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| One Followed by an Eternity of Zeroes |
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| lightningatnite |
| 03/15/02 at 00:52:35 |
| An Excerpt from a work by Dr. Ali Shariati One was Other than One was not Other than God There was nothing There was nobody Earths existed Heavens existed The stars, the suns The easts, the wests The beginningless space of the universe Endless In one corner A sun in between In its setting, a star, the stars, moths circuling Totally: one universe In another corner Another universe And in another corner Still another And another Two, ten, a thousand A million, a billion Nobody knows how many Billion, billion, billion... Write one number one on a piece of paper Put as many zeros as possible after the one When your paper is finished Take another piece of paper When your paper is finished Buy more When your inkpot is dry, get another inkpot If your ink is all used up, buy more ink When your hand is all tired out Ask your friend to keep adding zeroes When his hand gets tired, you begin again When you stop to eat, let him add zeros And when you're writting zeros, let him stop to eat When night falls, sleep in turns You add zeros when he's asleep And when he's awake, you sleep And he continues to add zeros When you've both grown old Ask you're children to continue your task In the very last days of your life When you have become very, very old Stop a moment At the beginning you were only two children You only knew how to add zeros Now, you have turned into two old paralytics You can only count the zeros Once again, you're a child ... Now be seated You old child How many universes One followed by a million zeros? One hundred million zeros? One billion? One hundred billion...? You cannot count One followed by one hundred meters of zeros? One kilometer?? One hundred thousand kilometers? What actually exists? Multiply it in the same way What is the result? Again multiply it by itself Multiply it again and again If the paper is filled Take another sheet of paper If your paper ends Buy more If your ink runs out If your hands tire Sleep...food...friend...continue...children... Just what is the number of stars Planets? All things in the universe? One Then following one Zeros... Thousands of zeros A million? A billion? Things visible and things invisible Ups and downs Beauty and ugliness Good and evil One Followed by An Eternity of Zeros Other than one whatever exists Wheter ten, one hundred, one thousand One million, one billion Whatever other innumberable numbers They are not numbers They are nothing They exist and yet they do not exist They do not exist but they do They are zero That is, they are hollow They are nothing They are absurd They are meaningless They are not really numbers either They are not Because only 'one' is really a number And it is a unit But look what happens when a zero follows the one... When zeros are placed after the one...???!!! They turn the one into millions and billions But Only one is a number And the rest are zeros What is left is only zeros All zeros All nothing Yes Only one is a number It is the only unit number The number of stars, universes Earths and heavens The number of all the things in the universe One Followed by An Eternity of Zeroes One is Other than One is not Other than God There is nothing There is nobody |
| 03/15/02 at 00:54:52 |
| lightningatnite |
| Re: One Followed by an Eternity of Zeroes |
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| Ghurabah |
| 03/16/02 at 10:49:20 |
| [slm] Wow, subhanAllah..deep stuff... |
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