Fundamentalism in GV...

[Deleted]

I guess I have shown my hand, in case there were any doubts before. I don't love Krsna. What is worse is that it may be that I cannot love him, if by loving him I have to accept the idea that he will throw people into a hell without any hope of redemption. I just can't love such a Krsna any more than I can love a Yahweh, who condoned the mass slaughter of whole peoples, or a Jesus for whom denial of the holy spirit is the one unforgivable sin. Am I taking Prabodhananda too seriously here? Shouldn't I realize that he did not really mean what he said? Shouldn't I realize that he really didn't want anyone to go to hell permanently? He was just issuing a warning. But, how does one know that? Maybe I should just suck it up and let Krsna be what he is. If he wants to send people off for eternal damnation that is his business. I can't change him. But, how can I hang out with people who are not horrified at the idea of the suffering of other people? To love Krsna does one have to become heartless towards everyone else?

Jai Nitai!

I don't believe in eternal hell. There is plenty of love-speech in CC and elsewhere. I just don't see any reason why I should leave Nitai Chand's love aside to worry about a single harsh-sounding verse. I am not scared of eternal hell and I am not interested in even contemplating the possibility of one. I have wasted way too much of my life living in fear. From now on I only want to sing and dance with the lovers, and try to reach out in a tangible way to our brother and sister jeevs suffering in this life. That is exactly what I plan to do, and if after that I die and go to hell, so be it. But if I sit here worrying about where I will go in my next birth, I am already in hell. Not interested. Still like the verse, though.

ys,
v

[Nitaidas]

Nov 2, 2010 3:36:51 GMT -6 @bisakhadasi said:

Jai Nitai!

I don't believe in eternal hell. There is plenty of love-speech in CC and elsewhere. I just don't see any reason why I should leave Nitai Chand's love aside to worry about a single harsh-sounding verse. I am not scared of eternal hell and I am not interested in even contemplating the possibility of one. I have wasted way too much of my life living in fear. From now on I only want to sing and dance with the lovers, and try to reach out in a tangible way to our brother and sister jeevs suffering in this life. That is exactly what I plan to do, and if after that I die and go to hell, so be it. But if I sit here worrying about where I will go in my next birth, I am already in hell. Not interested. Still like the verse, though.

ys,
v

I find this verse flawed and distasteful and I don't think it reveals a very high level of love. If there is one such verse, there are probably others, too. I don't know Prabodhananda's works very well and I doubt, based on this, that I will spend much time getting to know them better. There are too many other, better ways to spend my time. Still, if I reject this one verse, does that mean I have rejected Nitai or Gaura? Certainly, not. I think we still have to use our ability to discriminate the good from the bad, the illuminated from the benighted. One does not always have to be a yes-man.

Prabodhananda Sarasvati is admittedly an odd character. One wonders why no one mentions him. None of the Goswamis do and even Krsnadasa Kaviraja is silent about him. is there any evidence that he refers to any of them? Maybe he wasn't entirely accepted by the early followers of CV. According to Haridas Das he first lived in Kasi and then moved to Vraja. He does not give even a shred of evidence for this. He also thinks that Prakasananda and Prabodhananda were different people. Unless Prabodhananda made his move way later than we presume, he must have known the Goswamis.

[Nitaidas]

Nov 1, 2010 16:24:40 GMT -6 gerard said:

I thought we were exploring those hands. I thought we agreed on the existence of "the divine". Lets explore that a little further in connection to Krishna. But you broached some other subjects also in reply # 24.

Provisionally. What hard evidence is that for a "divine" any way? The experience of the mystics? Seems like a slim, fragile thread. No evidence? Just a leap of faith?

Generally scholars accept the theory of a slow process of divination of the folk hero Krishna.
I like to believe that it was a slow process of revelation of this particular Form of the Divine. As Krishna became wider known through that process the more popular Krishna became in India the more devotion went to Him the more He revealed Himself to the bhaktas. A process of gradually increasing reciprocal revelation, or something.

Seems reasonable. I like the idea of a gradual revelation, maybe one that is not yet complete. One might put Jagadbandhu in that context. Another step in the revelatory process. Bodo Baba and Ramdas Babaji and their followers seem to be adding to the revelation, too.

