Know that He is never in anything? possible? self-contradincting?

**Amorphos** · May 26, 2007, 09:15 AM

heres an interesting quote i found concerning what god apparently is or more specifically isnt, it appears to contradict itself, but perhaps i am not seeing it correctly. i find the idea of an infinitely extraneous entity quite interesting although dualistic.

is it possible to have something unpercievable and unknowable, even beyond all existence infinity the void and everything?
the quote:
Know that He is never in anything, nor is anything in Him. He
is neither inside nor outside of anything. None can see Him,
whether with the eyes of the head or with the inner eye; nor
can any conceive Him with senses, knowledge, mind,
intelligence or imagination. Only He can see Himself; only He
can conceive Himself. None can know Him; only He can know
Himself. He sees Himself by Himself; He conceives Himself by
Himself; He knows Himself by Himself. None other than He
can see Him. None other than He can know Him. That which
hides Him is His oneness. None but Himself can hide Him. The
veil that hides Him is His own being.

He is not within you; nor are you in Him. He does not exclude
you, nor are you excluded from Him. When you are addressed
as you, do not think that you exist, with an essence and
qualities and attributes; for you never existed, nor do exist, nor
ever will exist. You have not entered into Him, nor He into
you. Without being, your essence is with Him and in Him.
Without having any identity, you are Him and He is you. If you
know yourself as nothing, then you truly know your Lord.
Otherwise, you truly know Him not.

You cannot know your Lord by making yourself nothing.
Many a wise man claims that in order to know one’s Lord one
must denude oneself of the signs of one’s existence, efface
one’s identity, finally rid oneself of one’s self. This is a mistake.
How could a thing that does not exist try to get rid of its
existence?

If you think that to know Allah depends on you ridding
yourself of yourself, then you are guilty of attributing partners
to Him, the only unforgivable sin; because you are claiming
that there is another existence besides Him, the all-existent;
that there is a you and a He.

You presume others to be other than Allah. There is nothing
other than He, but you do not know this. While you are
looking at Him you do not recognize Him. When the secret
opens to you, you will know that you are none other than He.
Then you will also know that you are the one whom He
wished, and that you are forever and will not disappear with
time, for there is no passing of time. Your attributes are His.
Without doubt, your appearance is His appearance.

Therefore, do not think anymore that you need to become
nothing, that you need to annihilate yourself in Him. If you
thought so, then you would be His veil, while a veil over Allah
is other than He. How could you be a veil that hides Him?
What hides Him is His being the One Alone.

The condition for self-knowledge is to know that if you had a
being of your own, independent of other being, then you would
neither have need to annihilate yourself in Allah nor to know
yourself. You would have been, as yourself, a God, self-
existent; while it is Allah Most High that is free from the
existence of any other God but Himself.

And when you come to know yourself, you will be sure that
you neither exist nor do not exist, whether now, or before, or
in the future. This is the meaning of _la ilaha illa Llah_, There
is no God but Allah, there is no being but His, nor any other
except Him, and He is the only One.

Know that this existence is neither you nor other than you.
You do not exist; yet you are also not a nonexistence. Your
existence is not someone else; nor does your nonexistence
make you someone else. Without being and without not-being,
your existence and your nonexistence is Allah’s being.

The void is a mirror; creation is the image in it. Man is as the
eye of the image reflected in the mirror; the One who is
reflected in the image is hidden in the pupil of that eye. Thus
He sees Himself.

Is one to consider a decaying corpse or excrement as God?
Allah most high is beyond and free from such associations. We
address those who do not see a corpse as a corpse or
excrement as excrement.

Then when you see what is around you as not other-than-you,
and all and everything as the existence of the One; when you
do not see anything else with Him or in Him; but see Him in
everything as yourself and at the same time as the nonexistence
of yourself; then what you see is the Truth.

