The Seven Valleys
Bahá'u'lláh's mystical work describes seven valleys of spiritual development from search through true poverty and absolute nothingness.
The Seven Valleys, Bahá'u'lláh's mystical masterpiece, describes the spiritual journey as traversal of seven valleys: search, love, knowledge, unity, contentment, wonderment, and true poverty or absolute nothingness (fana). Each valley represents a stage of spiritual development, building on the previous while transcending its limitations.
The true seeker hunteth naught but the object of his quest, and the lover hath no desire save union with his beloved.
The Seven Valleys builds explicitly on Attar's Conference of the Birds and the Sufi mystical tradition while adapting it to Bahá'í theology.
The Seven Valleys
Written about in
- What the Bahá'í Faith says about doubt
Search is the first of the seven valleys, not a hurdle before the real path. Wonderment sits late in the sequence, after knowledge and unity, which places bewilderment as an advanced condition rather than a beginner's failure.