The meaning of waḥdat al-wujūd (the Unity of Being/Existence)

 

بِإسم سيّدة الوجود

And as for the first post of 2024: waḥdat al-wujūd (the Unity of Being/Existence) does not mean that "everything" or "everyone" is God. It means that the presence (ḥaḍara) of God is in everything/everyone. Also, here the category of wujūd (Being/Existence) in the imperative cannot be reduced to the existent (mawjūd) other than to say that the existent (mawjūd) is merely a circumscribed and momentary instant (ān) or silhouette (shubḥa) reflecting wujūd (Being/Existence). Furthermore, nor can the Essence of God (dhāt allāh) be reduced to wujūd (Being/Existence) other than to assert Absolute Existence (wujūd mutlaq) of It. In some schools, like the Shaykhī school, wujūd (Being/Existence) properly occurs at the level of the Universal Intellect (al-Ꜥaql al-kullīyah) and not at the level of the Godhead who is termed the Lord of Being/Existence (rabb al-wujūd) and Being-beyond-being (al-wujūd mā warā'l-wujūd).

 

Therefore, when all is said and done, waḥdat al-wujūd (the Unity of Being/Existence) is primarily a term - and not even a doctrine - describing the nature of Tawḥīd (the Unicity of God) in Its relationship to creation, implicitly asserting thereby as a feature of it that there is no vacuum in the whole of existence absent of the presence of God. This is an obvious element to this idea that almost all of its exoteric detractors have repeatedly failed to understand about it when condemning it. As such the Western terms "pantheism," "panentheism" or even "monism" themselves do not adequately capture the simple complexity of what waḥdat al-wujūd (the Unity of Being/Existence) is attempting to convey, never mind that Ibn ꜤArabī himself (may the All-High elevate his station) never even technically used the term.

 

Be that as it may, one personal, experiential takeaway from 2023 for me was the absolute Reality (ḥaqīqa) and even the thoroughly animate nature of the Unity of Being/Existence (waḥdat al-wujūd) with the NUR Tarot acting for me as the Enumeration/Manifestation (bayān) of the divine signs (āyāt) to that end in the outer horizon (ufuq) and within my soul (nafs).

 

The Light (nūr) be upon us and upon us be the Light!

 

النُّور علينا وعلينا النُّور