Principal Upanishad · Samaveda
Kena Upanishad 1.3
Eye, speech, and mind cannot reach it
न तत्र चक्षुर्गच्छति न वाग्गच्छति नो मनो न विद्मो न विजानीमो यथैतदनुशिष्यात्॥
The eye does not go there, nor speech, nor the mind. We do not know it, nor do we understand how one would teach it.
What this verse points to
The verse rules out the three instruments by which anything is normally known, and then admits, remarkably, that the teachers do not know how to teach it either.
That admission is the value of the passage. A tradition confident enough to record its own limit is more trustworthy on this subject than one that promises a method for everything.
Sit with it
Try to locate the one who is looking. When the search fails, stay with the failure rather than concluding anything.
About the Kena Upanishad
Named for its opening question — kena, "by whom?" — this Upanishad asks what power stands behind mind, speech, and the senses. Its method is largely negative: it establishes the knower by showing that the knower can never become an object of its own knowing.
References to this text are given as section.verse — here, 1.3.