Mr. Rod Clarken

Bahá’ís will recognize the title of this talk as the Seventh Valley in Bahá’u’lláh’s books: “The Seven Valleys” and “The Four Valleys”. This is “The Valley of True Poverty and Absolute Nothingness”. Bahá’u’lláh wrote that “This station is the dying from self and the living in God, the being poor in self and rich in the Desired One.” Clarken relates this theme to the fear of God which in the Qur’an and the Bible is an expression of our nothingness. The philosopher Karl Jaspers identified only five great thinkers who practiced and taught detachment from the material world.