As to Theosophy and Anthroposophy (a Christian break-away movement of the Theosophy in Germany in 1913), that is mainly the story of the past and future evolution of Cosmos & Man as seen by them.
It takes hundreds of pages to get into their stories of root-races, earth rounds, manvantara's etc. but those stories might, symbolically, also be in the Mahabharata or the Bhagavata Purana. A good overview can be found in Geoffrey Barborka The Peopling of the Earth, TPH Wheaton IL 1975.

Yes, I tried to read some of this stuff last autumn. It is hard to wade through. I even considered using the abridged Secret Doctrine in my upcoming class on religion, but after looking it over, I decided it would be too puzzling for students. Instead I chose In Search of the Unitive Experience by Sy Ginsburg. It contains a number of Ashish Madhava's letters to Sy and some of his published essays.

In The Secret Doctrine Blavatsky was mainly interested in Tibetan Buddhism, in Isis Unveiled she based herself mainly on Wilson’s translation of the Vishnu Purana. Theosophy pretends to be the Truth & Science behind all religions.

Pretends? So you don't buy it?

The Stanzas of Dzyan (= dhyana) might be Kalacakra Tantra. Blavatsky called it the Kiu-te which was only in 1975 identified by Spierenburg to be the rGyud-sde (De zeven menselijke beginselen in het werk van H.P. Blavatsky en het Tibetaans Boeddhisme, Netherlands). That Kalacakra Tantra is available in every Tibetan Gelugpa library, but David Reigl says that it might be the missing or lost Mula Kalacakra Tantra. (Blavatsky’s Secret Books; Twenty Years’ Research, San Diego 1999). But none of the stanzas that Blavatsky quotes from the Book of Dzyan has so far been located in the abridged Kalacakra Tantra or in verses from the Mula Kalacakra Tantra quoted in other Buddhist writings.

Why the Kalacakra tantra I wonder? Can you give some of the evidence in its favor?

Interestingly, in 1927 Alice Leighton Cleather and Basil Crump issued a reprint of Blavatsky’s The Voice of the Silence under the auspices of the Chinese Buddhist Research Society in Peking. In their editorial foreword they state that they undertook the work at the request of the (ninth) Panchen Lama, ‘as the only true exposition in English of the Heart Doctrine of the Mahayana and its noble ideal of self-sacrifice for humanity’. The Panchen Lama contributed a brief message on the path of liberation.

I just read in Sri Krsnaprem that he used to read this book (The Voice of the Silence) out loud for the denizens of the ashrama.

I don’t think Krishna Prem knew it was Kalacakra Tantra. Madhava Asish (born Edinburgh 20 February 1920 as Alexander Phipps, died Mirtola, India 13 April 1997) was his initiated disciple who wrote in his introduction to Man, Son of Man (vol. 2 of Man, Measure of All Things):

“Man, the Measure of All Things, first published in 1966 shortly after Sri Krishna Prem's death, is the result of our joint efforts to revise the draft of a commentary he had written more than twenty years earlier. More than half of it is from the original manuscript, and the rest is my presentation of his ideas. The second part, we had agreed, needed complete re-writing; and we had worked out the general theme together before his death. But because the hand would be mine, he insisted, more out of kindliness than truthfulness, that it should appear under my name alone.”

Interesting. Guess I should look at those. I have his Yoga of the Gita and a library copy of the Yoga of the Katha Upanisad. Sri Krsnaprema also wrote articles that were published in the Theosophical journal called The Aryan Path. There is even one on nama-japa that I would like to see. I wonder what his take on the practice was.

A few months ago I read the two books of lectures of Rudolf Steiner on the Bhagavadgita. That was rather disappointing. He doesn’t know much about the East and he doesn’t care, but he does have some interesting theories about Krishna (which he thinks are completely true because he saw it with his clairvoyance). Now brace yourself, when you are not used to “esoteric truths” they may sound a bit quirky:

Krishna is supposed to be the twin soul of Adam. That soul was held back in the spiritual world while Adam (second Purusha?) was doing his thing…

Later Krishna came to the Earth to instruct Arjuna (and mankind) in such a way that humans could become free and independent individuals. Because of tribal consciousness that had not been possible before. The Gita also marks the end of the age of ancient clairvoyance. Now it is not innate anymore, you have to gain it by meditation.
That is the main function of Krishna as seen by Steiner.

