The Twenty-Nine Pages -Extracs

[Lathief]

The One and the Many
>From The Twenty-Nine Pages - An Introduction to Ibn 'Arabi's
Metaphysics of Unity

According to Ibn 'Arabi there is only one Reality in existence. This
Reality we view from two different angles, now calling it Haqq (the
Real) when we regard it as the Essence of all phenomena, and now Khalq
(the Immanence), when we regard it as the manifested phenomena of that
Essence. Haqq and Khalq, Reality and Appearance, the One and the Many,
are only names for two subjective aspects of One Reality: it is a real
unity but an empirical diversity. This Reality is God. "If you regard
Him through Him", Ibn 'Arabi says, "then He regards Himself through
Himself, which is the state of unity; but if you regard Him through
yourself then the unity vanishes"

The One is everywhere as an Essence, and nowhere as the Universal
Essence which is above and beyond all 'where' and 'how'. "Unity has no
other meaning than two (or more) things being actually identical, but
conceptually distinguishable the one from the other; so in one sense
the one is the other; in another it is not." "Multiplicity is due to
different points of view, not to an actual division in the One Essence
('Ayn)."

The whole of Ibn 'Arabi's metaphysics rests on this distinction and
there is not a single point in his system where it is not introduced in
one form or other.

Owing to our finite minds and our inability to grasp the Whole as a
Whole, we regard it as a plurality of beings, ascribing to each one
characteristics which distinguish it from the rest. Only a person
possessed of the vision of a mystic, Ibn 'Arabi would say, can
transcend, in a supra-mental state of intuition, all the multiplicity
of forms and 'see' the reality that underlies them. What seem to
multiply the One are the ahkam (predications) which we predicate of
external objects - the fact that we bring them under categories of
colour, size, shape, and temporal and spatial relations, etc. In itself
the One is simple and indivisible.

To express it in theological language, as Ibn 'Arabi sometimes does,
the 0ne is al-Haqq (the Real or God), the Many are al-Khalq (created
beings, phenomenal world); the One is the Lord, the Many are the
servants; the One is a unity (jam'), the many are a diversity (farq)
and so on.

Now we are in a position to understand the apparent paradoxes in which
Ibn 'Arabi often revels, such as "the creator is the created"; "I am He
and He is I"; "I am He and not He"; Haqq is Khalq and Khalq is Haqq";
"Haqq is not Khalq and Khalq is not Haqq"; and so on and so on.
Explained on this relative notion of the two aspects of Reality, these
paradoxes are no paradoxes at all. There is a complete reciprocity
between the One and the Many as understood by Ibn 'Arabi, and complete
mutual dependence. Like two logical correlatives, neither has any
meaning without the other.
Link:http://www.besharapublications.org.uk/pages/twentyninepages.html