Only You Absolutely Exist!
All other existences,
Draw their existence from You!
As You are the Only stream,
From where else can they drink?
You are their very wellspring,
Their fountain of existence.
You give it gushing forth,
Without relinquishment;
As nothing can be added,
Nor subtracted from You.
As that's what it truly means,
To be Absolutely Infinite.
All those upon whom,
You confer existence,
Receive without detaching,
From Your own Existence.
They remain One with You,
In Absolute Seamlessness!
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Here's the introduction for the FaceBook posting of the poem, which explains something of its purpose:
ReplyDeleteI have written a poem inspired by a teaching from Maimonides, which if read a certain way could indicate that he was not only a prime theological and philosophical champion of Monotheism, but, likely a Monist as well. To clarify, Monotheism is the belief that there's only One God. Monism is a specialized version of Monotheism which believes that there's Only God; i.e. only God exists and all else is somehow One with Him.
The poem is written in a way which attempts to mirror the imagery and philosophical language used in Islamic culture of the time (of course as it came to me via English and Hebrew source material).
The teaching of the Maimonides which inspired the post is found in "Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah" 2:9; very specifically focused on the words "...all exists by force of the truth of His Existence." I am aware that exactly how to translate this passage can be a subject of discussion. However, I believe my understanding of how it should be translated to be simple, reasonable and matching with the likely intent of its esteemed author.
ReplyDeleteThe advantage of this approach into monism is that it does not employ imagery of space. Typically, one of the most often claims for monism I have heard in the past is that if God is Infinite then how is there "space" for anything else? So it must be that only God exists. This claim has a weakness because "space", being a later creation, should have nothing to do with substantiating monism. In this poem expanded out from (my understanding of) the words of the Maimonides, monism is substantiated on "existence" alone. Which makes sense because (at least philosophically) existence is something which applies to God. Every believer proclaims, "God exists!"
ReplyDeleteFor additional support for the idea behind the poem, please see Tal Orot by Rabbi Yaakov Meir Shpielman, Section I, Chapter 8. It's on the top of the right hand column on P. 47 in the new edition.
ReplyDelete