The subject is treated in the form of three questions. The answer to the first, how the Atman enters the body, is that Prajapati enters in the form of the five vital airs in order to animate the lifeless bodies created by him. The second question is, How does the supreme soul become the individual soul (bhutatman)? This is answered rather in accordance with the Sankhya than the Vedanta doctrine. Overcome by the three qualities of matter (prakriti), the Atman, forgetting its real nature, becomes involved in self-consciousness and transmigration. The third question is, How is deliverance from this state of misery possible? This is answered in conformity with neither Vedanta nor Sankhya doctrine, but in a reactionary spirit. Only those who observe the old requirements of Brahmanism, the rules of caste and the religious orders (açramas), are declared capable of attaining salvation by knowledge, penance, and meditation on Brahma. The chief gods, that is to say, the triad of the Brahmana period, Fire, Wind, Sun, the three abstractions, Time, Breath, Food, and the three popular gods, Brahma, Rudra (i.e. Çiva), and Vishnu are explained as manifestations of Brahma.
The remainder of this Upanishad is supplementary, but contains several passages of considerable interest. We have here a cosmogonic myth, like those of the Brahmanas, in which the three qualities of matter, Tamas, Rajas, Sattva, are connected with Rudra, Brahma, and Vishnu, and which is in other respects very remarkable as a connecting link between the philosophy of the Rigveda and the later Sankhya system. The sun is further represented as the external, and prana (breath) as the internal, symbol of the Atman, their worship being recommended by means of the sacred syllable om, the three "utterances" (vyahritis) bhur, bhuvah, svar, and the famous Savitri stanza. As a means of attaining Brahma we find a recommendation of Yoga or the ascetic practices leading to a state of mental concentration and bordering on trance. The information we here receive of these practices is still undeveloped compared with the later system. In addition to the three conditions of Brahma, waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, mention is made of a fourth (turiya) and highest stage. The Upanishad concludes with the declaration that the Atman entered the world of duality because it wished to taste both truth and illusion.