Anthony Strano passed on, on the morning of July 26, while he was on a speaking tour in Brazil. He suffered a heart attack at breakfast. Anthony had been suffering from a heart condition for some
time.
Anthony brought a freshness and a deep spiritual rigour to his life, his talks and classes. His quiet, steadfast. inclusive nature endeared him to many BKs outside of India, and to a
wider public. His funeral was held in Sydney last Friday August 8, which Anthony’s family attended. He made many CDs and wrote a number of books, and had a great interest the arts and nature.He had a regular column in The Huffington Post.
The depth of understanding he shared in his talks was unique in the BK world. He was an independent thinker within the BKWSU, who kept himself apart from the organisation’s ‘political wing’,
and pursued his own quiet path (though his spiritual authority was taken advantage of by leadership on occasion, see link www.aboutbk + GOD )
A friend, no longer a BK adherent writes:
‘I knew
Anthony Strano well in the early days of his BK time. In the balance of virtue , intellectual rigour, philosophical integrity and moral insight, he brought much more to the BKs and Gyan than they ever brought to him.
Anthony
Strano was born in Australia to Sicilian immigrant parents and raised in the Roman Catholic tradition by his devout parents who worked a market garden (small farm) on the outskirts of Sydney.
He studied religion
and philosophy at University of Sydney and was a Sunday school teacher for a number of years. He was primarily influenced by Platonic and Neo-platonist philosophy, St Augustine and St Francis of Assisi, and had considered entering the priesthood.
He came across the BKs in London in 1977 while Dadi Kumarka was on tour. Finding a community that followed monastic-like religious disciplines impressed him, as did the idea of a meditation practice that spoke in terms
of a direct, personal connection to ”God the Father” rather than through an intermediary like Christ, the saints or the Madonna and which was confirmed, in his mind, by his meditation experience.
From
his background and education, he brought to his talks and his writing a deeper, more universal philosophical base to BK thinking which has gradually seeped into the mainstream of BK beliefs and language, at least outside India.
As the buddhists say, there are countless meditations and countless fruits of countless meditations. Anthony Strano took BK Gyan and fused it with his own character to create a post-christian, neo-platonist BK ideal which he lived out romantically,
and shared with others.
My sympathies go out to his family and close friends’ (edited)