Iraqi: What’s all this noise about?

This brief excerpt from the “Divine Flashes” of Fakhruddin Iraqi speaks of the totality of Unity, a totality which leaves no place at all for the seeker of unity.  For more about Iraqi, see this earlier post.

…The One threads through all things, as does the number one through all numerals. If “one” did not exist, the numerals would not exist, could not be named. Or if “one” were to appear in its own name, the realities of the other numbers could never appear.

If You are Everything
then who are all these people?
And if I am nothing
what’s all this noise about?
You are Totality,
everything is You. Agreed.
Then that which is “other-than-You”—
what is it?
Oh, indeed I know:
Nothing exists but You;
but tell me:
Whence this confusion?

Reader, you may grasp His Oneness through your own oneness. Listen: you are one, and can come to know that One only through this one.  Simple: One comes to know “Oneself.”  You and it are not involved in the slightest.

Fakhruddin Iraqi “Divine Flashes”
Tr. William C. Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson

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