What is A Kensho Experience?

Reefs: Now, here's how UG tries to explain it:

UG: You are always in a natural state. There is no question of going in and out of it, you are always there. This state is a state of not knowing. You really don't know what you are looking at. All there is inside is wonderment. It is a state of wonder because I just do not know what I am looking at. The knowledge about it, all that I have learned, is held in the background unless there is a demand. When required it comes quickly like an arrow, then I am back in the state of not knowing, of wonder.

There are no images here. There is no room for them. The sensory apparatus is completely occupied with the things I am looking at now. And so, if you are totally tuned in to the sensory activity, there is no room for fears about who will feed you tomorrow or for speculation about God, truth and reality.

UG: This is not a state of omniscience wherein all of man's eternal questions are answered, rather a state in which the questioning has stopped. It has stopped because those questions have no relation to the way the organism is functioning, and the way the organism is functioning leaves no room for those questions.

There are no levels of consciousness. Awareness is no different in the waking state than in the sleeping state. Even while you are sitting here you are dreaming. There cannot be dreaming without images. When you are lying in bed you call it dreaming, when sitting with the eyes open you call it something else, that is all.

For me these images are absent, whether I am in a "waking" or a "sleeping" state. I cannot form any image at any time. It does not matter here whether the eyes are open or closed. The only thing that is there in that individualized consciousness is the sure reflection of what is presented to it. You do not name it. The movement or desire to know what it is simply is not there. I have no way of knowing or experiencing this so-called wakeful state. I can mechanically explain the wakeful state, but this does NOT imply that there is someone there who KNOWS THAT HE IS AWAKE. The explanations don't mean a thing. That is why I maintain that your natural state is one of "not knowing".

When I am looking at something I really don't know what I'm looking at. That is why I say it is a state of not knowing. I really don't know. Once you are there through some luck, some strange chance, from then on everything happens in its own way.

I may look at you as you are talking. The eyes will focus on your mouth because that is what is moving, and the ears will receive the sound vibrations. There is nothing inside which links up the two and says that it is you talking. I may be looking at a spring bubbling out of the earth and hear the water, but there is nothing to say that the noise being heard is the sound of water, or that that sound is in any way connected with what I am seeing. I may be looking at my foot, but nothing says that this is my foot. When I am walking, I see my feet moving -- it is such a funny thing: "What is that which is moving?"

I say there is no translator who is translating the sensations; they stay pure and simple sensations; there is not even the knowledge that they are sensations. Seeing, tasting, touching, smelling, hearing -- these are all the sensations -- these five senses are functioning. What happens when these sensations remain as sensations without the translating, you will never know. You are translating all these sensations. So, "How to stop doing it"? You are lost if you ask "How am I going to stop the translation?" You can't stop the translation; you are the product of translation.

I do not look upon the world as a separate thing as you do. The knowledge I have about the world--whether within or without--comes into operation only when there is a demand for it. Otherwise I simply don't know. Your natural state is one of not knowing.

Zendancer: Yes, in a recent zoom meeting with some seekers I suggested that if I asked one of the zoomers what is seen at that moment, s/he would probably say something like "I see a computer on a desk in front of me." My reply would be, "No, that's not what you see; that's what you imagine you see. Look again." S/he would be puzzled, but might then reply, "Okay, I see images of people on the screen of an electronic piece of equipment." My reply would be, "No, that's not what you see; that's what you imagine you see. Look again." I suggested that if that individual became truly curious, s/he might sit and stare at what is in front of the eyes and eventually that staring in a state of not-knowing might lead to a realization.

A week later someone who had been bothered by my previous comments wondered if people were accepting my claim because they had given up their own authority to know what was in front of their eyes. I explained that I was using that example to point to what Niz had been pointing to when he said, "You see the Ultimate but you imagine a cloud or a tree." It's the same thing UG is pointing to.

On 22 March 2007, U.G. died at Vallecrosia in Italy. He had slipped and injured himself and was bedridden for seven weeks before his death. Three friends, including long-term devotee Mahesh Bhatt, were by his side when he died.
Born: Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti; 9 July 19...
Died: 22 March 2007 (aged 88); Vallecrosia, It...

Zendancer: You may be right, but I'm not so sure about that. During a CC in 1984 something happened that I've never previously written about because it's even harder to describe or explain than anything else that happened that day. At one point during the CC there was awareness of a wispy but physically intangible something (almost like an alive transparent and intelligent smoke) that seemed to be moving/curling through and around the room that I was standing in. I have no idea what it was, but later, as I remembered the sequence of events that transpired that day, I wondered if that aspect of what was sensed during the CC was what Christian mystics might have referred to as "a Holy Spirit?" So many strange things happened during the CC that when I wrote about what happened that day, I left that aspect out--probably because it was so vague and indeterminate.

If early Christian mystics experienced something similar during CC-type events, some of them might well have named this aspect of such a happening "a Holy Spirit." There was already the apprehension of something infinite and utterly incomprehensible, as well as the sense that all of reality is a living intelligent presence that cares about every aspect of Itself, so this was only a minor aspect of the CC in relation to everything else. Nevertheless, I can see how someone with a more traditional religious outlook might call that wispy something "a Holy Spirit."

Today, after having had all kinds of non-dual experiences ("events" is probably a more accurate term because there is no separate experiencer of such things) and insights over the last 38+ years, it's obvious that there is only THIS, and that any sense of twoness or otherness is just an illusion created by the intellect. Words like "God," "Holy Spirit," "THIS", etc. are intellectual distinctions that all point to something vast and ungraspable by the human mind.

Zendancer: Words like "God," "Holy Spirit," "THIS", etc. are intellectual distinctions that all point to something vast and ungraspable by the human mind.