saidevo
19 February 2008, 04:42 AM
pratyag-AtmA
dvam-dvam means 'two-and-two', the paired, the double.
पराञ्चि खानि व्यतृणत् स्वयम्भूः,तस्मात् पराङ् पश्यति न अन्तरात्मन् ।
कश्चिद् धीरः प्रत्याग्-आत्मानं एक्षद् आवृत्त चक्षुर्, अमृतत्वं इच्छन् ॥
parA~jci khAni vyatRuNat svayambhUH, tasmAt parA~g pashyati na antarAtman |
kashcid dhIraH pratyAg-AtmAnaM ekShad AvRutta cakShur, amRutatvaM icChan ||
-- Katha Upanishad, II.i.1
"The Self-born pierced the senses outwards; therefore the soul looketh outwards, not inwards. One resolute one, here and there, turneth his vision inwards, desirous of immortality, determined to achieve it, resolved to conquer Death; and he then beholdeth, and identifieth himself with, Pratyag-Atma, the Deathless Inner Self."
AHAM, I, Self, in the great logion, is Pratyag-Atma.
अ, a, is the first letter of the Samskrt alphabet, and प, ha, the last; therefore the two together, between them, exhaust all the contents of all possible 'experience', which can be possibly expressed by all the letters of the alphabet, i.e., language, and which is all overshadowed by the transiency, perishingness, negation, that is indicated by the म्, m.
Therefore, अ-ह-म् are the appropriate vocal symbol of the I, which is the only 'expcriencer', in whom alone all experience, with its negation, is.
ह, ha, also stands for the AkAsha-tattva, the substrate of sound, and the first material manifestation and sheath or body of conscious life, in this solar system at least, according to the Puranas; and it therefore appropriately takes the place, in the name of the individual ego, which is occupied by ह, u, in that of the Absolute Ego.
अकारः सर्ववर्णाग्रयः प्रकाशः परमेश्वरः;
आध्यम् अन्त्येन संयोगाढ् 'अहम्' इत्येव जायते ।
akAraH sarvavarNAgrayaH prakAshaH parameshvaraH;
Adhyam antyena saMyogADh 'aham' ityeva jAyate |
--Nandik-eshvara-kaarikaa, 4
Pratyag-Atma is the inward, abstract, universal Self or Spirit, eternal Subject, wherein all jIvas, individual, particular, discrete spirits, selves, or subjects, inhere as whirlpools in the ocean, as whirl-winds in the air, as vortices in ether, as points in space.
Bhrama, bhrAnti, is one of the names for the 'illusion', the 'appearance without reality', of the World-Process; a sort of anagram of 'Brahman', and means 'turning round and round', as the opposite of the Moveless.
This circling bhrama of the World-Process is visible even to the physical eye, and requires no difficult thinking. The earth, the moon, the planets, suns, stars, all revolve; the seasons, the biological functions, psychological, political, economical, social, historical phenomena--all observe cyclical periodicity, which takes on the form of spirals, for reasons explained later on in the text.
The Self 'makes-believe'; It believes 'as if' It is 'this, that, and the other not-Self'; and then, discarding the mask, It comes back into It-Self.
It pervades them all, as the genus pervades all individuals. It is all those individuals. The 'appearance' of separateness, individuation, differentiation, is caused by matter, Mula-Prakrti, as will appear later.
In itself, it is the avyakta, the unmanifest, unspecialised, unindividualised; sheathed in buddhi or mahat, universal mind, (corresponding to the connotation of the plural and yet unbreakably unitive, connective, collective 'we'), it becomes the supra-conscious, out of which emerge and into which merge back again, all vyaktis, individuals, manifest consciousnesses, particular minds, manas-es, (corresponding to the singular and separative 'I').
Brahman with and witihout Attributes
It is the One, eka, in a special degree. It is the essence, source, and substratum of all similarity, sameness, continuity, unity, all oneness. It is Ishvara in the abstract sense, the one Ishvara of all particular Ishvaras--their Self, as also the Self, and as much so, of the Jivas that have not yet arrived at the state of Ishvara-hood.
It is sometimes called the mAyA-shaba1am Brahman, or saguNam Brahman, Brahman conjoined with attributes, enwrapped in, coloured with, Maya. The Upanishats mostly describe it, this Pratyag-Atma, and, leading the enquirer to it, finally state that it is identical with Brahman.