That is why the utterance became permissible for Mansur Al-
Hallaj when the words, “I am the Truth!” came from his lips;
and for Abu Yazid Al-Bistami when he cried, “Praise be to Me,
the essence, absolved of all defect!” These are not people who
have annihilated themselves in Allah; nor have they come to be
in Allah. They are eternal. They never ceased to be, for they
never were, since there is only Allah’s self, Allah’s essence.

So if someone says, “I am the Truth!,” do not hear it from any
other than from the Truth Himself; for it is not a man who says
it, it is the word of Allah. That man who utters these words is
nothing but an image reflected in an empty mirror, one of the
infinite attributes of Allah. The reflection is the same as that
which is being reflected, and the words of the image are the
reflected words of the Real One.

--Kitab al-Ahadiyyah (The One Alone) by Ibn Arabi, translated by Tosun Bayrak Jerrahi

**Siblesz** · May 26, 2007, 09:28 AM

My views on God, reflecting of this topic, are summed up in this thread:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=100730

The above author is right... he is right in that God is a force that is self-contradicting. He is one, and He is all. He is intransient. No one can see Him, because He is everything at once. But here is where I differ: He is not conscious. He is not an individual. He is 'It. 'It' is called God.

The author has the right idea, an idea very often expressed by our elders, by many of our prophets, but an idea that supposes God as an individual. And with that set of mind, I present you a logical incongruency. God cannot be an individual and be everything at the same time. He has to be everything in existence at once, denying his form of individuality, and denying his consciousness. He is but nature. He is but the universe. He has no motions but motion itself. He has no origin but origin itself. He is Himself. He is no one. He is all of us. He is everything. He is nothing. He is 'It'. And We are 'It'.

And to quote "I am the Walrus",

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.

**Amorphos** · May 26, 2007, 09:45 AM

sibs

God cannot be an individual and be everything at the same time.

good point - and an interesting notion! if you were disembodied would you still be an individual? in other words, let us imagine that you astrally projected outside of your body and hence had no physical limitations, would you not be the same entity in essence? perhaps it is a limit of logic and our understanding of the distinct and the universal rather than something that is an actual incongruency?

we are the living dead!

its an interesting idea that there may be ‘something’ that is beyond everything even infinity, but that thing whatever it may be would surely have no contact with anything other than itself - it cannot be a one way system, wouldn’t you think!

**Siblesz** · May 26, 2007, 09:52 AM

We cannot know. We can only analyze from what we experience and know as truth. Maybe the allusion of the human body can make us understand. We are individuals, or whatever that means, but we're also made by billions of little particles that are also alive, all built up to make our individuality happen. What if God is the same? What is we are particles inside of Hs body, also allowing Him to be an individual, in His own right? And He is also part of something greater? Who knows... it's too bloody difficult to tell reality from fiction in this point... even when the entire conversation is built on illusion. We're analyzing the impossible.

But an easier way out is to see the universe as limited, not infinite. Finite, but huge. A finite and unconscious driving force of extremes. An interminable spiral that exists because it exists. And what is out of the spiral? Nothing but itself. Which would be the same as infinity. Maybe infinity is an illusion... a reflection of itself. Like when you place two mirrors reflecting each other.

**Axe-Battler** · May 26, 2007, 09:52 AM

We can easily see what god is by that definition, you can also see what the tao is by it's definition which in a way is similiar...

if you just don't do anything, and then just look, and mmmm hard to explain on the internet lmao..

K, your problem with not being able to "see" him/God/tao yet is that you still think he's an external force, even if you say "he's in us" or "he is the universe"...

basically, god is non existant.

Because the name "God" is a bad conception since the very word was invented.

But now we have living itself, don't think, just do.

DO!!!, but do not analyze, there you will "see" "god"...and it becomes clear what they mean by the OP's definition.

**Amorphos** · May 26, 2007, 09:59 AM

ramtha, hi

interesting link to the tao there - makes a good perspective, well for those of us whom understand the tao.

i shall retire to consider this one.