@book{1978seven,
title={The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys},
isbn={9780877431138},
lccn={77023326},
url={https://books.google.co.cr/books?id=-chXAAAAYAAJ},
year={1978},
publisher={Bah{\'a}ʼ{\'\i} Pub. Trust}
}
In openlibrary.
This book was shared by @nikki.
My highlights:
Patience.
We will guide them.
Turn away from imitation. Shut the door of friendliness and enmity. He will behold many a lover, hasting to seek the Beloved, he will witness a world of desiring ones searching after the One Desired.
At every step, aid from the Invisible Realm will attend him and the heat of his search will grow.
Nor shall the seeker reach his goal unless he sacrifice all things.
Whatever he hath seen, and heard, and understood, all must he set at naught, that he may enter the realm of the spirit, the City of God.
He joined every company, and seeketh fellowship with every soul, that haply in some mind he may uncover the secret of the Friend, or in some face he may behold the beauty of the Loved One.
The heaven of ecstasy is upraised.
When the fire of love is ablaze, it burneth to ashes the harvest of reason.
Unaware of himself. He seeth neither ignorance nor knowledge, neither doubt nor certitude.
Pain.
To merit the madness of love, man must abound in sanity; to merit the bonds of the Friend, he must be full of spirit.
Kindle the fire of love and burn away all things. Then set thy foot into the land of the lovers.
Come out of doubt into certitude.
Content with the decree of God, seeth war as peace, findeth in death the secrets of everlasting life.
In the ocean he findeth a drop, in a drop he beholdeth the secrets of the sea.
In ignorance he findeth many a knowledge hidden, and in knowledge a myriad wisdoms manifest.
He breaketh the cage of the body and the passions, and consorteth with the people of the immortal realm.
If he meeteth with injustice he shall have patience, and if he cometh upon wrath he shall manifest love.
Those who journey in the garden land of knowledge, because they see the end in the beginning, sea peace in war and friendliness in anger.
The last plane of limitation.
Pierceth the veils of plurality.
Ascendeth into the heaven of singleness.
He revealeth the secrets of power. Findeth his own praise in praising God.
Certain invalid souls have confined the lands of knowledge within the wall of self and passion, and clouded them with ignorance and blindness, and have been veiled from the light of the mystic sun and the mysteries of the Ethernal Beloved.
The understanding and the words of the wayfarers have differed and hence the sign of conflict doth continually appear on earth.
No man hath ever known Him, no soul hath ever found the pathway to His Being. Sanctified is He above the understanding of the wise, exalted is He above the knowledge of the knowing!
The way is barred and to seek it is impiety. His proof is His signs. His being is His evidence. If I speak forth, many a mind will shatter, and if I write, many a pen will break.
Peace be upon him who concludeth this exalted journey and followed the True One by the lights of guidance.
Burneth away the veils of want from sorrow to bliss, from anguish to joy.
There waf s God and there was naught beside Him.
He beholdeth in illusion the secret of reality, and readeth from the attributes the riddle of the Essence.
At every moment his wonder groweth.
The traveler is flung into confusion. Lost in awe at the works of the Lord of Oneness.
There are many wisdoms to ponder in the dream, which none but the people of this valley can comprehend in their true elements.
The traveler at every moment seeketh for more, and is not wearied.
All these planes and states are folded up and hidden away within him.
The tale is still unfinished and I have no heart for it-- the pray forgive me.
The dying from self and the living in God.
All he hath, from heart to skin, will be set aflame, so that nothing will remain save the Friend.
How hast thou abandoned the drop of life and come to the sea of the Life-Bestower. This is the goal thou didst ask for, if it be God’s will, thou wilt gain it.
Ecstasy alone can encompass this theme, not utterance nor argument.
The traveler must stray not the breadth of a hair from the Law.
Shunning all forbidden things, that he may be nourished from the cup of the Law and informed of the mysteries of Truth.
If any of the utterances of this Servant many not be comprehended, or may lead to perturbation, the same must be inquired of again, that no doubt may linger, and the meaning be clear as the Face of the Beloved One shining from the Glorious Station.
These journeys have no visible ending in the world of time, but the severed wayfarer – if invisible confirmation descend upon him and the Guardian of the Cause assist him-- may cross these seven stages in seven steps, nay rather in seven breaths, nay rather in a single breath, if God will and desire it.