[Advaita-l] Which one is first in the creation sequence

[Bhaskar YR]

My confusion was that which one stands first in the creation. 

praNAms Sri Ramesh Badisa prabhuji
Hare Krishna

The order of the creation is not consistent in the shruti itself so 
srushti related verses in the smruti-s and maNtra-s in shruti should 
always be taken for understanding the paramArtha tattva of brahman which 
is ekamevAdviteeya. For example, in prashna it is said he created life, 
fromlife faith, ether, air, light, water, earth, senses, mind and food. 
>From food vigour, tapas, mantra-s, religious works, the worlds and in the 
worlds, name..etc.  and if we see Itareya it says categorically AtmA vA 
idameka evAgra Asit there was nothing else sentient or non-sentient.  He 
thought let me create the worlds, so he created these worlds, ambhas, 
mareechi-s mara and apah etc. And in mundaka as we know spider example 
given for the creation from this we would get the impression that all of a 
sudden this whole jagat created like hairs growing out of a living person, 
and elsewhere it is said brahman become fat by doing tapasya and burst 
into creation  :-)), taitereeya, chAdOgya etc. too gives slightly 
different account of creation without giving much care to the sequence / 
order of the creation. 
In short, narration about creation is not there in shruti and smruti to 
understand the 'order / sequence' of creation but it is there to convey 
something else.  kArika has some clarification about creation.  So, IMHO, 
it is difficult to ascertain any systematic order of creation contextually 
we have to understand these srushti shruti-s / smruti-s without doing any 
harm to the social system in general, advaita siddhAnta in particular.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar