Why Sometimes Our Dreams and Wishes are Not Answered چرا آمال بعضی مجری نميشود

Recently I have suggested the book Attached to a couple of friends who asked me for a good book about relationships. For those of you who follow the psychological trends, the Attachment Theory in recent years has been getting a good deal of attention due to the work of Susan Johnson and others and their research.

Attachment theory gives a good deal of attention to the early years of parent-child relations. Later in life, this early attachment influences the patterns of our attachments to our significant others. Baha’u’llah confirms the significance of the love and nurturing role of the parents in particular the mother in the well-being of the offspring. He also refers to the way we neglect our own spiritual self later in life and claim partnership with God. We apparently do not do a good job as our own god!

O SON OF BOUNTY! Out of the wastes of nothingness, with the clay of My command, I made thee appear, and have ordained for thy training every atom in existence and the essence of all created things. Thus, ere thou didst issue from thy mother’s womb, I destined for thee two founts of gleaming milk, eyes to watch over thee, and hearts to love thee. Out of My loving-kindness, ’neath the shade of My mercy, I nurtured thee and guarded thee by the essence of My grace and favor. And My purpose in all this was that thou mightest attain My everlasting dominion and become worthy of My invisible bestowals. And yet heedless thou didst remain, and when fully grown, thou didst neglect all My bounties and occupied thyself with thine idle imaginings, in such wise that thou didst become wholly forgetful, and, turning away from the portals of the Friend didst abide within the courts of My enemy.

Later in life, we have a second chance to redefine our sense of attachment and detachment in a different sphere of reality toward a much longer and more eternal journey. As adults we seem to struggle with a most challenging attachment confusion; that is attached to our own thoughts and wishes; perceiving the fulfillment of each wish as a sign of success and lacking it as a reason to declare bad luck and be sad and anxious. In another word, we see a tit for tat relationship with the accidents and incidents of life and the minute life does not go our way, we pout, sulk and declare bad luck and feel abandoned.

A young student once asked her teacher; is it true that not everything we wish for is good for us? The wise teacher asked her;  have you ever wished for something that ultimately was proven very bad for you? The young woman saw the story of her marriage turning bitter within a few short years much to her dismay. A tear drop rolled down her cheeks. What are we to do then about our hopes and wishes, she asked her loving teacher. The question is not about pursuing or not pursuing, answered the teacher. We are not to know our own ending. If we could only know the end at the beginning, we would have not started many beginnings. The key to this riddle is in the Seven Valleys of Baha’u’llah and the story of the legendary Arab lover Majnoon looking for his beloved Laili everywhere and under all conditions.

There was once a lover who had sighed for long years in separation from his beloved and wasted in the fire of remoteness. From the rule of love, his heart was empty of patience, and his body weary of his spirit; he reckoned life without her as a mockery, and time consumed him away. How many a day he found no rest in longing for her; how many a night the pain of her kept him from sleep; his body was worn to a sigh, his heart’s wound had turned him to a cry of sorrow. He had given a thousand lives for one taste of the cup of her presence, but it availed him not. The doctors knew no cure for him, and companions avoided his company; yea, physicians have no medicine for one sick of love, unless the favor of the beloved one delivers him.

At last, the tree of his longing yielded the fruit of despair, and the fire of his hope fell to ashes. Then one night he could live no more, and he went out of his house and made for the marketplace. Of a sudden, a watchman followed after him. He broke into a run, with the watchman following; then other watchmen came together and barred every passage to the weary one. And the wretched one cried from his heart, and ran here and there, and moaned to himself: “Surely this watchman is Izrá’íl, my angel of death, following so fast upon me; or he is a tyrant of men, seeking to harm me.” His feet carried him on, the one bleeding with the arrow of love, and his heart lamented. Then he came to a garden wall, and with untold pain, he scaled it, for it proved very high; and forgetting his life, he threw himself down to the garden. And there he beheld his beloved with a lamp in her hand, searching for a ring she had lost. When the heart-surrendered lover looked on his ravishing love, he drew a great breath and raised up his hands in prayer, crying: “O God! Give Thou glory to the watchman, and riches and long life. For the watchman was Gabriel, guiding this poor one; or he was Isráfíl, bringing life to this wretched one!”

Indeed, his words were true, for he had found many a secret justice in this seeming tyranny of the watchman, and seen how many a mercy lay hidden behind the veil. Out of wrath, the guard had led him who was athirst in love’s desert to the sea of his loved one and lit up the dark night of absence with the light of reunion. He had driven one who was afar, into the garden of nearness and had guided an ailing soul to the heart’s physician.

Now if the lover could have looked ahead, he would have blessed the watchman at the start, and prayed on his behalf, and he would have seen that tyranny as justice; but since the end was veiled to him, he moaned and made his plaint in the beginning. Yet those who journey in the garden land of knowledge, because they see the end, in the beginning, see peace in war and friendliness in anger. Such is the state of the wayfarers in this Valley, but the people of the Valleys above this see the end and the beginning as one; nay, they see neither beginning nor end, and witness neither “first” nor “last.” Nay rather, the denizens of the undying city, who dwell in the green garden land, see not even “neither first nor last”; they fly from all that is first, and repulse all that is last. For these have passed over the worlds of names, and fled beyond the worlds of attributes as swift as lightning. Thus is it said: “Absolute Unity excludes all attributes.”  And they have made their dwelling-place in the shadow of the Essence. Seven Valleys of Baha’u’llah p.14-16

In the above conversation written in Persian, Abdu’l-Baha is asked why sometimes our wishes do not come true. In response, Abdu’l-Baha points to two very important ingredients of human desire and happiness. One is the degree we put effort and try our best in the process of reaching our goals. In another word, we feel pleased and fulfilled when we try hard and put our self-discipline into the task. But Abdu’l-Baha has a second wing for the bird of happiness and that is whether our hopes and wishes are inclusive of the requirements of the age we live in or our wishes are limited to our own self-interest. In other words, our happiness is tied to the happiness and well-being of others. We are all governed by the principle of the organic oneness of all humanity believe it or not!!  Go figure!