Later when Christ was born Krishna also plays a role as a being a part of the constitution of Christ, together with the Buddha and Zoroaster.

This is an interesting fragment as an example, from his The Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of Paul:

“As Paul journeyed to Damascus, it was the Christ who appeared to him. The flood of light that enveloped him was Krishna. Because Christ took Krishna as his own soul sheath, through which he then continued to work, everything that once was the content of the sublime Gita streamed from him. So much in the revelations of the Testaments, even if in scattered fragments, comes from the ancient teaching of Krishna.
“But that teaching became something for all humanity because the Christ as such is not merely a human ego belonging to humankind, but belonging to the higher hierarchies. For this reason also, Christ belongs to those times when humanity was not yet separated from what now surrounds us as material existence, and when we were not yet enveloped in maya through our own luciferic temptation.
"A look back through the whole of evolution shows that in ancient times there was not yet that sharp division between the spiritual and the material. The material was still spiritual, and the spiritual—if we may put it so—was still manifesting itself outwardly.
"In the Christ impulse, something entered humanity that completely excluded such a sharp separation as existed in the Sankhya philosophy between purusha and prakriti, and for this reason, Christ became the leader in taking human beings out of themselves but also toward divine creation. Dare we say then that one must absolutely abandon maya when we recognize that it appears to have been given us through a fault of our own? No. For that would be a blasphemy against the spirit in the world. It would mean assigning to matter qualities that we imposed upon it ourselves under the veil of maya. Instead, we should much rather hope that when we conquer in ourselves that which caused matter to become maya, we may again be reconciled with the world.”

Quirky is a kind way of describing this. It is interesting though. So the basis for this is clairvoyance? How does one refute clairvoyance? Better clairvoyance? Seems unrefutable. We are at the mercy of Mr. Steiner.

What about Krishnamurti? I saw a reference to him as the mouthpiece of Lord Maitreya or Krsna. I read an excellent biography of him and it appears that on his death bed he too felt he had channeled a higher power through himself.

Anyway, thanks for all this information. It is much appreciated. Sorry, I did not take it seriously before.

[Deleted]

Jay Nitai,

By following same argument can we jump into the conclusion that Sri Bhugarbha and Sri Loknatha Goswami were odd character?

I think it is tough to follow your logic Nitai Das Ji. There are many inherent reasons possible for many unaccounted associates of Sriman Mahaprabhu in available biography.

BTW, I can recall vividly from my collection of Haridas Das Baba's writings he admitted Srila Prabodhananda and Srila Prakasananada are the same.

I hope you will find many interesting fact on Chaityana Chandramrita by Srila Probodhananda Swaraswati with Anandi's commentry published by Manindra Nath Guha.

You may also consult an excellent assessment and article by Jagatji about Prakashananada/Probodhananda Das Ji.

If you have not done it already I would recommend to read Chaitanya Chandramrita to understand Srila Probhodhananda Swarasati.

And that particular verse in the discussion can be explained in the view of "Rasika Bhubi Bhabuka" (who are adhikary of Bhagavata and in the opening speech of Bhagavata Sri Sukdev invited only them for entering the Kingdom of Rasa) to understand the significance of the "hell" word from their view point which may not that bad as we are understanding here.

It is all about perception. They might consider our situation / context/ chitta vritti is like hell compare to the Rasa Ananda they are enjoying, at the same time we might accept our situation as perfectly normal contrary to our understanding nature of "Hell".

Jay Nitai

[Nitaidas]

Nov 2, 2010 13:43:45 GMT -6 @subrata said:

Jay Nitai,

By following same argument can we jump into the conclusion that Sri Bhugarbha and Sri Loknatha Goswami were odd character?

I think it is tough to follow your logic Nitai Das Ji. There are many inherent reasons possible for many unaccounted associates of Sriman Mahaprabhu in available biography.

BTW, I can recall vividly from my collection of Haridas Das Baba's writings he admitted Srila Prabodhananda and Srila Prakasananada are the same.

I hope you will find many interesting fact on Chaityana Chandramrita by Srila Probodhananda Swaraswati with Anandi's commentry published by Manindra Nath Guha.

You may also consult an excellent assessment and article by Jagatji about Prakashananada/Probodhananda Das Ji.

If you have not done it already I would recommend to read Chaitanya Chandramrita to understand Srila Probhodhananda Swarasati.

