mayest find Me in the realm of glory.

O Son of Man! For everything there is a sign. The sign of love is fortitude under My decree and patience under My trials.

O Son of Man! The true lover yearneth for tribulation even as doth the rebel for forgiveness and the sinful for mercy.

O Son of Man! If adversity befall thee not in My path, how canst thou walk in the ways of them that are content with My pleasure? If trials afflict thee not in thy longing to meet Me, how wilt thou attain the light in thy love for My beauty?

O Son of Man! My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy. Hasten thereunto that thou mayest become an eternal light and an immortal spirit. This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it.

The worlds of the “beginning” and the “end”

There is another recurring theme in the Writings, both Islamic and Bahá’í, of four divine states which are referred to in the verse: “He is the first and the last, the Seen and the Hidden.”42 It is also found in the New Testament, where it says “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”43

Bahá’u’lláh expounds on this theme in the Valley of Unity, yet it is also found in the Valley of Knowledge. In the story of the lover and his beloved, the lover starts in the “world of the beginning”. After he is pursued by the watchmen, he comes upon his beloved and is transported to the “world of the end”.

These two worlds exist in the vision of the wayfarer. Between them is the illusory reality of Time, through which men must pass. Owing to these two worlds, change is witnessed. Because of them, the Prophets appear to have different names, and speak in different tongues. Otherwise, in the realm of unity, “This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future.”.44

Consider yourself in a difficult situation. Without knowing the outcome, you may be seized by fear, or wonder at what may happen. You are in the “world of firstness”. In this condition “the end is veiled to you”, and people are wont “to make their pliant in the beginning.”

After the passage of time, and the appearance of change, we learn the outcome of our situation. We may be happy, or sad, but now things are complete. We have entered “the world of lastness”, and come to the end of our waiting.

It is possible, through faith, and insight into the ways of God, to perceive “the end in the beginning”. That is, while dwelling in the world of the first, it is as though we look across a gorge, and see the details of the world of the last. We take heart in what we see, and our apprehension of the unknown leaves us. Because God “[has] ordained for thy training every atom in existence and the essence of all created things”,45 we come to perceive even the next life from the vantage point of this life, and learn that everything which occurs materially is for the benefit of spiritual progress. Thus the gap of death is bridged, and we are filled with a spiritual joy that is beyond this world.

This is the station of those in the valley of Knowledge, and by such insight the wayfarer can reach across the boundaries of Time. It is an attribute of those who see the large in the small, the tree in the seed, the future in the present. This is the last world of limitation, for limitations require separation, and separation implies differences.

He says, “… the people of the Valleys above this see the end and the beginning as one…” In this condition, the world of the beginning is not different from the world of the end. Whatever situation we find ourselves in, and however we may seem to other people, we are actually dwelling in the world of the end, though our surroundings have the appearance of the world of the beginning.

To give a concrete example of this: In the game of chess, players are ranked according to their ability on a scale from 0 to 3000. The greater the numerical separation between players, the greater the likelihood that the higher player will win.

At a tournament, where people are playing to win, let’s assume that you are rated 3000, and your opponent is rated 0. This means that you have no possibility of losing. Although no pieces have been moved, and you sit in the world of the first, because of your certitude you already count the game as won. You already experience the joys and emotions of the world of the last. Indeed, no matter what apparent “changes” occur on the board, they have no reality, and time in this case is just a show.

Likewise for the other player. The end and the beginning are one, and while we may see the players at the “beginning”, they themselves already dwell in the “end”. They do not just see the end in the beginning; their emotions, vision, and reality concerning the end and the beginning is one.

This is the station of `Abdu’l-Bahá saying “The Temple is already built.” For Him, Who saw the condition of the believers at that time, the Temple already existed in its full splendour. I imagine He was able to revel in the creation of the believers, and experienced joy at what they had/will build. Time was but a show, a non-thing. In the spiritual worlds, the cornerstone and the Temple were one.

This implies a complete transcendence of the conditions of this life, which seems so ruled by boundaries and temporal causation. It is no wonder that Bahá’u’lláh said that the valley of Knowledge “is the last plane of limitation”. Here the spirit is free, and appearances no longer affect it. Owing to the saying, “Verily we are from God, and to Him shall we return”, he sees the Face of God everywhere, for has he not already returned? Bahá’u’lláh says, “… what life have words, on such a plane, that first' andlast’ or other than these be seen or mentioned! In this realm, the first is the last itself, and the last is but the first.”46

He then continues, “Nay rather, the denizens of the undying city, who dwell in the green garden land, see not even `neither first nor last’; they fly from all that is first, and repulse all that is last.”47 In Gems of the Mysteries48, Bahá’u’lláh writes, “In this station change and alteration are pure idolatry and unadulterated belief.”49 In this realm of the Infinite, change is not only unreal, it is uncreate. “Knowledge is a single point, but the ignorant have multiplied it.”50 Here there is no believer, for as He said, “There was God and there was naught beside Him”. And further, “This is the plane whereon the vestiges of all things are destroyed in the traveler, and on the horizon of eternity the Divine Face riseth out of the darkness, and the meaning of ‘All on the earth shall pass away, but the face of thy Lord…’ is made manifest.”51

