Bhagavad Gita First Cause

[watchamadoodle]

It makes me think of Parmenides:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides

http://www.iep.utm.edu/parmenid/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/parmenides/

I read the wikipedia in you link, and Parmenides does seem very similar. He lived several centuries before Alexander the Great, so they must have developed the idea independently in Greece and India.

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That which is, ceases to be all the time. That which is not, is brought into being all the time. I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but it doesn't sound very insightful. Then again, I just may not be thinking deeply enough. Like solving the "sound of one hand clapping" riddle by smacking my fingers against my palm. 

It solves the problem of the first cause, by claiming that everything real exists from the beginning of time to the end of time.
I suppose this is why the Hindus are panentheistic.
The stuff that comes and goes is just concepts that lose their applicability? For example, we think of the Earth as an object - even though it is always changing and interacting with everything else.

It seems a little simpler to me, but I don't know.