The one that is known by the names Umasahaya, the companion of Uma; Neelkanth, the blue-throated one; and Trilochan, the three-eyed one; the one who is the master of the animate and inanimate universe, who is peace incarnate, who is the womb of all being, who is a witness, who is free of ignorance – this is the one the sages attain through meditation.

If you want to know truth, a state of meditation is needed where there is no more any object of meditation. A consciousness is needed where there is only consciousness, with no object. There is only the empty mirror, with nothing reflected in it.

But this state is so far away from you that it seems to be almost unattainable. It appears almost impossible to reach because the mind is not silent even for a moment; for not even one moment is there a respite from thoughts. Even if you want to drop one single thought, you cannot manage it. Then how can you come to the point where all thoughts cease? You cannot get rid of even a small ripple, so how will your mind become completely free from any ripples? When even a small respite from thinking seems to be so difficult for you, how can a state of no-thought happen?

If the condition for knowing the ultimate reality is to become free of thought, then you will certainly feel despair, a deep despair in your heart. The heart will feel “Perhaps it is beyond me. I will never be able to accomplish this.”

This is why all the awakened ones, those who have known truth, have continued to give objects for meditation even though they were constantly saying that truth cannot be known by meditating on anything, on any object. Even as they were saying that it could not be reached through thinking, still they were suggesting a certain focus for thinking so that thinking could become a ladder for reaching to no-thought. Although all the religions know very well that the experience of the divine is possible only for one with an empty mind, and an empty mind is a very difficult thing to accomplish, still they feel it necessary to create some bridge between the state of emptiness and the state in which you normally live.

In the Kaivalya Upanishad, this sutra comes after the ultimate point about meditation has already been made. This sutra creates the bridge. Here we begin the journey by accepting the divine in a form. This form is not the ultimate, one should not stop at this form, this is not the end. The end will happen only when all forms have disappeared.

But you are surrounded by so many forms, and a mind that is covered under so many forms cannot even conceive that an experience of the formless is possible. This sutra creates the link between the two. The link is to let go of the many forms and to focus on only one form. Then the one form can also be dropped and you can enter into the formless. It is this idea of one form that this sutra is talking about. If you can understand a few things about this one form, then the sutra will become very clear to you.