Thursday, October 6, 2011

" ...he will set ajar the gate of truth and piety, and shut the doors of vain imaginings."


"And if, confirmed by the Creator, the lover escapes from the claws of the eagle of love, he will enter The Valley of Knowledge and come out of doubt into certitude, and turn from the darkness of illusion to the guiding light of the fear of God. His inner eyes will open and he will privily converse with his Beloved; he will set ajar the gate of truth and piety, and shut the doors of vain imaginings. He in this station is content with the decree of God, and seeth war as peace, and findeth in death the secrets of everlasting life. With inward and outward eyes he witnesseth the mysteries of resurrection in the realms of creation and the souls of men, and with a pure heart apprehendeth the divine wisdom in the endless Manifestations of God. In the ocean he findeth a drop, in a drop he beholdeth the secrets of the sea.

Split the atom’s heart, and lo!
 Within it thou wilt find a sun." 1

-Bahá'u'lláh, The Seven Valleys And the Four Valleys, pp. 11, 12 

 1. Persian mystic poem.


Walker Evans
Library of Congress

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