Aliveness

Photo by Simon Schmitt

The name Alive [al-Ĥayy]
is an essential name of God—
glory be to God! 
Therefore, nothing can emerge from God
but living things. 
Hence, all of the cosmos is alive, 
for indeed the nonexistence of life, 
or the existence in the cosmos
of an existent thing that is not alive,
has no divine support.¹

— Ibn ‘Arabi

“The source of existence is immanently present, and it is alive.

“Everything we see and feel, including the intimate and ever-changing feelings of our body and the thoughts we think, is inseparable from the source of existence.

“It is not that there is a source over here making existence over there, or that a source in the past made existence happen now. Existence and its source are immediate; they are happening all at once, and that happening is alive...

“Simultaneous with aliveness and its ever-changing nature, is a numinous, ineffable stillness I call presence (it also has many other names). Presence is the silent host of all that appears. It is what allows aliveness to flow forth.”¹

— Elias Amidon

See also: I Am Alive by David Zeller and Even the Rocks Are Dancing.

Waves of the Ocean

[1] Ibn ‘Arabi, Futūĥāt, 3:324 found in: Mohammed Rustom, The Great Chain of Consciousness: Do All Things Possess Awareness?, (Renovatio Spring, 2017), p. 56 • https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/the-great-chain-of-consciousness 02.22.2022 • Rustom says, “Translation taken, with slight modifications, from Chittick, In Search of the Lost Heart: Explorations in Islamic Thought, ed. Atif Khalil and Kazuyo Murata (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012), p. 262 • [God] replaces “Him”