# Existence & Non-Existence > Existence and non existence are both real primary polarities occurring simultaneously, yet by definition only existence allows perception of itself while non existence cannot be imagined or experienced. - Canonical: https://sassani.app/topic/existence-and-non-existence # Existence & Non-Existence Bashar treats existence as the absolute floor of any inquiry. Creation always was, is now, and always will be; existence is not subject to time, because the very concepts of "before" and "after" arise only within creation. The question "why does existence exist?" turns out to assume a polarity you can only ever perceive one side of — and the answer, Bashar says, is so simple it gets overlooked. ## Two primary polarities, only one perceivable Existence and non-existence are both real primary polarities — they occur at the same time, and it is not the case that the universe either could have existed or not. But by definition existence is the only thing that can exist; non-existence does not exist. That does not mean non-existence is unreal, only that it "does not allow there to be perceptions of itself." You cannot imagine non-existence, because the only definition you have is your participation in existence. You are simply experiencing the side that allows experience. This is why even nothing is something. "Even nothing is something. You have no ability — no one does — to even conceive of non-existence. If you were able to and then came back into existence, you would never know you had been gone, for you do not have the apparatus to know where you were not." Any concept you find in your reality — no matter how it feels experientially like a void or nothingness — is still something, still part of existence, simply because you can define it and experience it. ## Transformation happens only within existence What exists carries the idea of existence as what it is; there is transformation within existence, but all transformation takes place within existence. "What is, is by definition; what is not, is not." A described "void" may be a homogeneous potential-energy state with no form — something — but it is not non-existence, because if you can describe it, it is not truly non-existence. The Hindu idea of the inbreathing and outbreathing of God, for example, is valid within its own frame, but it is not truly non-existence, because it can be described. Imagination, by the same logic, never leaves existence: "Anything you can imagine must somewhere be a reality, or you would not be able to conceive of it, because you cannot imagine non-existence. Everything is a transformation of All That Is into other states of All That Is." ## Nothing is outside All That Is The same floor applies to scope. "There's nothing outside of All That Is." A being can expand beyond any limited representation of God — any particular division within All That Is — but can never expand beyond All That Is itself, because All That Is is all divisions. There is no actual unmanifested part of All That Is; there is only the experience of the appearance of lack of manifestation, which is itself another manifestation within All That Is. What you call manifestation is the realization that something already exists, already here, matched by becoming the frequency of it — not the arrival of something from outside existence. ## Existence needs no purpose Bashar locates purpose itself inside existence, not outside it. "All That Is existed before the creation of the idea of purpose; purpose is one of the creations of All That Is. That which existed before purpose was created does not need a purpose to continue to exist. It simply is what it is." A "beginning" is an arbitrary convenience you may create for a particular physical reality, but even within a linear dimension it remains infinite, and anywhere on that line is the same as anywhere else. So the point of existence is not an external goal: existence is "one of the ways you can experience All That Is," and All That Is "simply does so because that is its nature, to be what it can imagine itself to be, thus experiencing another aspect of itself." Your specific purposes, goals, and joys within a life are real and can serve you, but they are your desires within existence, not a purpose of existence. ## Practical implications The teaching reframes two ordinary experiences. First, the felt sense of a void, blank, or nothingness — in meditation, in grief, in altered states — is, by this framing, never non-existence; it is something you can label and therefore something still inside existence. The instruction is that you need not treat such a state as an exit or an annihilation; it is a frequency of existence you can match and learn from. Second, the question "why does anything exist?" loses its sting: existence preceded purpose, so it needs no purpose to be. You may create purposes within your life, but you are not required to solve existence in order to live. A third implication concerns scope and scale. Because nothing is outside All That Is, you can outgrow any limited picture of the divine or of yourself, but you never leave existence by doing so — you only exchange one manifestation within it for another. The teaching is metaphysical framing, not a medical, psychological, or scientific claim; in particular it is not a denial of physical death, nor a clinical instruction about void-like experiences, which retain their ordinary care considerations. ## Representative passages Creation always was, is now, and always will be. Time — the concept of before and after — belongs within creation and is subject to existence; existence is not subject to time. What is, simply always is... But by definition existence is the only thing that can exist; non-existence does not exist. That does not mean it is not real — it simply means that by definition it does not exist, and is therefore not part of what you perceive.— Bashar, Why The Universe Exists (why-the-universe-exists#qa-1) Even nothing is something. You have no ability — no one does — to even conceive of non-existence. If you were able to and then came back into existence, you would never know you had been gone, for you do not have the apparatus to know where you were not. Any concept you find in your reality, no matter how it feels experientially to be like a void or nothingness, is still something and still a part of existence simply because you can define it and experience it.— Bashar, Why The Universe Exists (why-the-universe-exists#qa-2) All That Is existed before the creation of the idea of purpose; purpose is one of the creations of All That Is. That which existed before purpose was created does not need a purpose to continue to exist. It simply is what it is.— Bashar, Why The Universe Exists (why-the-universe-exists#qa-5) There's nothing outside of All That Is... you can certainly expand beyond that particular representation. But you can never expand beyond All That Is.— Bashar, Nothing Is Outside Of All That Is All That Is Is All That Is (nothing-is-outside-of-all-that-is-all-that-is-is-all-that-is#qa-3) ## Related - [The Four Laws of Creation](https://sassani.app/topic/four-laws) - [Parallel Realities](https://sassani.app/topic/parallel-realities) - [Oversoul](https://sassani.app/topic/oversoul) - [Presence](https://sassani.app/topic/presence) - [All That Is](https://sassani.app/topic/all-that-is) - [Existence](https://sassani.app/topic/existence) Markdown twin of https://sassani.app/topic/existence-and-non-existence. The HTML page is the source of truth.