sensory stations in this world are their states that produce the breaking of customary patterns for them. Some distinguish themselves in these, like the Substitutes and their like; others acquire them without anything of them appearing outwardly, namely the People of Blame and the greatest knowers. They number more than a hundred and ten-odd stations, and each station contains many stations. These are their sensory stations in the two abodes.
As for their spiritual stations in the forms of knowledge, they are two hundred and forty-eight thousand stations,[1] realized in full. No one from the communities before this community attained them; they are among this community’s special distinctions. They have different tastings, each tasting having a particular description known to whoever has tasted it.
(The Principal Stations of Knowledge)
This number is comprised within four stations: the station of knowledge from the divine Presence, knowledge of light, knowledge of union and separation, and knowledge of divine writing. Between these stations are further stations of their kind, reaching a hundred and several stations, all of them stations of the friends of God. From each station branch many stations of a known number, whose enumeration would make the book lengthy. When the principal ones are mentioned, their possessor’s tasting is known.
As for knowledge from the divine Presence, its objects are divine matters and the special mercy that leads to acquiring them. As for knowledge of light, its authority appeared in the Highest Assembly thousands of years before Adam’s existence, reckoned by the days of
Notes
[1]
(The number here concerns the stations of knowledge; at the end of the answer the author distinguishes it from the number of persons occupying those stations.)
