It is nothing other than this. This is the very essence of things (aʿyān-i maḥḍa). It, in its aḥadiyya (absolute oneness), is not in need of unity (waḥda) or determination (taʿayyun). It is distinguished from 'thing' (shayʾ) by this, that is, by the unity of its very essence (ʿayn). There is no other essence (ʿayn) besides it, and its unity is the very essence of its Essence (Dhāt).
This unity is the origin of aḥadiyya (absolute oneness) and wāḥidiyya (oneness of multiplicity). For it, from the aspect of unity, is the very essence (ʿayn) of the Essence (Dhāt). By this, I mean its being the mutlaq (the Absolute) that encompasses all things, on the condition that nothing exists alongside it—that is, that nothing accompanies it. Existence that is contingent upon the condition of something else being present with it is aḥadiyya. That condition, like the tree within the seed, is the realities within wāḥidiyya and the aḥadiyya of the Essence. These are also the ghayb al-ghuyūb (the unseen of the unseens).
The second manifestation (tajallī-yi thānī) is the manifestation in which it becomes manifest to itself through the essences (aʿyān) of the fixed possible existents. This is also the first determination (taʿayyun-i awwal) of the Essence (Dhāt) with respect to its own affairs, that is, with the attribute of worldness (ʿālamiyya) and receptivity (qabūliyya). For the essences (aʿyān) are the knowledges pertaining to it (the first knowledges) (Kāshānī). Essentiality (dhātiyya) is the capacity for witnessed manifestation (tajallī). By this manifestation, the Real (al-Ḥaqq) descends from the level of aḥadiyya to the level of wāḥidiyya through the relations pertaining to the Names. (This manifestation of the Real is a descent from the level of aḥadiyya to the level of wāḥidiyya through the relations pertaining to the Names (Jāmī)). (Kāshānī, 155; Jāmī, 79)
Your limited eyes could not perceive Him (Allah) when He was upon an utterly distant goal from you. You were only able to perceive Him at the goal upon which you yourselves stand. You were only able to perceive your own nafs (nafs, the lower self / soul) (i.e., His reflections within your nafs). The initial goal was that He manifested as a cause for you to perceive your own nafs. For before this manifestation, you were not in relation (nisba) to the Real (al-Ḥaqq).