“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?