Bhṛgu realizes the anna-maya (Taittiriya Upanisad 3.2)
Brahman is a person, and He creates everything. The most direct manifestation of the Lord is food, which maintains all beings. Through the presence of food, all bodies are created and maintained.
Section 2: Bhṛgu realizes the anna-maya
Brahman is a person, and He creates everything. The most direct manifestation of the Lord is food, which maintains all beings. Through the presence of food, all bodies are created and maintained, and the very bodies we use now later become food for other beings, in a continuous cycle. By realizing that, we can see Brahman as the essence of everything.
Text 3.2.1
annam brahmeti vyajānāt, annād dhy eva khalv imāni bhūtāni jāyante
annena jātāni jīvanti, annam prayanty abhisamviśantīti
tad vijñāya, punar eva varuṇam pitaram upasasāra
adhīhi bhagavo brahmeti, tam hovāca
tapasā brahma vijijñāsasva, tapo brahmeti
sa tapo’tapyata, sa tapastaptvā
As a result of his austerities, he realized food as Brahman. All beings arise from food, by food they are maintained, and at the end, they become food for others. After realizing this, Bhṛgu again inquired from his father: "O my Lord, please teach me further about Brahman." Varuna answered: "Search for Brahman in austerity. This austerity is Brahman." Bhṛgu again practiced austerities and further increased his spiritual realization.
Commentary: When it is said that "all beings arise from food", the verse refers to their bodies, since the soul has no beginning. Srila Prabhupada explains that when different passages describe Krsna creating the souls, they just explain the relationship, making clear that Krsna is the Supreme Lord. There is no such historical event when the jivas came into existence.
This is also made clear by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura in his jaiva dharma (15th chapter):
"Vrajanatha: You said earlier that the cit world is eternal, and so are the jivas. If this is true, how can an eternal entity possibly be created, manifested, or produced? If it is created at some point in time, it must have been non-existent before that, so how can we accept that it is eternal?
Babaji: The time and space that you experience in this material world are completely different from time and space in the spiritual world. Material time is divided into three aspects: past, present, and future. However, in the spiritual world, there is only one undivided, eternally present time. Every event of the spiritual world is eternally present.
Whatever we say or describe in the material world is under the jurisdiction of material time and space, so when we say "The jivas were created", "The spiritual world was manifested", or "There is no influence of maya in creating the form of the jivas", material time is bound to influence our language and our statements. This is inevitable in our conditioned state, so we cannot remove the influence of material time from our descriptions of the atomic jiva and spiritual objects. The conception of past, present, and future always enters them in some way or another. Still, those who can discriminate properly can understand the application of the eternal present when they comprehend the purport of the descriptions of the spiritual world."