5 RELATIONSHIPS OF UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY
In Non-Being there can be no question of a multiplicity of states, since this domain is essentially that of the undifferentiated and even of the unconditioned; the unconditioned cannot be subject to the determinations of the one and of the multiple, and the undifferentiated cannot exist in a distinctive mode. If we nonetheless still speak of states of non-manifestation, it is not to establish thereby a sort of symmetry with the states of manifestation-which would be unjustified and altogether artificial-but because we are forced to introduce a distinction of some kind, lacking which we could not speak of it at all; however, we must be aware that this distinction does not exist in itself, and that it is we who give it its altogether relative existence, since only thus can we envisage what we have called aspects of Non-Being, even as we admit the inadequacy and impropriety of such an expression. In Non-Being there is no multiplicity, and strictly speaking there is no unity either, for Non-Being is metaphysical Zero, to which we are obliged to attach a name if we are to speak of it, and is logically anterior to unity; that is why Hindu doctrine speaks in this regard only of 'non-duality' (advaita), which agrees moreover with what we said above on the use of negative forms of expression.
It is essential to note in this connection that metaphysical Zero has no more relation to mathematical zero, which is only the sign for what can be called a negation of quantity, than the true Infinite has to do with the merely indefinite, that is, with quantity that
increases or decreases indefinitely; [1] and this absence of relation, if one can so express it, is of exactly the same order in both cases, with the reservation however that metaphysical Zero is only one aspect of the Infinite-at least, we permit ourselves to consider it as such insofar as, in principle, it contains unity and consequently everything else. In fact, primordial unity is nothing other than Zero affirmed; or, in other words, universal Being, which is that unity, is only Non-Being affirmed insofar as such an affirmation is possible. This affirmation is already a first determination, and is the most universal of all definite and therefore conditioned determinations; and this first determination, prior to all manifestation and to all particularization (including the polarization into 'essence' and 'substance', which is the first duality and thus the starting-point of all multiplicity), contains in principle all the other distinctive determinations or affirmations (corresponding to all the possibilities of manifestation), which amounts to saying that unity, as soon as it is affirmed, contains multiplicity in principle, or that it is itself the immediate principle of that multiplicity. [2]
It has frequently been asked to no purpose how multiplicity can proceed from unity, without it having been noticed that the question so put admits of no answer for the simple reason that it is wrongly posed, and in this form does not correspond to any reality;
multiplicity does not in fact proceed from unity, any more than unity does from metaphysical Zero, or than anything at all does from the universal Whole, or than any possibility can be situated outside the Infinite or outside total Possibility. [3] Multiplicity is included in primordial Unity, and it does not cease to be so by the fact of its development in manifested mode; this multiplicity belongs to the possibilities of manifestation, and cannot be conceived otherwise, for it is manifestation that implies distinctive existence; moreover, since it is a matter of possibilities, it is necessary that they should exist in the manner implied by their own nature. Thus the principle of universal manifestation necessarily contains multiplicity, all the while being one and even being unity in itself; and multiplicity, in all its indefinite developments, realized indefinitely in an indefinitude of directions, [4] proceeds in its entirety from primordial unity in which it remains ever contained, and which cannot in any way be affected or modified by the existence of this multiplicity in itself, for it could obviously not cease to be itself by an effect of its own nature, and it is precisely insofar as it is unity that it essentially implies the multiple possibilities in question. Therefore multiplicity exists in unity itself, and if it does not affect unity, this is because it has only an altogether contingent existence in relation to it; we can even say that as long as we do not relate it to unity in the way we have just done, this existence is purely illusory, for it is unity alone that, being its principle, gives to it all the reality of which it is capable; and, in its turn, unity is not an absolute principle, nor is it self-sufficient unto itself, but draws its own reality from metaphysical Zero.
Being, since it is only the first affirmation, the most primordial determination, is not the supreme principle of all things; it is only,
we repeat, the principle of manifestation, and we see by this how very much the metaphysical point of view is restricted by those who claim to reduce it to 'ontology' alone, for to abstract it from NonBeing in this way is even to exclude everything that is in fact most truly and most purely metaphysical. Having said this in passing, we will conclude our exposition of the present point with the following: Being is one in itself, and universal Existence, which is the integral manifestation of its possibilities, is consequently one in its essence and in its inmost nature; but neither the unity of Being nor the 'unicity' of Existence excludes the multiplicity of the modes of manifestation, whence the indefinitude of degrees of Existence in the general and cosmic order, and of the states of the being in the order of particular existences. [5] Therefore, the consideration of the multiple states in no way contradicts the unity of Being, any more than it does the 'unicity' of Existence that is based on that unity, since neither the one nor the other is in any way affected by multiplicity; and from this it follows that in the whole domain of Being, the fact of multiplicity, far from contradicting the affirmation of unity or opposing it in any fashion, finds therein its only valid foundation, logically as well as metaphysically.