“At the beginning of all things, there was neither being nor non-being, and what existed was an impenetrable darkness” – R.V. X 129.

“From the unmanifested (asat) the world of names and forms (sat) is said to arise.” – Taittiriya Up ll.7.1 (S. Radhakrishnan trans.)

(The manifested universe – the world of names and forms – is called sat, and its unmanifested condition asat. The possible or potential is prior to the actual… Asat, non-existent, does not mean absolute non-being. It is a state in which name and form were not manifested: avyakrta-nama-rupam – S. Radh.)

In the Chandogya Up there is this: “in the beginning this was non-being. That was being; it came into existence… “ – CU, lll.19, The Upanishads, trans. & ed. Valerie J. Roebuck (2003). (In Radhakrisnanan trans.: “In the beginning this (world) was non-existent. It became existent. It grew… “)

As Valerie J. Roebuck notes, this is in apparent disagreement with the following:

“In the beginning, good lad, this was being*, one alone without a second. Some say, ‘In the beginning this was not-being, one alone without a second. From that not-being, being was produced’. But, good lad, how could that be?, he said. How could being be produced from non-being? In the beginning, good lad, surely this was being, one alone without a second.

‘It thought, ‘Let me become many; let me be born’” (CU Vl. 2. 1-2)

*Under Note 36, V. J. Roebuck writes: “That was being: Or perhaps, ‘it became being, though the verb used is asit, not abhavat’.

Note. Any thoughts on the above, or is it clearly only an apparent contradiction? Secondly, what does ‘becoming’ mean in an ambience of non-duality, e.g. the unmanifest ‘becoming’ manifested?

“With being arising in consciousness, the ideas of what you are arise in your mind, as well as what you should be. This brings forth desire and action and the process of becoming begins. Becoming has, apparently, no beginning and no end, for it restarts every moment. With the cessation of imagination and desire, becoming ceases and the being this or that merges into pure being, which is not describable, only experienceable.
“The world appears to you so overwhelmingly real because you think of it all the time; cease thinking of it and it will dissolve into thin mist. You need not forget; when desire and fear end, bondage also ends. It is the emotional involvement, the pattern of likes and dislikes which we call character and temperament that create the bondage.”

– Nisargadatta Maharaj, I am That

“There is no becoming, no destruction, no one in bondage, no one having desire to be released, no one making effort (to attain liberation) and no one who has attained liberation. Know that this is the absolute truth”

– Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, quoting Mandukya Karika