And that particular verse in the discussion can be explained in the view of "Rasika Bhubi Bhabuka" (who are adhikary of Bhagavata and in the opening speech of Bhagavata Sri Sukdev invited only them for entering the Kingdom of Rasa) to understand the significance of the "hell" word from their view point which may not that bad as we are understanding here.

It is all about perception. They might consider our situation / context/ chitta vritti is like hell compare to the Rasa Ananda they are enjoying, at the same time we might accept our situation as perfectly normal contrary to our understanding nature of "Hell".

Jay Nitai

Good points, Subrataji. It is not quite the same with Bhugarbha and Lokanatha, because neither of them wrote anything. One would expect mutual references among writers especially if they were writing about the same things. Now, maybe there is some evidence in Prabodhananda's writings of references to Sri Rupa or Sanatana. I have not looked. But nothing from Prabodhananda in the Padyavali? Seems curious.

I read Haridas Das's essay on Prabodhananda in the Gaudiya Vaisnava Sahitya. That is where he says he regards them as two separate people and he also refers to his introduction to Prabodhananda's Ascarya-rasa-prabandha, where he apparently expresses the same view.. Maybe he changed his view later, but from what I read he sees them as different.

Yes, I am aware of Jagat's essay on the question. I don't think it holds much weight. He is just pretending to raise the question.

I also know that Manindra Nath Babu has discussed it in his introduction, but I have not read that yet. Somehow I don't exactly trust him to be unbiased. Still, I will look at his arguments and see if they have any merit.

We really shouldn't always be yes-men, Subrataji. The traditional writers are not always right, sad to say. Actually, it is not sad. They were just purusas like the rest of us, prone to purusa-dosas.

Whatever the words ghora-naraka refer to, the suggestion of Prabodhananda's that someone should perhaps not be rescued from that state is horrific and contrary to everything Mahaprabhu is about.

Also Haridas Das warns us in his introduction to his edition of the Vrndavana-mahimamrta that Prabodhananda says some things in the text that might be misconstrued. Specifically, Prabodhananda shows an indifference to misbehavior and the commission of sin in Vraja. He warns us not to think that Prabodhananda condoned those acts. But, who knows? Maybe he did. Whatever the case we should still not take those acts as models for our behavior.

Anyway, thanks for the info.

[Deleted]

Jai Nitai!

Wasn't Srila Prabodhananda Saraswati the uncle of Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami? Or was he a different Prabodhananda?

Anyway, I'm far from being a yes-woman. I have read all of the Vrindavan Mahimamrita, albeit in a faulty translation, and loved all of it. I enjoyed his other works, too. In fact, VM is one of my favorite granthas. In the VM, Srila Prabhodananda makes plenty of outlandish-sounding statements in praise of Vrindavan and Sri Radhe-Shyam.

I honestly do think Srila Prabodhananda meant his work for a small audience of mostly (gentle, kind-hearted) Vrajavasi bhajanandi mahatmas and those who wish to pursue a similar mood and not for prachar, unlike other works of the tradition which are more appropriate to present to society at large.

I may be wrong, of course, but this is my honest feeling about his writings. Thank you.

ys,
v

[Deleted]

-

[Nitaidas]

Nov 3, 2010 2:51:15 GMT -6 @bisakhadasi said:

Jai Nitai!

Wasn't Srila Prabodhananda Saraswati the uncle of Sri Gopal Bhatta Goswami? Or was he a different Prabodhananda?

Anyway, I'm far from being a yes-woman. I have read all of the Vrindavan Mahimamrita, albeit in a faulty translation, and loved all of it. I enjoyed his other works, too. In fact, VM is one of my favorite granthas. In the VM, Srila Prabhodananda makes plenty of outlandish-sounding statements in praise of Vrindavan and Sri Radhe-Shyam.

I honestly do think Srila Prabodhananda meant his work for a small audience of mostly (gentle, kind-hearted) Vrajavasi bhajanandi mahatmas and those who wish to pursue a similar mood and not for prachar, unlike other works of the tradition which are more appropriate to present to society at large.

