Of all the people that fall into the catagory of those who profess to be Enlightened, although truth be said, he doesn't --- or at least he doesn't jump up and down waving flags about the whole thing, Aziz Kristof, a Non-traditional Advaita Zen Master, is the absolute best. So too, even though in the overall scheme of things I have never met the man, I have chased him around the net for years citing him, quoting him, and linking to his pages for one reason or the other. Over and over his pages go down, shift, move to new locations, take on new URLs, or simply just disappear. I have tried to beat the system by copying or making my own pages and he and/or a representitive eventually comes along and politely informs me that he, or they in his stead, would prefer if I didn't bother. And I always comply.

The thing is people want to know about Aziz. Why? Because he is GENUINE. That is why I continue to quote him. That is why people continue to ask about him. Like me I think they love what he has to say and how he says it. For example, about Koans, which are totally off limits for anybody to knock, but I have cited for years elsewhere, Aziz says, and I agree:

"In that period I solved the main set of Koans. I needed to solve them because I was uncertain about their importance in the Awakening process. Not being able to solve them - I might have doubted the authority of my state. I was quite sad seeing those poor fellows trying to solve these abstract Koans instead of directly Awakening their consciousness. I had a few arguments with the leading Zen master, in fact I had arguments with all the Zen masters. This man was anyway a good man, but quite identified with 'the school.' This school of Zen seemed to mould everyone into the same shape, as if they were making clones. Everybody seemed to speak the some language, ask the same questions and give the same answers. The most interesting thing was that none of those masters were actually interested in the inner state. No one ever asked: "Aziz, what is your state?" Such a basic question! Instead, they asked: what did master Chao Chou mean saying Mu? Who really cares? It is wonderful to study the sayings of Old Sages, but what they were pointing to is much more important. In awakening to Who I Am one holds the essence of all possible Koans, from the past, present and future.

He also has no qualms expressing himself against heavy-hitters, real in their own minds or imagined. For example, regarding Andrew Cohen he writes:

"An example was Andrew Cohen who was sent to give satsang in the west. He was meant to represent Poonjaji and attract more westerners to Lucknow. But he and others thought that Poonjaji actually conformed his Enlightenment. For that reason, Cohen became very hurt when Poonjaji started to criticize him when he began to act as a master. From this wound came later the magazine 'What is Enlightenment?' which more represents Cohen's own insecurity and an unsuccessful attempt to heal himself than a genuine search for clarity. By the endless investigation into states of all possible masters, and not being able to come to any true conclusion, he has been just confusing his students. The only thing which at the end remains clear from his seemingly 'sincere' efforts to find clarity is that nobody has the least idea 'What Enlightenment Is!'"

Aziz Kristof was born May 11, 1962 in Poland. According to his own words his family was quite poor and were never completely accepted into the village he was raised in for ethnic reasons. As well, as a young boy his mother was a teacher in the same school he attended and because of same he found himself continually isolated from the other children.

One day, unknown to anyone in the school he snuck away from the school grounds. The school director, discovering Kristof was missing, became very upset and sent some of his fellow students to go out and look for him. Completely terrified and scared of punishment, he concealed himself behind a fence as best he could. Sitting there, in his child's mind he asked himself: why do I have to suffer so much in this hostile reality? And what am I actually doing here? Suddenly, at the amazingly young age of five, Kristof experienced his first Awakening, a radical re-location into the dimension of Pure Consciousness. Because his child's mind was unable to comprehend the full significance of the experience, he returned back to his ordinary consciousness. A part of him knew that he was not supposed to share his realization - in particular with his parents, because he was sure they would not understand.

As he grew toward and into his teenage years more and more of his time was spent in the forest next to his house going for endless walks. He was like a young mystic, often spending whole nights in the forest absorbing the bliss of nature and the silence of trees. He began to widen his perception of life by studying philosophy and classical literature, dedicating the whole of his time, from morning to night to completion of his studies. His heart started to become more conscious of its true longing, but, even though going to school was a pure torture he continued his official education, absorbing the distasteful content of the collective mind, filling his head in order to pass into the next class.

Following completion of school and a somewhat brutalizing stint in the military where he was forced to join the Polish army at age 21, Kristof began studying various spiritual teachings with a great intensity. He read everything he could get his hands on regarding Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, Upanishads and Sufism. He studied teachers such Krishnamurti, Rajneesh, and Sri Ramana Maharishi. Please note the word is "studied" NOT "studied under." Some people have misconstrued Aziz as having studied under Sri Ramana. Such is not the case. Aziz was born in 1962, some twelve years after the death of the Maharshi. Sri Ramana was however, a strong and major inspiration in Aziz and his final transformation. For those who may find it of interest, information regarding an American who had darshan under the grace and light of the Maharshi and who is alive and living in the United States today, and who, within an HOUR of his face-to-face meeting with Sri Bhagavan, according to Ramana and the scribes recording it, his mental barriers were reduced to nothingness, please see:

SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI: THE LAST AMERICAN DARSHAN
RECOUNTING A YOUNG BOY'S NEARLY INSTANT TRANSFORMATION INTO THE ABSOLUTE DURING HIS ONLY DARSHAN WITH THE MAHARSHI

One day Kristof read the book I Am THAT by Nisargadatta Maharaj, a disciple of the great sage Shri Sadguru Siddharameshwar Maharaj. At that moment he knew that he found his master. For the first time he received clarity regarding the Path and recognized the necessity of the right effort. Maintaining the State of Presence became a new task; it was a new challenge. He went for long walks, attempting not to lose the State for a single moment.