Such aphoristic utterances, apparently, have led to the confusion which seems to prevail at the present day amongst the Vedantis of the various schools, as to the relation between Pratyag-Atma and Param-Atma, or Brahman. The following great words of the Upanishats refer to the Pratyag-Atma:
• "Unmoving, it outstrippeth the wind; the gods themselves may not attain to it; it goeth beyond all limitations; by knowledge of it, the Jiva attains to the (first) peace of unity;
• "it is the white, the bodiless, the pure, the Self-born, itself uncaused and changeless, and causing all things else and all their changes, smaller than the smallest, yet vaster than the vastest;
A metaphysical axiom in Samskrt, says, yad apAriNAmi tad akAraNa, 'That which undergoes no change has no cause,' or, more briefly, 'the changeless is causeless'. Hume uses the words, "What is incorruptible must be ungenerable".
• it cannot be spoken of or seen or heard or breathed, but itself speaks and sees and hears and breathes;
• it espouses the enquirer and appears within him of its own law, and may not be taught by another; ever it hides in the cave of the heart; it upholds the three worlds;
• it divides itself and appears in all these endless forms, and yet is best described by saying, 'not this', 'not this'." --(vide Isha, Kena and Katha Upanishads)
And then comes the addition: "This Atma is the Brahman." (Mandukya, 2)
The meaning is that the one so described is the Atma, but the same Atma plus the description, viz., 'Not This' that is to say, plus the consciousness that "I am Not Other than I", which consciousness is inseparable from, nay, is the very being, and the whole being, and the whole nature of the Self--is Brahman.
The word Pratyag-Atma is not prominently used in the later works on Vedanta, but is of frequent occurrence in Bhagavata. e.g.. Ill.xxxv.27; III.xx,xxvi,vi,27, etc. Yoga-Sutra, I.29, appears to refer to the same principle under the name of Pratyak-chetana. Shankar-Acharya, in his commentaries on Kena, iv.6, Katha, i.3.11-12, and ii.1.1-2, on Gauda-pada's Mandukya Kaarikaa, 65 and Brahma-sutra, I.i.1, mentions some other aspects, and even senses, of it. Words often put on new meanings, as souls do new bodies.
This Pratyag-Atma is the true nitya, the constant, the fixed, the eternal, kUtastha-nitya, the changelessly and movelessly permanent; as opposed to pariNAmi-nitya, the changefully persistent and ever-lasting, the sempiternal.
While the Absolute may be said to be beyond Eternity as well as Time--or rather to include them both as Eternity plus Time, seeing that Eternity is opposed to Time, and the Absolute is not opposed to anything else and outside of it, but contains all opposites within itself--the word Eternal, as opposed to Temporal, may properly be assigned to the Pratyag-Atma in its abstract aspect. As such it is ever complete and undergoes no change, but is the substratum and support of all changing things and of Time, even as an actor of his theatrical attires.
Slumber Knows 'No-Thing'
For concrete illustration, take the case of sushupti, sound slumber, awaking from which a person says: 'I slept well, I knew nothing.' Knowing Nothing, i.e., the Not-Self, he was out of Time literally, he was at complete rest in the Eternal, wherein he felt perfect repose after the day's turn of fatiguing work; whereout he comes back again into Time and to the cognition of some-things, when the restlessness of desire for the experiences of samsAra again overpowers him.
The words of the Yoga-system, for the repose and the restlessness mentioned in the text, are nirodha, and vyutthAna, restraint and 'uprising', retirement and enterprise, inhibition and exhibition, obliviscence and reminiscence, unmanifest consciousness or sub-consciousness or dormant memory and manifest consciousness, rest and work, fatigue and activity, sleep and wakefulness.
The further special meaning of sushupti, the meaning of sleep, as of death, may appear later. In the present connection, it is enough to refer to this one aspect of it, and to point out that the inner significance of the expression, 'the Self knows no-thing during sushupti', is that It, in that condition, positively knows what is technically called No-Thing i.e., the Not-Self as a whole; for the potency, the necessity, of the Being of the Self maintains constantly, before or within that Self, in one unbroken act or fact of consciousness, this No-thing, i.e., No-particular-thing but mere general This-ness or pure Not-Self.
