Long ago, the rishis sat together on the bank of a slow river and
asked one another the biggest question of all: where do all the
worlds come from, and where do they go?
The eldest among them, white-bearded and calm, told them what the
ancient seers had seen. "Picture," he said, "a vast and quiet
ocean before dawn. There are no waves on it, no shapes, nothing you
can name. Everything that will ever be is there, but folded up,
hidden, sleeping. The seers called this the Unmanifest — the great
not-yet-shown."
The young students leaned in.
"Then the day of the creator dawns. And as the light comes, the
quiet ocean stirs. Out of it pour the worlds — suns and moons,
rivers and mountains, the first birds, the first beasts, the first
people. Everything that was folded away unfolds. Everything hidden
becomes visible. The seers called this the Manifest — the
great shown. For a thousand ages the worlds dance in the light of
that long, long day."
"And then, teacher?" a student asked.
"And then the day ends, and the creator's night comes on. As the
great dusk falls, the worlds grow tired and still. One by one,
gently, they fold themselves away again. The mountains soften, the
rivers slow, the suns dim, and all of it — every shape, every name —
melts back down into that same quiet ocean it came from. Not
destroyed. Not lost. Only drawn home, to rest, the way a wave that
rose so high sinks back into the sea that made it."
He drew a slow breath in, and let it slowly out.
"Breathe out — the worlds come forth at daybreak. Breathe in — the
worlds dissolve at nightfall. Out and in. Forth and home. The whole
universe breathes like this, age upon age. And the hidden ocean from
which it all comes and to which it all returns is always the same."
The students sat watching the river, and one of them noticed his own
breath rising and falling in his chest — out and in, out and in — a
tiny echo of the breathing of all the worlds. He smiled, for he felt,
just for a moment, how small he was, and how he belonged to something
very, very large.
