The Reality of Wonderment

At every moment, you turn and see something new. You are a child, newly born and curious of your surroundings. Your eyes open wide at the glory surrounding you. Large figures staring at you and smiling in joy, strange skins placed on your body, magnificent creatures flying in the air. The temperature is no longer constant. You realize you have the power of emotion and to control your surroundings. You have free-will.

Through birth, the physical realities become evident. Through death, the spiritual realities become evident. Yet, much like a child stirring in the womb, we can get a glimpse of the spiritual while in this world. After happening through the previous five Valleys, we enter the Valley of Wonderment. Through the first three, we rid ourselves of our physical reality. The forth we let go of the ego and saw equality in diversity within all of creation. In the fifth we are detached from all materialism and all feelings in general which abase us. In such a manner we enter the sixth Valley where true reality is unveiled.

We believe in this world we are free. It is true that we have the ability of transcending beyond physics and breaking laws of nature to suit our needs. Yet, we are still bound in the chains of mortality. Due to our limitations we are unable to the creation of the soul-a position designated only to our Creator. And thus the wonderment begins.

Let us peruse a passage from Summons of the Lord of Hosts. It writes, "Rejoicest thou in that thou rulest a span of earth, when the whole world, in the estimation of the people of Bahá, is worth as much as the black in the eye of a dead ant?" This physical reality is nothingness and the kingdoms of men are mortal, while the Kingdom of God is immortal.

Seeing the world again after coming to these realizations, the wayfarer is thrown into his state of wonderment at what God hath wrought. Recall, the essence of God may be found within all of creation. It is as if one were reborn as a child, viewing the world in new light. The truth within this reality is found within the land of dreams.

Before trespassing this land, let us read through what 'Abdu'l-Bahá writes on the Immortality of the Spirit in Some Answered Questions.

The other manifestation of the powers and actions of the spirit is without instruments and organs. For example, in the state of sleep without eyes it sees; without an ear it hears; without a tongue it speaks; without feet it runs. Briefly, these actions are beyond the means of instruments and organs. How often it happens that it sees a dream in the world of sleep, and its signification becomes apparent two years afterward in corresponding events. In the same way, how many times it happens that a question which one cannot solve in the world of wakefulness is solved in the world of dreams. In wakefulness the eye sees only for a short distance, but in dreams he who is in the East sees the West. Awake he sees the present; in sleep he sees the future. In wakefulness, by means of rapid transit, at the most he can travel only twenty farsakhs an hour; in sleep, in the twinkling of an eye, he traverses the East and West. For the spirit travels in two different ways: without means, which is spiritual traveling; and with means, which is material traveling: as birds which fly, and those which are carried.

In the time of sleep this body is as though dead; it does not see nor hear; it does not feel; it has no consciousness, no perception—that is to say, the powers of man have become inactive, but the spirit lives and subsists. Nay, its penetration is increased, its flight is higher, and its intelligence is greater. To consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed if the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage. Our body is like the cage, and the spirit is like the bird. We see that without the cage this bird flies in the world of sleep; therefore, if the cage becomes broken, the bird will continue and exist. Its feelings will be even more powerful, its perceptions greater, and its happiness increased. In truth, from hell it reaches a paradise of delights because for the thankful birds there is no paradise greater than freedom from the cage. That is why with utmost joy and happiness the martyrs hasten to the plain of sacrifice.

In wakefulness the eye of man sees at the utmost as far as one hour of distance because through the instrumentality of the body the power of the spirit is thus determined; but with the inner sight and the mental eye it sees America, and it can perceive that which is there, and discover the conditions of things and organize affairs. If, then, the spirit were the same as the body, it would be necessary that the power of the inner sight should also be in the same proportion. Therefore, it is evident that this spirit is different from the body, and that the bird is different from the cage, and that the power and penetration of the spirit is stronger without the intermediary of the body. Now, if the instrument is abandoned, the possessor of the instrument continues to act. For example, if the pen is abandoned or broken, the writer remains living and present; if a house is ruined, the owner is alive and existing. This is one of the logical evidences for the immortality of the soul.

The world of dreams is like a derivative of death; one is able to transgress the physical plane, yet not quite enter the land of the spirit. Yet, we still have no use for our physical body. At what point do we find the firmament between the dream and true reality? Because is it not true that we find ourselves dreaming and in the future it becomes a physicality?

At this point, a separation of minds begins. All minds have capacities of comprehension-yet as the Valley of Unity covered, capacity varies from person to person. Yet, we all have the ability to comprehend the reality of God, though some try to deny such a reality. Bahá'u'lláh quotes a Persian mystical poem writing:

How can feeble reason encompass the Qur’án,
Or the spider snare a phoenix in his web?

Our minds are not capable of understanding the truth behind any of the Writings, even the current one at hand. The capacity is not given. And like a child, we witness it-bulging eyed. However, unlike the child, we never find the meaning behind the events at hand. There is a universe, infinite in it's vastness that we must voyage and discover. But that is still part of the limited physical world. There is an infinite amount of infinities of such universes, more grand in their scale in the next reality.

What is humanity? It is beyond the animal scale. There are various spirits as described by 'Abdu'l-Bahá in Some Answered Questions. There is the vegetable (growth), animal (senses), human (rational soul/spirit-meaning rationality and the capacity of divinity-in essence, the mind). Then, what Bahá'u'lláh is telling us to do is rid ourselves of the physical senses and begin utilizing our spiritual capacities and understand the limitless world.

We have been given the possibility of attaining eternal glory. However by solely putting our energy in the physical realm, such a glory can never become a reality. We are wasting the unique capacity we have been given as humans by our Creator. We must completely detach ourselves of the world and everything therein. By choosing the world of dust, we abstain ourselves of the grandeur of what is to come. This is what awaits us.

All our forms of perception have been tossed aside (at this point) for a new one using our free-will. We have nothing, yet we still have our free-will. Even having detached ourselves of everything, we still have our free-will. What is to become of it? Through the Valley of True Poverty and Absolute Nothingness, the answer is found.