Imagination cannot fathom that which has no beginning and no end. Because imagination is limited, it cannot grasp the Unlimited and the Beyond state is beyond imagination.
This means that we can never be able to understand God through the intellect. Whatever I am saying is also described in the Gita, Upanishads , Vedanta, the Bible and Sufi literature. It is all written, but it has no meaning because God is beyond intellect. [The mind's] understanding cannot grasp Him. So what is the use of your trying to understand Him by reading? Thus God is beyond understanding.
We also cannot say that God is One. The idea of oneness limits Him, and He is infinite. So we can only say that God IS. We can only say that in the Beyond state, where there is no beginning or end, nothing exists but God. By saying that, we mean that except God there is nothing. Thus, "nothing" exists! Now we will see how this Nothing is this whole universe!
There is nothing except God. So this "nothing" is in God in a latent form. If there is only God, then He is everything. So in this infinite everything, there is this latent nothing — but nothing IS.
The first imagination in Vedanta is called the lahar [whim]; by the Sufis it is called guman [fancy]. This first imagination was the first urge in the beginningless beginning to know Itself. As soon as this urge appeared, the beginning of the beginning started — not of God, but of the whim which created this Nothing which was latent in God. It was the whim: "Who Am I?" That very moment, with the beginning of the whim, Nothing was produced, and instead of knowing Himself, God began knowing this Nothing.
For example, imagine that when a whim comes you are sound asleep, and Elcha, creating a disturbance, wakes you up. Now the meaning of Elcha's disturbance is the whim to know oneself. So when you are disturbed, you gradually awake from your sound sleep. When you are awake, what do you see? You see your own shadow before you. Thus, when God was awakened, He saw His own Shadow before Him. After completion of the seven stages [of evolution], His eyes were fully opened and He saw His full Shadow.
The meaning of this full Shadow is the Nothing , which was latent in Paramatma and which manifested itself with the beginning of the whim.