Its meaning: whoever recognizes this Messenger in reality, and recognizes his outward and inward as we have explained, has lived the eternal life with which no death shall reach him, as it reaches the ignorant who are the dead.
And the Thing is a believer of religion, a pious one, a saint of attainment.
He has alluded1 to the fact that the Thing is Lord Salman, which the Lord Mim — exalted be his glory — bestowed upon him. The "Thing" existing today in the Abode is the believer who is realized in the recognition of God, who is kind to his brothers in his religion and his world.
And the Non-thing is a disbeliever of religion, a foul, misguided, ignorant one.
The Non-thing is the Second, the misguided and ignorant, and whoever is of his ilk, his followers, and his partisans. He is more foul than a dog or a pig due to his disbelief in God, his distance from God, his opposition to Him, and his rejection of His recognition, as the Almighty said: {Indeed, Satan is an enemy to you; so take him as an enemy. He only invites his party to be among the companions of the Blaze}2. They are the "rabble and scum."
(479) As our Master Amir Almuminin — exalted be his glory — said to Kumayl ibn Ziyad — peace be upon him: "The people are of three types: a lordly scholar, a student upon the path of salvation, and rabble and scum who follow every croaking misguided one, who have not been illumined by the light of knowledge nor joined a religion."
The Lordly Scholar: they are the High World. The Student upon the path of salvation: they are the believers who seek salvation through what they have learned of the recognition, and through it is their deliverance.