Following an unsuccessful attempt at study-practice with a Zen group, where he was unable to, in his words, make a major breakthrough, Kristof decided to go East. He went to France picking fruit to make enough money to take the Trans-Siberian train to China. After spending some time in China with no success he decided to take a boat to Korea. There he entered a Zen Monastery, Shin Won Sa, but was never really able to get used to such a disciplinary life style.

Soon an opportunity presented itself for Kristof to go to Japan. He had a strong attraction to Zazen and the Soto school of Zen as well as the teaching of Dogen Zenji. He stayed six months in a Zen Dojo near Tokyo developing an opinion that Dogen was indeed a profound thinker but tended to be dogmatic. Kristof felt Dogen's concept of Shikantaza was very subtle and profound and his understanding of Zazen being no longer a tool to become the Buddha but an expression of Truth. Kristof saw Dogen's teaching as a bridge between Advaita's vision of 'Awakening Now' and seeing Enlightenment as a future goal. Almost sacrilegious to Zen followers, Kristof felt the nearly untouchable Dogen's concept of a never-ending cultivation proved that he was NOT fully Self-realized. He disliked strongly the idea that after Enlightenment there is no need for practice anymore.

Eventually Kristof moved to a Rinzai monastery, Sogenji, in Okayama to undergo real practice under Harada Roshi. Disgruntled with the results he requested and received special permission to do a solo retreat in a secluded temple in the mountains. In the mountains, despite the harsh conditions and frigid surroundings his practice was excellent. During the month of December of 1993 he was so concentrated that he was hardly aware of the outer world. One night in the middle of this intensity for the lack of any other words he Let Go When he Let Go Kristof saw a new world. Everything was so beautiful! He looked at a tree and this tree was the Truth. He looked at a mountain and the mountain was itself an explosion of the Now! Returning to the monastery he happened across the master. The master stopped, looked at Kristof and recognizing Kristof's Realization shouted at the top of his voice: YES!. Kristof had stabilized the State of Presence.

He left the monastery and decided to do a two months retreat in a Soto monastery on the other side of Japan. As soon as he entered he realized his mistake --- all the monks seemed devoid of any human emotion and were just like Zazen-robots. Kristof took it as a sign to leave Japan and left the next day for Thailand then on to India.

In India he met with an assorted variety of gurus, teachers, and spritual folk such as Poonjaji, Ramesh Balsekar, U.G. Krishnamurti and Ranjit Maharaj, all with a certain amount of boring intensity. He also went to visit the Bodhi Tree under which Buddha reached Enlightenment. When he realized that the tree was just like any other tree and the sky above it was blue like everywhere else, he paid his homage and left in peace. He then went on a solo retreat to the south of India. On December 15, 1996 at around one in the morning a radical shift happened and Kristof found himself slipping to the Other Side, to the Beyond. Kristof in his own words:

This implosion cannot be expressed in words. It was like diving to the bottom of the ocean and piercing through this bottom into the space on the other side. I experienced the absolute freedom.

The next day the passage closed. But, in a few days he managed to slip into that Absolute State again. On the 31st day of December 1996 he became stabilized in the Absolute. Kristof relates the experience thus:

It felt like I had died and I had not been fully reborn. It was a mysterious time. For many lifetimes on the Buddhist Path, in my Soul there was imprinted a deep longing to reach the Unborn, to reach Nirvana. Upon reaching the Absolute State, I completed my Buddhist karma. I had reached complete disidentification and freedom from the apparent reality. My whole life of search reached culmination.

NOTE: For years on this web site it has been reported that Aziz kristof, basically seeking solitude from the multitudes, had withdrawn from teaching work. According to those who have been in contact with him he had gone into seclusion and retreat for several years and for the most part, unreachable. However, it is with great pleasure that I have recently been contacted by "his people" and Aziz has resurfaced, albeit under a new name, Anadi. Aziz, come Anadi, who has been reported to me by those who are in contact with him is located in and around the old stompping grounds of Shunyata, Almora. Almora is about 7,000 feet up in the mountains near the borders of Nepal and Tibet. Aziz, now Anadi, can be reached through his new web site under his new name and site title at:

ANADI: Enlightenment Beyond Traditions

DOING HARD TIME IN A ZEN MONASTERY

SEE ALSO:

ALL IS ILLUSION?
A Chinese-Indian Dichotomy In Advaita and Zen

THE DANGERS OF PSEUDO ADVAITA

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we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.

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