Even love, which implies a lover, debars one from this realm, as it says in the poetic, “Love is a veil betwixt the lover and the loved one; more than this I am not permitted to tell”.52

I hope this will stimulate any ideas the reader may have on the mysteries of “the beginning and the end,”. Given our subjection to time, and the tricks it plays on us, I find it heartening that Bahá’u’lláh foretells a spiritual station in which these limitations can be transcended.

… We supplicate God to submerge us in these surging oceans, to encompass us in these spray-laden gales and to bestow upon us a divine stairway for our ascent. In this way might we cleanse our human temples of everything we have acquired from our base selves and divest ourselves of the shameless garments that we have stolen from our peers, that God may clothe us in the cloak of His grace and the raiments of His guidance. Then might He cause us to enter the city of knowledge; for everyone who sets foot therein knows all branches of learning even before he becomes aware of their inner secrets. He comprehends all knowledge and wisdom by means of the mysteries of divinity deposited in the creation – for he reads in the leaf the secrets of the tree. Praise be to God, the Maker and fashioner of the universe, above all that was created and preordained therein.53

“Even Gabriel cannot know by trying to know”

The following poem affectedly me profoundly, since it ties in so well with Plato’s theory of wisdom54. In it Rumi highlights the fact that we cannot reach the Beloved merely through “trying”, or the accumulation of knowledge, but rather by other ways, other means…

This piece of food cannot be eaten,  
nor this bit of wisdom found by looking.  
There is a secret core in everyone;  
not even Gabriel can know by trying to know.

Action and spiritual pursuit

I think this question of “action” in relation to spiritual pursuit deserves much consideration. For there are both dependent and independent forms of action, each of which have a different character, and very different implications.

For example, the Indian philosopher Krishnamurti seems to associate the desire for change with hatred. That is, if we love something, why would we want to change it? The desire for change implies a desire for Life to become other than it presently is. This represents a longing to be apart from the “now”, and a wish to live in an unrealized future. This distances man from reality, since the only real thing we can ever connect with is the Here and Now.

When I talk about this with others, almost always the argument is brought up, “Well, does that mean we should do nothing then?”

It is an interesting dilemma, for even Muhammad asserts, “No defect canst thou see in the creation of the God of Mercy: Repeat the gaze: Seest thou a single flaw?”

The fact is, change – as it relates to the world of phenomenal experience – is unavoidable. We couldn’t stop change from happening if we tried. Thus, it is only “independent change” – change for the sake of change; the instigation of change without cause – that Krishnamurti seems to denounce. This type of change happens when we look at the world, and see it as faulty and in need of correction.

Dependent change, however, constitutes the very flow of life from moment to moment. Day changes into night, and night into day. Seasons change, the hours change. Believers change, and everyone else too. This category of change precedes from a cause, the generation of which was not in itself a desire for change.

The key example is love. Where there is love, there cannot BUT be change, for the lover burns so ardently to do something, anything! to show his love. Change per se goes unnoticed by the lover, yet change flows constantly from his very being. In fact, the power of love is a magnet for change, affecting all those he comes into contact with. This is a dependent change, since it arises as the by-product of a present reality, and not as an end in itself.

Perhaps spiritual action is similar: to act without intent to change, such that it results in radical change. I find a connection here to the Chinese concept of “wuwei” (non-doing), in which a person accomplishes things without the intention of doing them. It connotes an effortless flow, a combining of “within” and “without” that dissolves the barrier between self and non-self. There is only the All, the great flow; only things which obey this flow have lasting effect. This mirrors the idea of Tao, and the common use of water as a metaphor to explain it.55

Hence “action” is like a fruit of the lovers longing. But action itself is not the focus or motive. Change is nowhere desired, yet everywhere achieved. It is the middle road between stillness and moving, a mode of being very tricky to discover – and the quest of many a Japanese ko’an.56

I find this beautifully summarized in the following Zen poem Cheng-tao Ke, which appears in Alan Watt’s book, The Way of Zen:

Like the empty sky it has no boundaries,  
Yet it is right in this place, ever profound and clear.  
When you seek to know it, you cannot see it.  
You cannot take hold of it,  
But you cannot lose it.  
In not being able to get it, you get it.  
When you are silent, it speaks;  
When you speak, it is silent.  
The great gate is wide open to bestow alms,  
And no crowd is blocking the way.

