The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys
The Seven Valleys : the Valley of True Poverty and Absolute Nothingness
of “His grace on such of His servants as He pleaseth.”74
They who soar in the heaven of singleness and reach to the sea of the Absolute, reckon this city—which is the station of life in God—as the furthermost state of mystic knowers, and the farthest homeland of the lovers. But to this evanescent One of the mystic ocean, this station is the first gate of the heart’s citadel, that is, man’s first entrance to the city of the heart; and the heart is endowed with four stages, which would be recounted should a kindred soul be found.
When the pen set to picturing this station,
It broke in pieces and the page was torn.75
Salám!76
O My friend! Many a hound pursueth this gazelle of the desert of oneness; many a talon claweth at this thrush of the eternal garden. Pitiless ravens do lie in wait for this bird of the heavens of God, and the huntsman of envy stalketh this deer of the meadow of love.
O Shaykh! Make of thine effort a glass, perchance it may shelter this flame from the
41