In other words, Jiva, in the moment of sushupti, passes almost entirely--(since, strictly speaking, it cannot pass quite entirely, for reasons that will appear on studying the nature of the Jiva)--out of the region of the many experiences of particular not-selves, of successive somethings; passes into the other side, the other facet (and yet not other but rather all-including aspect) of that region, v12., into the region of the Single, underlying, ever-present, One Experience, One Negating Consciousness, in the universal Self, of the pseudo-universal Not-Self. That Jiva does not pass entirely out of the state of awareness or 'experience', out of a consciousness which is its very nature and essence, is the reason why the thread and continuity of its identity reappears unbroken after the soundest slumber.
Three Names of Self
As with reference to Time, the Self obtains the name of the Eternal, Nitya, coexistently present at every point of Time--for all the endlessly successive points of time are coexistent to, and in, its eternal and universal all-embracing consciousness, Now;
so, with reference to Space, Its name is Vi-bhu, pervasive-being, infinite, unextended, or extensionless;
and, again with reference to Motion, Its name is Sarva-Vyaapi, all-permeating, Omnipresent, the simultaneously present at every point of space; for all the countlessly coexistent points of Space are simultaneously present in that same consciousness, in one point, Here.
Introspection on the nature of sound Sleep is useful for understanding the nature of Space as of Time. In sound sleep we lose consciousness of Motion, Time, Space, all. (Thus, a person falling sound asleep when his train is standing at one station, and waking up when it is again standing at another, cannot say whether the train has moved at all and how long in time and how far in space he has slept). In slumber we 'bathe', are immersed in, Brahman, and are 'renewed'.
With reference to Motion, its best name seems to be Kuta-stha, rock-seated, or Avi-kaarl, or [b]ApariNaamI, un-changing, the fixed, or, again, Antar-yaami the inner watcher or ruler.
[b]Why Movement within Brahman, and Why Brahman at all?
As regards what has been said above about Atma plus 'Not This', an earnest student and scholar wrestled with the idea for long. His recurring difficulty was: "Why should not Brahman remain pure consciousness; why should there be in It the necessity of a denial of another, and so movement?"
Another might take the next step further in the same direction and ask: "Why should there be any Brahman at all? Why not let there be Nothing only?"
The case of Bhushundi questioning Markandeya, in the Puranas, is similar. More preparation and practice in meditation is needed to realise the simple truth. A study of the Time and Space and Motion experiences, of dreams and reveries and flights of even waking but rapt and absorbing imagination, is exceedingly helpful, nay necessary; and the absence of all such experiences in deep sleep should also be carefully pondered on at the same time. Until the opposition between Time and Eternity is realised, the difficulty about movement and change will continue. The Yoga-Vasistha stories are very helpful in this reference.
The whole point is that time and movement are within, and negated by, the Eternity of the Moveless All-Consciousness.
The questions at the outset of this note may be more directly dealt with, once again, thus: The reply is by a counter query--What do you understand by pure consciousness? Is not pure consciousness == the denial of impure consciousness? How can you talk and think and know at all of the pure, except by at the same time opposing it to the impure?
And why do you use the word remain? Is it not that you have at the back of your mind the idea of pure consciousness persisting from one moment of time to another, and then to another, and so on endlessly? But successive moments of time cannot be distinguished in pure consciousness. Successive 'impure consciousness', i.e., particular, definite experiences, sensations, thoughts, emotions, volitions, movements in short, mark and make the successive moments of time and points of space; (the words to us may be added, but they are perfectly superfluous and useless, for of to others in the strict sense we have no notion and cannot speak).
(Identifying ourselves with them by turns, we can see that) one cycle of a conscious sun absorbed in the act of rolling may be as one circuit of a race-course by a horse though in human count, the former covers millions of years and billions of miles, and the latter a single minute and about half a mile. Each is just one mind-filling experience to its experiencer, the equivalent of, so to say, one moment of time. The next run will make the next moment; and so on. When there are no such 'impure consciousnesses' there can be no 'remaining'.
The next question, "Why not let there be Nothing?" contains its own answer. Surely let there be-Nothing, by all means. But Brahman is just this be-nothing, be-no-thing, is-not-this. This is not quibbling. It is perfectly serious. We cannot think or talk of nothing without also thinking and talking of being; and the two together, at once, are Brahman.
If you mean-by the words, "Why not let there be nothing?", only the question "Why are there any changing things at all?", then the whole preceding text is an attempt to answer this very question. If you mean "Why is there any unchanging thing?", then the answer, already given in the text also, is, again, "A why is not possible to ask, and cannot be asked, with regard to what is clearly recognised as really unchanging."
dvam-dvam means 'two-and-two', the paired, the double.
