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ABD AL-KARIM AL-JILI: Tawid, Transcendence and Immanence – Dr Nicholas Lo Polito [University of Birmingham] - The Cave and the Inscription

SECTION 3

(21) The dot said to the Ba’, “O letter, indeed I am your origin because out of me you have been composed. But then it is you who in your composition are my origin.

Because every portion of you is a dot. So you are the whole and I am the portion, and the whole is the origin while the portion is the derivative. However, I am truly the origin, because composing you is in my nature and essence. Do not look at my projection outside you and say, this protruding is not [part of] me. Indeed I only see you as having my own identity. And if not for my presence in you there would not be for me such a relation with you. Until when will you turn away from me in your exteriority and place me behind your shoulders? Make of your interior your exterior, and of your exterior your interior. Do you not realise my unity with you? If not for you I would not be the dot of the Ba’, and if not for me you would not be the dotted Ba’.

“How many times do I have to give you examples so that you understand my unity with you and you know that your extension into the visible realm and my concealment in the transcendental world are two principles of our single essence? There is no partner in me for you, no partner for you in me. What are you if not yourself? Because your name had its origin in my name,
(22) don’t you see that of the different parts [that make up your whole] the first part is called a dot, the second part is called a dot, and the third part is called a dot? Likewise all your parts are dot by dot. Therefore I am you. What within you is your individuality but my own identity? This is your individuality by which you are who you are. If you said to yourself I, portraying my being, even I if I said He I would portray my own image. Then you would therefore know that I and He are two modes of expression of the same essence.”

(23) And the Ba’ replied, “My master, it has been established that you are my origin. You know that the derivative and the origin are two [different] things. This body of mine is stretched and composite. I do not exist outside of [this body]. Instead you are a small atom found in everything. While I am a heavy body, confined to a single space.

Where does it come from for me, therefore, this status of master, and from where [this idea] that I am you? How can your state be my state?”

(24) And the dot answered by saying, “The tangibility of your physicality and the abstractness of my spiritual [nature] constitute [respectively] one of my forms and one of my attributes. Because all of the different letters and the words in their entirety are only representations of me.

“Where does plurality therefore come from? Since we have not established [for example] that [the number] ten is the name [used to indicate] the sum of two given fives.

Where then does the difference between five and ten come from? If not by name, from the concept of the decimal.

“If you, in all your expressions, are one of my depictions and one of my reflections, where does the duality between me and you come from? And why this debate between me and you? I am origin of all that is purposed in you and of all that is purposed in me. This in its totality is my essence, defined by divine will.

“If you wish to comprehend me, imagine yourself and all the letters, and the words small and big, and then say Dot. That, in its totality, is the essence of my self, and my self is the essence of all that. But your self is the totality of that essence. The totality of my essence and yours. However there is no you and no they. I am the whole. Yet there is no I and no you and no they and no one and no two and no three. There is nothing else but the one dot. In it there is no comprehension and no understanding for those like you. [Only] if you were to change from your clothes into my clothes you would know all that I know, and witness all that I witness, and hear all that I hear, and see all that I see.”

(25) And the Ba’ replied by saying, “What you have just said is intensely shining!

It is given to me to fulfil it at the dawning of this new day. You have said that remoteness and proximity, quantity and quality, [they all derive] from the command of your being.

[With] all that I have attended to of the discourse on [this] ordering, and all the other necessary things, I am at peace, and I depart with my face turned to the domain of my manifestation and the fulfilling of my necessarily harmonious relationship with you.

“Whenever I roam the realm of my significance I find you as my [true] self. And if I seek in myself what pertains to you as regards the untying and joining together of the letters, and as regards the manifestations of your perfection in each letter, I cannot find anything; the glass of my endeavour breaks, and I return crestfallen.”

(26) And the dot said, “Yes, [crestfallen] you will return because you sought by yourself, and, according to you, your self is not my self. Therefore, you will not find in it what is mine. If you searched in it for the I who is the you in myself - that is, your self, you would have entered the house from its door, and at that time you would not have looked for what pertains to the dot, except in the dot [itself]. But you did not look for the dot except in the wrong place.” Find then the meaning of this if you are with us!