The Manduka Upanishad Part 1 3-9 ~400 B.C.

“A great householder named Shaunaka once came
To Angiras and reverently asked:
“What is that by knowing which all is known?”
He replied: ‘The illumined sages say
Knowledge is twofold, higher and lower.
The study of the Vedas, linguistics,
Rituals, astronomy, and all the arts
Can be called lower knowledge. The higher
Is that which leads to Self-realization.

The eye cannot see it; the mind cannot grasp it.
The deathless Self has neither caste nor race,
Neither eyes nor ears nor hands nor feet.
Sages say this Self is infinite in the great
And in the small, everlasting and changeless,
The source of life.

As the web issues forth out of the spider
And is withdrawn, as plants sprout from the earth,
As hair grows from the body, even so,
The sages say, this universe springs from
The deathless Self, the source of life.
The deathless Self meditated upon
Himself and projected the universe
As evolutionary energy
From this energy developed life, mind,
The elements, and the world of karma,
Which is enchained by cause and effect.

The deathless Self sees all, knows all, From him
Springs Brahma, who embodies the process
Of evolution into name and form
By which the One appears to be many.”

Commentary: What is that which by knowing, all else is known? How could one frame up a more important question? The answer is the Interbeing of all Creation. The Manduka Upanishad, anonymous in origin, is one of the great jewels of Indian philosophic thought. The Upanishads gave birth to both Hindu and Buddhist traditions and seem to come to us from the very dawn of time.