I may be wrong, of course, but this is my honest feeling about his writings. Thank you.

ys,
v

That is also one theory. I looked a Sri Ananta Das Babaji's introduction to his edition/commentary of the Sri Radharasasudhanidhi. He identifies Prakasananda and Prabodhananda. I guess this is the standard CV position. He also argues for his authorship over that of Hita Harivamsa for the Rrsn, naturally. I guess we will never really know. Still, there is something odd about all of this. An author who makes outlandish and extremist statements, not mentioned in any of the standard texts of the tradition. No commentaries by the standard commentators. One of his texts under contention with another tradition. My critical scholar's mind suggests that this would be a good area for dissertation research. Maybe PS had problems with authority too.

Thanks for your input. In the unlikely event I ever reach that stage of development, I will reconsider the VM. It sounds like it really needs a good sober translation. Actually I have started looking at his Ascarya-rasa-prabandha already. I have Haridas Sastri's edition/translation and Puridas's excellent edition. I may even have Haridas Das' edition around here somewhere.

[gerard]

Nov 2, 2010 13:37:12 GMT -6 Nitaidas said:

What hard evidence is that for a "divine" any way? The experience of the mystics? Seems like a slim, fragile thread. No evidence? Just a leap of faith?

I started out in life as an atheist, as my parents. At age 17 I thought “atheism is really a dumb idea” but that doesn’t get you anywhere of course. I then read a lot of the literature of the mystics and the saints in the world and concluded that if just one of them is not hallucinating, the Divine must exist, and I made the leap of faith. And then started to look for ways to get there.

Why the Kalacakra tantra I wonder? Can you give some of the evidence in its favor?

Spierenburg wrote in 1975 that “kiu-te” is the same as “rGyud-sde”, meaning ‘tantra’ and which is pronounced the same way, only the spelling of the term foiled previous attempts to identify them. Spierenburg does not come up with the term Kalacakra Tantra.

Reigle writes in “Blavatsky’s Secret Books”, 1999:

“Since the positive identification of the Books of Kiu-te as the Tibetan Buddhist Tantras (rGyud-sde), I have long suspected that the "Book of Dzyan" from which the stanzas in The Secret Doctrine were translated may be the lost Mula (Root) Kalachakra Tantra. This for several reasons:

(1) The extant Laghu (Abridged) Kalachakra Tantra and its associated texts are always found placed first among the Books of Kiu-te (rGyud-sde) in any edition of the Buddha's Word, the Kangyur. Likewise, H. P. Blavatsky states that the Book of Dzyan "is the first volume of the Commentaries [themselves secret] upon the seven secret folios of Kiu-te, and a Glossary of the public works of the same name." It must here be added that the lost mula tantras are in fact explanatory and doctrinal, as noticed by D. L. Snellgrove based on quotations from the lost Mula Hevajra Tantra (some of these quotations are actually from the lost Mula Kalachakra Tantra) found in the Hevajrapindar-tika.

(2) The Kalachakra teaching is considered the special domain of the Panchen Lama and his monastery, Tashi-lhunpo, located adjacent to Shigatse, making that area the major center for Kalachakra studies in Tibet. The Mahatmas responsible for giving H. P. Blavatsky much of the material found in The Secret Doctrine are also known to have had their abodes in that locale.

(3) The Kalachakra doctrine is said by Indo-Tibetan tradition to have come directly from Shambhala, from which fact it is known as the "Teaching of Shambhala." Shambhala is also said in Theosophical literature to be the source of the Ageless Wisdom Teaching, of which The Secret Doctrine is a direct portion.

(4) The genesis of the world-system and its inhabitants is the subject of the first section of the Kalachakra Tantra, the only section which may be openly discussed. Likewise, cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis form the subject matter of The Secret Doctrine. Cosmological teachings do not have the same place in other Books of Kiu-te, such as the Chakrasamvara Tantra, the Guhyasamaja Tantra, etc.

(5) The term "Dzyan," as I have shown elsewhere, is a Tibetan phonetic rendering of the Sanskrit “Jnana," meaning wisdom, the result of dhyana, or meditation. “Jnana" is also the title of the fifth and last section of the Kalachakra Tantra, its most esoteric portion.”

***

Seems all rather circumstantial to me.

I have his Yoga of the Gita and a library copy of the Yoga of the Katha Upanisad. Sri Krsnaprema also wrote articles that were published in the Theosophical journal called The Aryan Path. There is even one on nama-japa that I would like to see. I wonder what his take on the practice was.

