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The unlimited One
Q: What do these sentences mean, "There was one; there was not one"?
A: Since pre-eternal times, there was One. He was One though He was countless and boundless. He was One but that One was not of a mathematical category or of a material quality; it had an eternal and limitless nature. [For instance,] if you say one sun, you cannot use the same one to say One God and One truth.
Therefore, He was One but He was not one; for all creatures and countless beings are that very One. He was One and He was not one; that is the very unity within multiplicity.
Q: Is this the principal meaning of these sentences?
A: There is no principal or secondary [meaning] in One. Yet, there are profound meanings in these sentences.
Q: Could you mention some of them?
A: He says, "There was One and there was not one." There was means existence and there was not means nonexistence. That is to say this One was simultaneously the existence and nonexistence.
When you say, "A tree exists. God exists, too;" it could be a sort of idolatry for you are attributing the same existence to both a tree and God. Thereby you cannot consider Gods existence to be similar to that of [His] creatures. If you use the word exist for creatures, you have to address Him with another word. That is why the storyteller uses "there was not" and says, "He is; but since He is not from the same nature as the rest, He therefore is not."
Q: What do you mean by "There was One and the others were One?"
A: The One and was and the others - molds, faces, forms and different beings - were One. Everything is, in reality, that very One - "There is no deity but Allah."
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