Kena Upanishad tells us to study the basic structure of our own self, that is the physical self, our identity in the world. This word Kena means 'by what'. By what our identity is structured. What constitutes us? We see. hear, feel, taste and smell. Basic data that we get about the world outside. We think and decide. We imagine. We have our inner subjective field, about which only we have the authentic experience. Kena Upanishad asks just basic questions regarding this system.
You are saying that you see what is out there. By what do you see anything? Why ? by eyes. Of course by eyes. But the seeing actually does not happen in the eyes. The optical data is received through the eyes and that data is processed in the brain. Ultimately when seeing happens, when you say this is that object, some seeing thing or some seeing point or the 'seer' must be there. Only to the 'seer' or 'the seeing point', the phenomenon of sight happens. Till then the data is only optical pulses. In the same way, for the other senses also.
In short Kena asks us to check our motor. We have a car. Some problem is there. We raise the hood and check the connections and wires. We just check where the flow of function is blocked. Kena Upanishad asks us a simple question. 'What is that which makes you see ultimately? feel ultimately? taste, hear and so on.?' Eyes are just instruments in use. The cognition 'sight' happens by what? Can you see that 'what' by these eyes, which see all things? Can you feel that 'what'? smell that 'what'? taste that 'what'? hear that 'what'? No. So, that something, that 'what' makes your sensations possible in you but is not available to these very senses. That 'what' makes you think, but your thinking does not grasp that 'what'. So that 'what' transcends this system of senses and mind. But it is very much there in us, making it possible, all our sensations, our thinking. So it is there but just transcends this system. All these data produce 'meaning' only in its presence and also for its sake.
Kena Upanishad says that 'what' is the real you. Only for your sake this whole system functions and you 'see', making it possible. You are inhabiting this system. But mostly you begin to believe that you are this system. Instead of seeing this system as your machine, you are so tied up with believing that the machine is you. Once that happens, your angle becomes atomic. The divine becomes just a dream, a lazy dream perhaps, whereas you become the busiest person of this world. You, the machine, has no meaning. How can it be? Only for you, in your presence, the machine will present data, so that the meaning happens because of you. When you have fallen into your own trap, hallucinating that you are this machine, then what meaning can happen for whom? You have deserted yourself.
Kena Upanishad just says 'be just the owner of the car, driving it, using the machine. Don't make this car your world or more wretchedly, you yourself. You are the operator. Come out of this self-inflicted delusion. Assume your post. The divine angle is yours ever and ever'.
Srirangam Mohanarangan
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This needs rereading. Shall do it
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