the Names of Enumeration in number, but rank below the Names of Enumeration in felicity, are those that act upon this cosmos. They are the first keys, which none knows but He. Each reality has a particular Name belonging to it among the Names. By “reality” I mean a reality that gathers a genus of realities. That Name is the lord of that reality, and that reality worships it and is subject to its charge: nothing more.
If some one thing gathers many things together for you, the matter is not as you imagine. If you examine that thing, you will find that it has aspects through which it corresponds to the Names that indicate those aspects. These are the realities we have mentioned.
(The Example of the Indivisible Atom and Its Relation to the Most Beautiful Names)
For example, through the knowledge available to intellects and subject to their judgement, you establish that a certain existent is a single thing that does not divide, such as the indivisible atom, the part that cannot be divided. Yet it contains multiple realities, each requiring a divine Name: the reality of its being brought into existence requires the Name the Powerful; the aspect of its precise ordering requires the Name the Knowing; the aspect of its particular specification requires the Name the Willing; and the aspect of its manifestation requires the Names the All-Seeing and the Seeing, and so on.
Although it is a single thing, it has these aspects and others we have not mentioned. Each aspect has multiple further aspects, requiring corresponding Names. These aspects are what we call the secondary realities. To understand them is difficult, and to attain them through unveiling more difficult still.
(The Mother Names among the Most Beautiful Names)
Know that the Names—
Notes
Translator’s note TN387-1: “Names of Enumeration” refers to the Names associated with the promise of felicity for one who enumerates them, discussed earlier in the work. Here the author distinguishes that group from the more numerous Names operating throughout the cosmos.
