… 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 Eternal Beloved; they have strayed afar from the jewelled
wisdom of the lucid Faith of the Lord of Messengers, have been shut out of the
sanctuary of the All-Beauteous One, and banished from the Ka’bih[1] of
splendor. Such is the worth of the people of this age! (Baha’u’llah, ‘The Seven
Valleys’)
[1] The holy Sanctuary at Mecca. Here the word means “goal.”
