About the Seven Valleys and copyright , Next Valley
This is the first part of Baha'u'llahs 'The Seven Valleys', an an epic poem charting the progress of the soul towards enlightenment and God. It is considered to be a sacred text by the Baha'i. The text of the poem as translated by Shogi Effendi starts below.
The Seven Valleys of Baha'u'llah
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 {the Manifestation}: 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 Ahmad in the kingdom of
the exalted ones, and Muhammad amongst the
concourse of the near ones, and Mahmud in
the realm of the sincere ones. "...by whichsoever
(name) ye will, invoke Him: He hath
most excellent names" 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 Ghawthiyyih. 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';(Qur'an 2:282) 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',(Qur'an 16:71) and gather the fruits of
communion in the gardens of `Then feed on
every kind of fruit.'",(Qur'an 16:71)
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.
Wherefore, may it rejoice Me, and thee, and
whosoever mounteth into the heaven of knowledge,
and whose heart is refreshed by this,
that the wind of certitude hath blown over the
garden of his being, from the Sheba of the
All-Merciful.
Peace be upon him who followeth the Right
Path!
And further: The stages that mark the wayfarer's
journey from the abode of dust to the
heavenly homeland are said to be seven. Some
have called these Seven Valleys, and others,
Seven Cities. And they say that until the wayfarer
taketh leave of self, and traverseth these
stages, he shall never reach to the ocean of
nearness and union, nor drink of the peerless
wine. The first is The Valley of Search