पराञ्चि खानि व्यतृणत् स्वयम्भूः,तस्मात् पराङ् पश्यति न अन्तरात्मन् ।
कश्चिद् धीरः प्रत्याग्-आत्मानं एक्षद् आवृत्त चक्षुर्, अमृतत्वं इच्छन् ॥
parA~jci khAni vyatRuNat svayambhUH, tasmAt parA~g pashyati na antarAtman |
kashcid dhIraH pratyAg-AtmAnaM ekShad AvRutta cakShur, amRutatvaM icChan ||
-- Katha Upanishad, II.i.1
"The Self-born pierced the senses outwards; therefore the soul looketh outwards, not inwards. One resolute one, here and there, turneth his vision inwards, desirous of immortality, determined to achieve it, resolved to conquer Death; and he then beholdeth, and identifieth himself with, Pratyag-Atma, the Deathless Inner Self."
AHAM, I, Self, in the great logion, is Pratyag-Atma.
अ, a, is the first letter of the Samskrt alphabet, and प, ha, the last; therefore the two together, between them, exhaust all the contents of all possible 'experience', which can be possibly expressed by all the letters of the alphabet, i.e., language, and which is all overshadowed by the transiency, perishingness, negation, that is indicated by the म्, m.
Therefore, अ-ह-म् are the appropriate vocal symbol of the I, which is the only 'expcriencer', in whom alone all experience, with its negation, is.
ह, ha, also stands for the AkAsha-tattva, the substrate of sound, and the first material manifestation and sheath or body of conscious life, in this solar system at least, according to the Puranas; and it therefore appropriately takes the place, in the name of the individual ego, which is occupied by ह, u, in that of the Absolute Ego.
अकारः सर्ववर्णाग्रयः प्रकाशः परमेश्वरः;
आध्यम् अन्त्येन संयोगाढ् 'अहम्' इत्येव जायते ।
akAraH sarvavarNAgrayaH prakAshaH parameshvaraH;
Adhyam antyena saMyogADh 'aham' ityeva jAyate |
--Nandik-eshvara-kaarikaa, 4
Pratyag-Atma is the inward, abstract, universal Self or Spirit, eternal Subject, wherein all jIvas, individual, particular, discrete spirits, selves, or subjects, inhere as whirlpools in the ocean, as whirl-winds in the air, as vortices in ether, as points in space.
Bhrama, bhrAnti, is one of the names for the 'illusion', the 'appearance without reality', of the World-Process; a sort of anagram of 'Brahman', and means 'turning round and round', as the opposite of the Moveless.
This circling bhrama of the World-Process is visible even to the physical eye, and requires no difficult thinking. The earth, the moon, the planets, suns, stars, all revolve; the seasons, the biological functions, psychological, political, economical, social, historical phenomena--all observe cyclical periodicity, which takes on the form of spirals, for reasons explained later on in the text.
The Self 'makes-believe'; It believes 'as if' It is 'this, that, and the other not-Self'; and then, discarding the mask, It comes back into It-Self.
It pervades them all, as the genus pervades all individuals. It is all those individuals. The 'appearance' of separateness, individuation, differentiation, is caused by matter, Mula-Prakrti, as will appear later.
In itself, it is the avyakta, the unmanifest, unspecialised, unindividualised; sheathed in buddhi or mahat, universal mind, (corresponding to the connotation of the plural and yet unbreakably unitive, connective, collective 'we'), it becomes the supra-conscious, out of which emerge and into which merge back again, all vyaktis, individuals, manifest consciousnesses, particular minds, manas-es, (corresponding to the singular and separative 'I').
Brahman with and witihout Attributes
It is the One, eka, in a special degree. It is the essence, source, and substratum of all similarity, sameness, continuity, unity, all oneness. It is Ishvara in the abstract sense, the one Ishvara of all particular Ishvaras--their Self, as also the Self, and as much so, of the Jivas that have not yet arrived at the state of Ishvara-hood.
It is sometimes called the mAyA-shaba1am Brahman, or saguNam Brahman, Brahman conjoined with attributes, enwrapped in, coloured with, Maya. The Upanishats mostly describe it, this Pratyag-Atma, and, leading the enquirer to it, finally state that it is identical with Brahman.
