The Lotus in the Void
In the beginning of this cosmic age, Vishnu lay resting on the cosmic ocean, coiled in the arms of the great serpent Shesha. From his navel grew a lotus stalk, and from that lotus emerged Brahma — the Creator, blinking in the first light of a new universe.
Brahma looked around. There was nothing. No earth, no sky, no other beings. Just the lotus, and beneath it the vast cosmic ocean.
He climbed down the lotus stalk to find its root. He searched for years, descending through the waters, and could not find the bottom.
The Voice
A voice came from somewhere: "Meditate."
Brahma meditated for a thousand divine years. In his meditation, he saw — within himself, within the lotus, within the cosmic ocean — the dreaming form of Vishnu, and in that dream the entire creation: all the worlds, all the beings, all the eras of time.
The Dream that is Creation
This is one of the most profound metaphysical passages in the Bhagavata Purana: the suggestion that the entire universe is Vishnu's dream. Brahma does not create independently — he receives creation as a vision from the dreaming Lord, and then enacts what he has seen.
The Bhagavata describes Vishnu explaining this to Brahma when they finally meet: "All of this — the mountains, the seas, the sky, the beings — arises from me and returns to me. I am the dream and the dreamer and the waking."