The One Who Became Many

.

The Lord of Love said, Let Me be born, Let Me be many!

And in the depths of His concentration He entered everything.

He the formless assumed myriad forms.

He the All-Knowing became ignorance.

He the infinite became finite.

He the Real became illusory.

He the Unseen became the universe.

The Lord of Love, un-manifest, became manifest.

drawing Himself out of Himself.

Therefore is He called “the Self-Existent.”

Were He not here, who would breathe?

—The Taittiriya Upanishad, excerpt
Eknath Easwaran version

.