Ntafu Entekepe, however, reflecting on the conceptions of Ikentua Refe on the Unmanifest wondered about the implications of the fact that many schools of thought posit a state that is at the ground of being. The Akan maxim affirms Abode santann yi firi tete;obi nte ase ahyease,na obi ntena ase nkosi ne awie,GYE NYAME “This great panorama of creation dates back to time immemorial; no one lives who saw its beginning and no one will live to see its end, EXCEPT NYAME”[1].
Buddhists even speak of a state beyond being and nonbeing as underlying being. But the question remains-all these ideas revolve around the notion of a state or possibility that is anterior to all others.
But, what is anterior to that state? Since the style of approaching this question is in terms of conceiving a situation prior to existence as it is known, we could go farther and ask, “What came before the source of existence?” what came before he source of being?
Cosmology could state that before the universe as it is known, there was nothing as it is now known. But even the ability to postulate the existence of nothing implies that that nothingness could be seen as a state that a statement can be made about.
In a sense, therefore, since it can be the subject of an affirmation of possibility-the possibility of nothing, therefore, it can be said to be something, a postulate, a postulation about the existence of nothing, at the very least. Hermetic Kabbalah speaks of the Unmanifest, out of which existence emerges. But even the notion of the Unmanifest represents a possibility, a possibility anterior to all others and out of which the others emerge.
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