ine, 'That art thou,' a man has arrived at the knowledge that the
Self is non-transmigrating, its transmigrating nature vanishes for him.

It remains to dispose of the assertion that passages such as 'Non-being
this was in the beginning' contain conflicting statements about the
nature of the cause. This is done in the next Sutra.

15. On account of the connexion (with passages treating of Brahman, the
passages speaking of the Non-being do not intimate absolute
Non-existence).

The passage 'Non-being indeed was this in the beginning' (Taitt. Up. II,
7) does not declare that the cause of the world is the absolutely
Non-existent which is devoid of all Selfhood. For in the preceding
sections of the Upanishad Brahman is distinctly denied to be the
Non-existing, and is defined to be that which is ('He who knows the
Brahman as non-existing becomes himself non-existing. He who knows the
Brahman as existing him we know himself as existing'); it is further, by
means of the series of sheaths, viz. the sheath of food, &c.,
represented as the inner Self of everything. This same Brahman is again
referred to in the clause, 'He wished, may I be many;' is declared to
have originated the entire creation; and is finally referred to in the
clause, 'Therefore the wise call it the true.' Thereupon the text goes
on to say, with reference to what has all along been the topic of
discussion, 'On this there is also this /s/loka, Non-being indeed was
this in the beginning,' &c.--If here the term 'Non-being' denoted the
absolutely Non-existent, the whole context would be broken; for while
ostensibly referring to one matter the passage would in reality treat of
a second altogether different matter. We have therefore to conclude
that, while the term 'Being' ordinarily denotes that which is
differentiated by names and forms, the term 'Non-being' denotes the same
substance previous to its differentiation, i.e. that Brahman is, in a
secondary sense of the word, called Non-being, previously to the
origination of the world. The same interpretation has to be applied to
the passage 'Non-being this was in the beginning' (Ch. Up. III, 19, 1);
for that passage also is connected with another passage which runs, 'It
became being;' whence it is evident that the 'Non-being' of the former
passage cannot mean absolute Non-existence. And in the passage, 'Others
say, Non-being this was in the beginning' (Ch. Up. VI, 2, 1), the
reference to the opinion of 'others' do