Such aphoristic utterances, apparently, have led to the confusion which seems to prevail at the present day amongst the Vedantis of the various schools, as to the relation between Pratyag-Atma and Param-Atma, or Brahman. The following great words of the Upanishats refer to the Pratyag-Atma:
• "Unmoving, it outstrippeth the wind; the gods themselves may not attain to it; it goeth beyond all limitations; by knowledge of it, the Jiva attains to the (first) peace of unity;
• "it is the white, the bodiless, the pure, the Self-born, itself uncaused and changeless, and causing all things else and all their changes, smaller than the smallest, yet vaster than the vastest;
A metaphysical axiom in Samskrt, says, yad apAriNAmi tad akAraNa, 'That which undergoes no change has no cause,' or, more briefly, 'the changeless is causeless'. Hume uses the words, "What is incorruptible must be ungenerable".
• it cannot be spoken of or seen or heard or breathed, but itself speaks and sees and hears and breathes;
• it espouses the enquirer and appears within him of its own law, and may not be taught by another; ever it hides in the cave of the heart; it upholds the three worlds;
• it divides itself and appears in all these endless forms, and yet is best described by saying, 'not this', 'not this'." --(vide Isha, Kena and Katha Upanishads)
And then comes the addition: "This Atma is the Brahman." (Mandukya, 2)
The meaning is that the one so described is the Atma, but the same Atma plus the description, viz., 'Not This' that is to say, plus the consciousness that "I am Not Other than I", which consciousness is inseparable from, nay, is the very being, and the whole being, and the whole nature of the Self--is Brahman.
The word Pratyag-Atma is not prominently used in the later works on Vedanta, but is of frequent occurrence in Bhagavata. e.g.. Ill.xxxv.27; III.xx,xxvi,vi,27, etc. Yoga-Sutra, I.29, appears to refer to the same principle under the name of Pratyak-chetana. Shankar-Acharya, in his commentaries on Kena, iv.6, Katha, i.3.11-12, and ii.1.1-2, on Gauda-pada's Mandukya Kaarikaa, 65 and Brahma-sutra, I.i.1, mentions some other aspects, and even senses, of it. Words often put on new meanings, as souls do new bodies.
This Pratyag-Atma is the true nitya, the constant, the fixed, the eternal, kUtastha-nitya, the changelessly and movelessly permanent; as opposed to pariNAmi-nitya, the changefully persistent and ever-lasting, the sempiternal.
While the Absolute may be said to be beyond Eternity as well as Time--or rather to include them both as Eternity plus Time, seeing that Eternity is opposed to Time, and the Absolute is not opposed to anything else and outside of it, but contains all opposites within itself--the word Eternal, as opposed to Temporal, may properly be assigned to the Pratyag-Atma in its abstract aspect. As such it is ever complete and undergoes no change, but is the substratum and support of all changing things and of Time, even as an actor of his theatrical attires.
Slumber Knows 'No-Thing'
For concrete illustration, take the case of sushupti, sound slumber, awaking from which a person says: 'I slept well, I knew nothing.' Knowing Nothing, i.e., the Not-Self, he was out of Time literally, he was at complete rest in the Eternal, wherein he felt perfect repose after the day's turn of fatiguing work; whereout he comes back again into Time and to the cognition of some-things, when the restlessness of desire for the experiences of samsAra again overpowers him.
The words of the Yoga-system, for the repose and the restlessness mentioned in the text, are nirodha, and vyutthAna, restraint and 'uprising', retirement and enterprise, inhibition and exhibition, obliviscence and reminiscence, unmanifest consciousness or sub-consciousness or dormant memory and manifest consciousness, rest and work, fatigue and activity, sleep and wakefulness.
The further special meaning of sushupti, the meaning of sleep, as of death, may appear later. In the present connection, it is enough to refer to this one aspect of it, and to point out that the inner significance of the expression, 'the Self knows no-thing during sushupti', is that It, in that condition, positively knows what is technically called No-Thing i.e., the Not-Self as a whole; for the potency, the necessity, of the Being of the Self maintains constantly, before or within that Self, in one unbroken act or fact of consciousness, this No-thing, i.e., No-particular-thing but mere general This-ness or pure Not-Self.