All necessary things are provided by God

I believe if we abandon all procedure, all expectation, all method, and simply focus on purifying our heart from everything but God, He will grant us the assistance we seek. There are many quotations which appear to me related to this Theme:

The true seeker hunteth naught but the object of his quest, and the lover hath no desire save union with his beloved. Nor shall the seeker reach his goal unless he sacrifice all things. That is, whatever he hath seen, and heard, and understood, all must he set at naught, that he may enter the realm of the spirit, which is the City of God.57

In this quote, I throw away all my past learning and experience. It is not necessary for seeking God.

The understanding of His words and the comprehension of the utterances of the Birds of Heaven are in no wise dependent upon human learning. They depend solely upon purity of heart, chastity of soul, and freedom of spirit. This is evidenced by those who, today, though without a single letter of the accepted standards of learning, are occupying the loftiest seats of knowledge; and the garden of their hearts is adorned, through the showers of divine grace, with the roses of wisdom and the tulips of understanding.58

In this quote, he frees me from the need for knowledge or skill, and makes my progress wholly dependent on my purity, chastity and freedom. These are attributes which oppose acquisition! Purity is being free from obstruction, chastity is being free from lust or inordinate desire, and freedom is of course being free from restriction.

Fear God, and God will give you knowledge.59

Here I need only fear God. In Arabic the term is “Khashíyyatu’lláh”, which implies a reverential awe, such as a Knight of the Round Table would have had for King Arthur. The devotion of such a knight which cause him to prefer death before dishonoring or disobeying his Lord. In fact, the mere suggestion of deceit would feel like a physical sickness. This is different from “tarsídan”, which means fear as one might fear spiders or some threat.

Now is the traveler unaware of himself, and of aught besides himself. He seeth neither ignorance nor knowledge, neither doubt nor certitude; he knoweth not the morn of guidance from the night of error. He fleeth both from unbelief and faith, and deadly poison is a balm to him.60

In this quote, questions of station, knowledge and attainment are simply not the seeker’s focus. In fact, whatever draws one’s attention away from God is not worthy of consideration. As He wrote:

They say: Where is Paradise, and where is Hell?' Say:The one is reunion with Me; the other thine own self, O thou who dost associate a partner with God and doubtest.’61

I interpret this to mean that our self, since it can become a focal point of attention, causes us to turn our eyes away from God, which is the essence of Hell. This is an interesting emphasis, since it means that self-perfection and self-development are not the goal of religion. They are means to an end. That end is reunion with God, which is being so completely absorbed in and by the Divine that there is nothing else. In order for this to happen, as was quoted above, there must be purity, fear of God, etc. – in other words, virtue. But this virtue is functional, not qualitative. We gain nothing if the result of such virtue is that we focus even more intently on our own progress.

So, we progress until we reach a point where we abandon all notion of progress, all hope (for ourselves) of attainment. When there is only the Beloved, and then:

O My Brother! A pure heart is as a mirror; cleanse it with the burnish of love and severance from all save God, that the true sun may shine within it and the eternal morning dawn. Then wilt thou clearly see the meaning of “Neither doth My earth nor My heaven contain Me, but the heart of My faithful servant containeth Me.” And thou wilt take up thy life in thine hand, and with infinite longing cast it before the new Beloved One.

Whensoever the light of Manifestation of the King of Oneness settleth upon the throne of the heart and soul, His shining becometh visible in every limb and member. At that time the mystery of the famed tradition gleameth out of the darkness: “A servant is drawn unto Me in prayer until I answer him; and when I have answered him, I become the ear wherewith he heareth…” For thus the Master of the house hath appeared within His home, and all the pillars of the dwelling are ashine with His light. And the action and effect of the light are from the Light-Giver; so it is that all move through Him and arise by His will. And this is that spring whereof the near ones drink, as it is said: “A fount whereof the near unto God shall drink…”62

Further along this theme, He writes:

In this realm, to search after knowledge is irrelevant, for He hath said concerning the guidance of travelers on this plane, “Fear God, and God will instruct thee.” And again: “Knowledge is a light which God casteth into the heart of whomsoever He willeth.”63

In other words:

Muhammad is our first, Muhammad our last, Muhammad our all.64

The secret of life is to become like a moth, circling around the Best-Beloved of all worlds, the Ancient Beauty. In that state, “they swim in the sea of the spirit, and soar in the holy air of light. Then what life have words, on such a plane, that ‘first’ and ‘last’ or other than these be seen or mentioned!”65 From this state all knowledge and all things proceed, as He wrote:

… for everyone who sets foot therein knows all branches of learning even before he becomes aware of their inner secrets. He comprehends all knowledge and wisdom by means of the mysteries of divinity deposited in the creation – for he reads in the leaf the secrets of the tree.66

So why should we worry ourselves over the details of attainment, when attainment itself grants all things? Therefore, the only question, the only worry, the only point of focus worthy of attention, is God Himself as manifested in the Primal Point: the Manifestations of God. There is absolutely nothing else to consider, or concern oneself with, beyond this.