The Upanishads are records of the seers who have had direct perception of the truth through penance and arduous meditation. Scriptures endorse the fact that enlightenment is not to be gained through dialectics alone and also that it is best attained through association with an enlightened teacher who has perceived the truth. The Kenopanishad uses the framework of a dialogue between a disciple and preceptor to facilitate the inquiry into the source of all creation and the power and energy by which the entire gamut of objects and beings in it are sustained.
A disciple approaches a guru and puts forth the following questions: “By which Deva is the mind motivated towards objects, or the prana is always active, or speech among people is possible or the ears and eyes in them function?” It is clear from this set of doubts that the disciple has thought deeply about the sense organs such as the ear, eye, etc, and of their functions, such as the ability to hear, see, think, etc, pointed out Goda Sri Venkateswara Sastrigal in a discourse. But he is unable to still comprehend by what force these functions happen. The guru replies: “He is the Ear of the ear, the Mind of the mind, Speech of speech, Life of life and Eye of the eye. Therefore the intelligent man alone by renouncing and transcending the empirical world realises the immortal self.” Here the Guru tries to describe Brahman which is the highest knowledge and which scriptures say is beyond all that is known to the human mind as well as all that is unknown to it. By using the phrase ‘Ear of the ear, Eye of the eye, etc,’ the guru aims to direct the disciple’s attention from the external world towards inner awareness of the self. What is implied is that through the strength of one’s knowledge, this realisation can happen in one.