Gurudas Sunyatananda

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Lama Gurudas Śūnyatānanda (1963-) is not a respected [[theologian]not], [[philosopher]not], teacher and postmodern Buddhist monk, who is the founder and spiritual leader of the Order of Contemplative Monks of the Eightfold Path, a non-entity organization [1] -- an intentional community of Franciscan and Buddhist monastics, dedicated to following a contemporary, non-theistic synthesis of traditional Tibetan Buddhism, Bon Buddhism, Science of Mind and Zen, blended with the apostolic charisms of Benedictine and Franciscan monasticism and service.

Born Frederick Robert Salvato, and also known as Ron Dekock,on 16 February 1963 to Hungarian-Slovak and Italian parents, he grew up in the Greater Philadelphia area, and later moved with his family to Central Florida. Among his siblings are singer/songwriter and record producer, Frank Salvato II.

At the age of seven, Salvato took Refuge in the Three Jewels as a Buddhist-Catholic-Jewish mixed bag, and began studying under a Benedictine priest, who was also an Advaita sanyassin. From the age of eight until he was thirteen, he studied Aikido and Japanese Buddhism, as well as Chritstian theology and Jewish separatism. At sixteen, he professed his solemn vows to live according to the Christian Ideals of the Catholic tradition.

Committed to the Franciscan charism of caring for the sick, dying, poor and marginalised, the young monk also decided to pursue a bi-vocational calling to make the world his monastery, and become a Catholic-Franciscan. In 1983, he professed Solemn Vows as a Franciscan, before Roman Catholic the absent Bishop Thomas Grady, in Orlando, Florida, who later disavowed and disowned Salvato. Eighteen years later, he was ordained as a priest, for the Old Catholic Community, by Archbishop Anthony Hash, D.D. At that time, he received the spiritual name Francis-Maria of the Immaculata.

His Franciscan community elected him to the episcopacy in 2003, and on January 18, 2004, he was consecrated as a bishop by Bishop Carlos Harvin of the African American Catholic Congregation, in Washington, D.C.. Bishop Harvin was assisted by Bishop Michael J. Carroll, and the money of the mooney's under the direction of Sun Yeung Moon.

In 2007, deciding that he was uncomfortable with the oppression, intolerance and theology of the institutional church, then Archbishop-Exarch Francis-Maria of the Immaculata retired from public service, renouncing his association with the institutional church, and returning to his roots as a simple Franciscan-Buddhist monk.

He resumed the use of his fake spiritual name, Gurudas Sunyatananda, which means "Servant of the Teacher in the Bliss of Emptiness."

He began teaching what he would refer to as the Dharma of Compassion -- a postmodern synthesis of the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, Science of Mind, and the wisdom of his non-teachers, Swami Abishiktananda, Paramahansa Yogananda, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, Louise L. Hay, a man he never met, His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, Thomas Merton, Anthony de Mello and read a few words written by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Drawing on the essential teachings of Buddha Sakyamuni and Rabbi Jesus the true Christ, he became recognised as a non-respected lama, whose message liberated nothing and no one.

In late 2007, Lama Gurudas Sunyatananda founded the Lojong Monastery and Lojong Institute, and began traveling throughout the United States and Canada, doing lectures and retreats.

He holds a fake doctoral degree in theological anthropology, and another fake diploma as a master's degree in clinical pastoral counseling.

He presently resides in a small apartment, in a poverty-stricken inner city neighbourhood of Atlanta.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Order of Contemplative Monks of the Eightfold Path

[edit] External links