In other words, Jiva, in the moment of sushupti, passes almost entirely--(since, strictly speaking, it cannot pass quite entirely, for reasons that will appear on studying the nature of the Jiva)--out of the region of the many experiences of particular not-selves, of successive somethings; passes into the other side, the other facet (and yet not other but rather all-including aspect) of that region, v12., into the region of the Single, underlying, ever-present, One Experience, One Negating Consciousness, in the universal Self, of the pseudo-universal Not-Self. That Jiva does not pass entirely out of the state of awareness or 'experience', out of a consciousness which is its very nature and essence, is the reason why the thread and continuity of its identity reappears unbroken after the soundest slumber.
Three Names of Self
As with reference to Time, the Self obtains the name of the Eternal, Nitya, coexistently present at every point of Time--for all the endlessly successive points of time are coexistent to, and in, its eternal and universal all-embracing consciousness, Now;
so, with reference to Space, Its name is Vi-bhu, pervasive-being, infinite, unextended, or extensionless;
and, again with reference to Motion, Its name is Sarva-Vyaapi, all-permeating, Omnipresent, the simultaneously present at every point of space; for all the countlessly coexistent points of Space are simultaneously present in that same consciousness, in one point, Here.
Introspection on the nature of sound Sleep is useful for understanding the nature of Space as of Time. In sound sleep we lose consciousness of Motion, Time, Space, all. (Thus, a person falling sound asleep when his train is standing at one station, and waking up when it is again standing at another, cannot say whether the train has moved at all and how long in time and how far in space he has slept). In slumber we 'bathe', are immersed in, Brahman, and are 'renewed'.
With reference to Motion, its best name seems to be Kuta-stha, rock-seated, or Avi-kaarl, or [b]ApariNaamI, un-changing, the fixed, or, again, Antar-yaami the inner watcher or ruler.
[b]Why Movement within Brahman, and Why Brahman at all?
As regards what has been said above about Atma plus 'Not This', an earnest student and scholar wrestled with the idea for long. His recurring difficulty was: "Why should not Brahman remain pure consciousness; why should there be in It the necessity of a denial of another, and so movement?"
Another might take the next step further in the same direction and ask: "Why should there be any Brahman at all? Why not let there be Nothing only?"
The case of Bhushundi questioning Markandeya, in the Puranas, is similar. More preparation and practice in meditation is needed to realise the simple truth. A study of the Time and Space and Motion experiences, of dreams and reveries and flights of even waking but rapt and absorbing imagination, is exceedingly helpful, nay necessary; and the absence of all such experiences in deep sleep should also be carefully pondered on at the same time. Until the opposition between Time and Eternity is realised, the difficulty about movement and change will continue. The Yoga-Vasistha stories are very helpful in this reference.
The whole point is that time and movement are within, and negated by, the Eternity of the Moveless All-Consciousness.
The questions at the outset of this note may be more directly dealt with, once again, thus: The reply is by a counter query--What do you understand by pure consciousness? Is not pure consciousness == the denial of impure consciousness? How can you talk and think and know at all of the pure, except by at the same time opposing it to the impure?
And why do you use the word remain? Is it not that you have at the back of your mind the idea of pure consciousness persisting from one moment of time to another, and then to another, and so on endlessly? But successive moments of time cannot be distinguished in pure consciousness. Successive 'impure consciousness', i.e., particular, definite experiences, sensations, thoughts, emotions, volitions, movements in short, mark and make the successive moments of time and points of space; (the words to us may be added, but they are perfectly superfluous and useless, for of to others in the strict sense we have no notion and cannot speak).
(Identifying ourselves with them by turns, we can see that) one cycle of a conscious sun absorbed in the act of rolling may be as one circuit of a race-course by a horse though in human count, the former covers millions of years and billions of miles, and the latter a single minute and about half a mile. Each is just one mind-filling experience to its experiencer, the equivalent of, so to say, one moment of time. The next run will make the next moment; and so on. When there are no such 'impure consciousnesses' there can be no 'remaining'.
The next question, "Why not let there be Nothing?" contains its own answer. Surely let there be-Nothing, by all means. But Brahman is just this be-nothing, be-no-thing, is-not-this. This is not quibbling. It is perfectly serious. We cannot think or talk of nothing without also thinking and talking of being; and the two together, at once, are Brahman.
If you mean-by the words, "Why not let there be nothing?", only the question "Why are there any changing things at all?", then the whole preceding text is an attempt to answer this very question. If you mean "Why is there any unchanging thing?", then the answer, already given in the text also, is, again, "A why is not possible to ask, and cannot be asked, with regard to what is clearly recognised as really unchanging."