Krishna Prem did publish in The Aryan Path. His Gita commentary (as mentioned in his preface) was first published in that magazine 1935 – 1937. I went to the Theosophical Library yesterday (ten minutes on bicycle from my home) and checked the years they have of The Aryan Path, which was unfortunately only 1932 -1936. KP started to publish there in 1935.
But he didn’t only publish his Gita comm., but also critical book reviews. I found seven reviews in those two years, 1935-1936. He must have published many more, I suppose, but I didn't see anything on japa.

The reviews I found were of:

Aurobindo, Lights on Yoga, The Arya Publishing House, Calcutta.

Aurobindo, The Riddle of the World, The Arya Publising House, Calcutta.

Andrews, C.F. Sadhu Sundar Singh, A Personal Memoir, Hodder & Stoughton, London.

Brunton, Paul, A Search in Secret India, with a Foreword by Francis Younghusband, Rider & Co. London.

Brunton, Paul, The Secret Path, Rider & Co, London.

Bhagwan Sri Hamsa, The Holy Mountain, Translated by Purohit Swami from the Marathi, with an introduction by W.B. Yeats – and three photographic illustrations. Faber & Faber, London.

Deshmukh, P.S., The Origin and Development of Religion in Vedic Literature, Oxford UP.

I made photocopies of these reviews. I checked his book edition of his Gita comm. against these publications and the only differences are added notes and verse numbers in the margin and some transcription differences.

Quirky is a kind way of describing this.

This reaction of common people was another reason of keeping this kind of information secret, occult, esoteric, rahasya, paroksa, guhya ;D

What about Krishnamurti? I saw a reference to him as the mouthpiece of Lord Maitreya or Krsna.

Krishnamurti was “discovered” by C.W. Leadbeater. He saw K with his brother on the beach and was impressed by his beautiful aura. CWL was also clairvoyant of course. The Theosophical Society (Besant and Leadbeater) in Madras took K under their wing. K turned out to be a person without much character or personality. Later CWL started to train K to become the vehicle of the Maitreya Buddha. Maitreya was to "overshadow" Krishnamurti. In Theosophy there is not much difference between the Christ, Krishna or Maitreya, He is the Sun Logos. So Besant started to call K the new World Teacher and also the return of Christ.
This caused the split between dr Besant and dr Steiner. Steiner says that Christ returns only in an etherical way.
K found the training very painful and at last didn’t believe any more in Leadbeater and also left the Theosophical Society. In his last years he started to doubt that decision.

[madanmohandas]

Happy the man whom this world loves,
His wife adores, and society approves;
Happy next him who finds delight
In ease by day, sound sleep by night;
But, friend! if this be your ideal and need,
Vrndavana Mahimamrta do not read!

[Nitaidas]

Nov 4, 2010 16:14:58 GMT -6 madanmohandas said:

Happy the man whom this world loves,
His wife adores, and society approves;
Happy next him who finds delight
In ease by day, sound sleep by night;
But, friend! if this be your ideal and need,
Vrndavana Mahimamrta do not read!

Funny, madanmohanji. Is this your own creation? Does this mean that one cannot have one's wife and Krsna, too? A sad fate for all of those householding followers of Mahaprabhu. To say nothing of their wives!

[madanmohandas]

Yes this was my vyaja stuti after reading Vrndavan Mahimamrtam. It's in a similar vein to Rupa's admonition not to look at Govinda if you want to keep your friend's society. I think it can cause a certain apprehension in the mind. Certainly Prabodhananda's exhortations on vairagya and the abandonment of female company are meant for those who adopt the disciplines of that status. I like his boldness which borders on fanaticism at times and his illustrations of the lilas of Radha and Krsna are extraordinary. A happy fate for the householders is they can just enjoy reading and contemplating without concern for the rules of Sanyas. I don't think any sensible person would take Sanyas vows in this day and age.

[Nityānanda dāsa]

Radhe Radhe!

