EMANATION

In his discussion of the Upanishads, Swami Prabhavananda notes that rarely does Vedanta use the word "creation."  The better word is "emanation."

Emanation means that all things "flow" from an underlying principle or reality, usually called the Absolute or Godhead.  In Vedanta it is called Brahman.  Emanation is in opposition to "creation ex nihilo," for example. Emanation means that everything has always existed and has not been "created" from nothing.

Furthermore, with emanation all things are derived from God by steps of degradation.  All things are lesser degrees of God, and at every step the emanating beings are less pure, less perfect, less divine. As Webster's Collegiate Dictionary puts it, "emanation is the origin of the world by a series of hierarchically descending radiations from the Godhead through intermediate stages, to matter."

In Vedanta, to sum up, Brahman does not create the universe.  The universe flows or radiates from Brahman, as it always has done.  And then, from greater to lesser degrees, all things contain Brahman.

We are reminded, moreover, that Brahman is not one thing, as our language suggests, but is everything.  There is nothing that is not Brahman.  It is from this everything, therefore, that everything emanates.