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Kena Upanishad · Anchored at KeU 1.2, KeU 2.3.
By whom is the mind sent to its objects? The ear of the ear, the mind of the mind — that which speech cannot express, but by which speech speaks.
The Kena Upanishad belongs to the Sama Veda. It is also called the Talavakara Upanishad, after the branch of that Veda in whose Brahmana it is preserved. Its name, like the Isha's, is simply its first word: kena, by whom. It is a short text in four parts. The first two are in verse, and they read like an exchange between a questioner and a teacher, though the text gives neither of them a name.
The question comes first, and it is one of the purest in the Upanishads. Willed by whom, sent by whom, does the mind light upon its objects? Yoked by whom does the first breath go forth? Willed by whom do people speak this speech? What god sets the eye and the ear to their work?
The question is stranger than it looks. We do not ordinarily ask who makes the mind think. We think, and that seems to be the end of it. The questioner has noticed something most people never notice. Seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing and thinking all happen, and none of them explains itself. Something sets them going. What?
The answer turns every faculty back on itself. It is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech. It is the breath of breath and the eye of the eye. The wise, letting these go, rise from this world and become immortal. The answer does not point to another, higher organ. An ear of the ear is not a second ear. It is what makes hearing possible at all, present in every act of hearing and never itself one of the sounds heard.
Then the text says why this cannot be shown in the ordinary way. The eye does not go there, nor speech, nor the mind. We do not know it, and we do not see how anyone could teach it. It is other than the known, and it is beyond the unknown. So we have heard, the text says, from those before us who explained it to us.
Then comes the refrain, five times over, with the force of a chant. That which speech does not express, but by which speech is expressed: know that alone as Brahman, not this that people worship here. That which the mind does not think, but by which, they say, the mind is thought. That which the eye does not see, but by which the eyes see. That which the ear does not hear, but by which hearing is heard. That which does not breathe by breath, but by which breath is drawn. Each time the same close follows: know that alone as Brahman, not this that people worship here.
The refrain does not dismiss devotion; it corrects an aim. Whatever stands before the mind as an object, any form or thing that can be seen, heard, thought about or worshipped as being over there, is for that very reason not the seer, the hearer or the thinker. The eye does not see its own seeing. In the Kena, Brahman is always on the near side of every act of knowing.
The second part opens with what sounds like a rebuke, and it is meant for anyone who thinks the lesson is now complete. If you think "I know it well", you know very little: only the form of Brahman that appears in you, or the form that appears among the gods. So it must still be inquired into. A reply follows, and it has a careful twist. I do not think I know it well, nor do I think I do not know it. Whoever among us understands that, neither "I do not know" nor "I know", knows it.
Then come the most famous lines of the text. It is known to the one to whom it is unknown. The one to whom it is known does not know it. It is not understood by those who understand, and it is understood by those who do not. This follows directly from the first part. If Brahman is the knower in every act of knowing, it can never be held as a known thing. Whoever claims to hold it as an object holds an object, not Brahman.
But the Kena does not leave the seeker stuck. It is known, the text says, in every awakening of awareness, which commentators take to mean in each act of knowing, as what knows. Known in that way, it brings immortality. Through the Self one gains strength; through knowledge, the deathless. And the part closes with an urgency the text has not shown until now. If one knows it here, there is truth. If one does not know it here, great is the loss. The wise discern it in every being, rise from this world and become immortal.
So the question with which the text began, by whom, is never answered with a name. It is answered by turning the questioner around. The one who asked who sends the mind out was asking, all along, with the very awareness the question was looking for.
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