Indeed, O brother, if we ponder each created thing, we shall
witness a myriad consummate wisdoms and learn a myriad new and wondrous truths.
One of the created phenomena is the dream. Behold how many secrets have been
deposited therein, how many wisdoms treasured up, how many worlds concealed.
Observe how thou art asleep in a dwelling, and its doors are shut; on a sudden
thou findest thyself in a far-off city, which thou enterest without moving thy
feet or wearying thy body. Without taxing thine eyes, thou seest; without
troubling thine ears, thou hearest; without a tongue, thou speakest. And
perchance when ten years have passed, thou wilt witness in this temporal world
the very things thou hast dreamt tonight.
Now there are many wisdoms to ponder in the dream, which
none but the people of this valley can comprehend in their reality. First, what
is this world where without eye or ear or hand or tongue one can put all these
to use? Second, how is it that in the outer world thou seest today the effect
of a dream which thou didst witness in the world of sleep some ten years past?
Consider the difference between these two worlds, and the mysteries they
conceal, that, attended by divine confirmations, thou mayest attain unto
heavenly discoveries and enter the realms of holiness.
God, the Most High, hath placed these signs in men so that
veiled minds might not deny the mysteries of the life beyond, nor belittle that
which hath been promised them. For some hold fast to reason and deny whatever
reason comprehendeth not, and yet feeble minds can never grasp the reality of
the stages that we have related: The universal divine Intellect alone can
comprehend them.
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Seven Valleys’, 2019 revised translation by
the Baha’i World Centre; ‘The Call of the Divine Beloved’)