Classic Poem

Once God, that Great Being,
Whose nature is Existence, Knowledge and Bliss, slept.
He was like a man in deep sleep
Who is, but does not know that he is.
He had no knowledge of His knowledge nor experience of His bliss.
he was like a still, shoreless Ocean which no wind or wave
Moved upon. There was nothing but Him.
There were no stars nor sun nor earth nor anything.
All things were within Him; but since He slept,
They also were asleep, unformed and unmanifest.

All knowledge of Himself and of all things were in Him,
But He did not know that He knew.
Then there surged within Him the desire (Whim) to know
Who He was; and He spoke within Himself the First Speech,
'WHO AM I?' And with the utterance of this First Speech
All things in their potentiality came forth from Him.
But all things are Nothing; and so the universe of stars and suns
Is nothing. Nothing is included in His Everything
But is nothing in itself. But at this time, since He did not know
His knowledge, He did not know that Nothing was nothing at all.

Each thing He brought forth out of Nothing and caused to exist
In seemingness he, great Only Being, thought He was!
He created stone; thought He was stone; lived as stone
Millions of years, and then said, 'Something other am I.'
He created vegetation; though He was vegetation; lived as vegetation
Millions of years, and then said, 'Something other am I.'
He created in turn worms and reptiles, fishes, birds and animals,
And in turn thought He was, and lived as each, of these.
Then He created Man, and said, 'This is sufficient for all My requirements.
I know Myself who I am, because this is in My own Image, Myself.'