TheFifth Valley
Cognition alone is not the ultimate approach to problem-solving in our world. It will be completed with experience and achievement.
When we are looking at the sea, we see water or waves. Or when we are looking at the sky, we are seeing a cloudy or a sunny sky. Or when the sun hides behind mountains so that creatures could rest we can see the sky full of stars. But what if our perception goes beyond these, then what would we see? This is true about human beings. When we are looking at a human being we can see a body which moves and talks and is fat or skinny, is white, black, yellow, or red. But if only we could go beyond this exterior then we would see the unimaginable greatness. Let me ask a simple question, how many worlds do you think a human being is living in while he is living on planet earth? You would say one world undoubtedly. But if we pay attention then we would realize that in this very earthly living, some other worlds exist simultaneously.
First: the vale, which is sensible for us all and we are living in this world consciously.
Second: the sleeping world in which apparently we are living in it unconsciously.
Third: the intellectual world.
Some other types of living do exist but are unbelievable, for instance, seven bodies which belong to seven skies. For now, let us focus on the intellectual world. The intellectual world is the basis and the living practice and planning in order to live on vale or other worlds happens in it. By thinking that was debated before we do construct the structures of our planning. For instance, when we decide to eat a sandwich, initially the “how to?” plan must be constructed in our mind. Sometimes along with the planning, we realize that we are out of money, or perhaps there is no fast food around us, if so the structure that we were constructing will decline and other options will begin to emerge in our mind. Anyway in order to eat a sandwich or any other type of food considering two points is mandatory:
1. Thinking and constructing the proper algorithm in our mind.
2. Implementation of that very algorithm. It would be more enjoyable with a beverage of course!
Therefore, we won’t get any good results in this valley if we are incapable of transforming our intellectual algorithms into acts. In other words, if we are to enjoy eating a sandwich, the image in our mind must be carried out. As they say: wishes won’t wash dishes! Thus at this valley, our main practice is to carry-out rational thoughts. If we are to transform our rational thoughts into acts we must get rid of anxiousness, fear, low self-esteem, despair, and other negative measures in order to step into bliss. For stepping into the blissful state, refinement must be started from ourselves and we must consider three principles always which are true thoughts, true words, and true deeds. True though will result in true words and true words will steer us toward true deeds or peace. Knowing is worthless if we are incapable of acting upon that knowledge. There are many people who know a lot about many things, they have memorized many quotes and poems, they are familiar with many schools of thought and schools of theosophy, and they believe they are judicious! Yet they are unable to use their knowledge! Their story is similar to that man who had thousands of gold coins and yet he was starving! … Never mind! As we know there is only one way to clear dirty water which is filtration, therefore transforming an unbalanced human into a balanced one requires purification; In other words, moving away from disvalues to the righteous path. There are steps which need to be taken in order to quit anxiety, worry, despair, illness and etc. let’s discuss these steps briefly.
1. Turning away from vices:
When a human’s psyche or spirit is polluted with vices, it becomes restless. Therefore, we must turn away from vices. What are the vices? Firstly, if anyone thinks honestly he would know what acts are counted as values and what acts are not! Secondly, disvalues may differ in different cultures for instance: drinking alcoholic beverages. Therefore, the culture and laws of any society play a role in knowing values from disvalues. Now let’s mention some of disvalues which are accepted universally: lying, stealing, bribing, treason, doing drugs, backbite, false testifying, abuse and etc.
2. Abstain:
If we are unsure about something in other words if we are not certain what we are about to do is a value or a disvalue, in this case, common sense says we must abstain from doing that act.
3. Contentment:
Nature is our mother. We must learn from it. We must learn how to create the best from the simplest facilities. For instance: nature creates the most beautiful flowers, and the most delicious fruits out of fertilizer, dust, and water. We must learn how to create the best situation for living out of the simplest things and simultaneously we must plan for strengthening our financial status. Let me mention that we don’t intend to be poor to the end of our lives, no, never! Someone who has something can become generous otherwise someone who is poor must take help from others. There is a huge difference between contentment and parsimony!
4. Patience:
Once more if we look at nature, we will learn that nature needs time to provide us with its productions, it needs different seasons, water, dust, and proper temperature. Therefore, it can be said that patience is: to cover time or tolerate time while endeavoring after our determined goals. Sometimes being patient is so hard. But in the end, patience is one of the necessities of living that we must learn. Success comes after patience every cloud has a silver lining.
5. Investigate, sentence, backbite:
Police officers and detectives who investigate cases in order to find criminals are being paid to do so and judges who sentence criminals are doing their jobs as well. They are respected for doing their legal jobs. Now this question arises, why do some people investigate others’ lives without being paid and they are nosy while they believe they are doing the right deed and that they are trying to help and they call themselves curious and gracious not nosy. After they collected some incorrect information about others then they sit on the judge’s seat and commence the sentence and then they will carry out the pardon quickly! After that, they lean to the rotten wall of backbite and start talking about others, one day this rotten wall will fall on them while they are preaching. They will search for the guilty while they don’t know and they don’t believe that the prime guilt is their own ignorance!
6. Saving:
Take care of the penny and the pounds will take care of themselves. The life route is an unpredictable and flexuous one, we can smooth this road with savings. Savings fall into two categories spiritual and financial. We are talking about financial savings here. Some would say I don’t have two pennies to rub together! Wisdom says if we don’t have bread to eat and after a week one bread is gained we shouldn’t eat the whole bread and we must have some leftover for the next day. Primarily, it seems that saving is for those who are not rich and rich people have no need for savings, but if we think enough we will understand that saving is a necessity for everyone. We wouldn’t realize the power and the miracle of saving unless we start doing it and we must teach it to our children.
7. Reliance, gratification, submission:
It is best for us to try hard in our lives and yet we rely on the supreme power and his guidance and grace. We must be satisfied with our fate truly. If we could pass these two levels which are reliance and satisfaction, we could enter the submission phase. In the gratification station, we are satisfied with whatever comes our way whereas in the submission phase we have no wishes except the wishes of the supreme force, therefore we neither agree nor disagree with anything Let us mention that to be in the submission phase is highly difficult but when someone is ready it would become easy, in other words, this phase is hard for some people and simultaneously easy for some other. We try to learn as much as we can from these stations and transform our structures from ideas to actions, from theory to practice.
Adopted from the book " Love, 14 Valleys to Know Thyself"
Translated by: Ehsan Ranjbar
Written by: Hossein Dezhakam