Jagat

May 1, 2016 Part One was actually written on April 28, 2016 and is included in the memories for that day. This article also has some relation to the reflections I had on Gurus Falling From the Sky . Unfortunately some of the pages linked to in article have been lost. I would kind of like to see them--I think I wrote what I could find out about Vivekananda, Ramkrishna and Sharada Mother's visits to Vrindavan, but for some reason never crossposted to this blog. 

As I have been reading and meditating a bit on Bhaktivinoda Thakur's modernist project, I found the following report on ABC, The Centenary of the Modernist Crisis , interesting in its review of the Catholic response to modernism, apparently a term invented by Pope Pius X and defined as "the synthesis of all heresies." When you read the transcript, you get the impression that Krishna consciousness had a similar reaction to the intellectual impetus that leads to modernism. ("It ushered in a period of repression, spies, secret vigilance committees, dismissals and excommunication that stifled open independent thought for half a century.") Although, thanks to the OCHS and its offshoot in New Rarha Desh, this seems to be increasingly less true with the passage of time. David Schultenover S.J. (Professor of History at Marquette University, U.S.A.) comments on the nature of the fear that led to this reaction: ...It largely reacted out of fear, very understandable...

Hindu Encounter with Modernity As a result of thoughts expressed a few days ago on this blog, I decided to read through Shukavak's book again, from beginning to end this time, and review the points that he made there. I have mentioned this book many times and I would like to emphasize once again what an important contribution Shukavak has made to the future of the sampradaya by opening the door to this aspect of Bhaktivinoda's thought, which Bhaktivedanta, by inadvertance or by design, decided to omit from his own preaching. I wrote in Bhaktivinoda Thakur's meat eating and Lalita Prasad Thakur that Bhaktivinoda Thakur made two most significant contributions: the first is the opening of a door to a modern approach to Gaudiya Vaishnava doctrine and history, the other is the wholehearted acceptance of the raganuga sadhana practices that are generally rejected by all branches of the Gaudiya Math. Shukavak quotes several times a passage from the introduction to the Krish...