I'm not sure I should enter the discussion here on this thread about 'fundamentalism' as I really don't seem much of a scholar or learned personality, considering all that's been said thus far, but I want to present another element of fundamentalism for discussion...
Psychologically speaking, what is fundamentalism? I did a quick Google of the term and seems to me that 'fundamentalism' refers primarily to a very literal belief of a religious/spiritual tradition.
But why? Why be a fundamentalist? My perspective is that fundamentalism really is a cover for a lack of faith. It is the ultimate cause of 'groupthink' (see the novel '1984' by Orwell). And interestingly enough it seems to be the opposite of being 'broad-minded' which is one brahminical/sattvic quality, i.e. a quality to be cultivated. While I personally have seen too much fundamentalism in IGM, I'm sure it's everywhere. Even in CV. It is certainly in Christianity.
For example, fundamentalists are those folks who think that the inquisitions (of Christianity) were a good thing. They seem to think that Jesus was there with his arm around the shoulder of an inquisitor who was ripping apart a savage heathen with one of their torturous contraptions, that Jesus would be telling the inquisitor, "Pull harder! Pull harder!" As the heathen was literally being pulled apart screaming. How's that for a meditation?! :-D
I digress. But don't some ISKCON-ites think this way also?
So fundamentalism seems to be a great lack of faith. Which is also why fundamentalists are so vehemently condemning of those who leave their group. When someone leaves, it has the potential to shake their own very fragile faith and thus they have to violently condemn such a 'demon'. Or perhaps when their faith is broken, these are the ones who jump to their new group and are overly vocal about the travesties and faults of their prior group.
Seems to me that Sanatan Goswami's Brihat Bhagavatamrita describes the journey of one progressing from level to level, which can also be seen as group to group, on his way to Goloka Vrindavan. Gopa Kumar doesn't look back and criticize/condemn his prior places, but seems to have a respect for what they did for him in helping his progress (or maybe this is my speculation).
Anyway, that's all for my take on fundamentalism at the moment. But thinking about it a bit more, I do think that the novel 1984 was specifically written in one sense to battle the fundamentalist mindset.
Oh! And about Prabhodananda's text in question. Seems to me that his words could very well be poetic license. Does he really believe in hell?? (Condemnation, fire, and brimstone?) I don't know. But what's the point? The point seems to be that he loves Krsna and is trying to encourage others to do the same. I believe that Bhaktivinoda also supposedly denies the reality of the many hells described in the Bhagavatam. I'd say that was a very non-fundamental take on the Bhagavatam.
As Kali progresses, the fundamentalists seem to crystallize in their narrowness. Now not only do we have fundamental, literal insistence/belief of each and every possible mis-translation of the Bhagavatam, but we have those who are very literal believers/followers of people like Bhaktivedanta Swami and his predecessor. Kind of sad. But there will always be the cheaters and the cheated.
Jai Sri Radhe!

[Nityānanda dāsa]

Another point... some teachers seem to straddle the place between fundamental and non-fundamental. Taking a very literal stance on some things and a very liberal stance on others. Of course their followers don't know what to do with such contradictory messages and thus are lead to random rationalizations, justifications, and speculations moving forward. I think this is why Narottam Das Thakur advises the trifecta of Guru, Sadhu, and Sastra, rather than fundamental, sentimental, blind attachment to some charismatic personality's particular statement about one thing or another. I do find it so odd how people can become so emotionally attached to personalities that they're quick to deny murder, child abuse and other travesties. Not only is there guru, sadhu, and sastra, but that text mentions a fourth element as well and that is the 'hrida', one's own heart. So it's a fourfold checkpoint system. Maybe that makes it too subjective?? I don't know, but at least that is better than the very narrow fundamental, Bible-thumper or Gita-thumper perspectives.
And another angle...
Seems to me that there is quite a vast difference between the fundamentalist and the level-headed clear thinker when it comes to 'tradition'. Here's what the fundamentalist does (also most attorneys in the US operate off of this perspective as well)...
The fundamentalist takes each issue, like the origin of the jiva or the composure of the universe and has to literally cling to one specific angle of issues like these. Thus their vehement clinging leads to all kinds of dysfunction -- banning books, kicking people away who don't agree, making laws, etc. Basically they take these single statements as absolute truth (what to speak of the point that these ideas from foreign languages could very well be misconstrued, i.e. lost in translation). So they solidify their conclusion and look for other things to support it from their. Their truth is solidified and then they look to support it after the fact.
This is the opposite of scientific or thoughtful. [Oops! I said the 's' word :-D] An independently thoughtful person won't take such a hard stance on a particular single statement as absolute. Rather they will look to other sources to see if such a perspective is supported, rather than visa versa. They ask, "Is there other evidence to support this perspective? Is there evidence denying it or contrary to it?" And they proceed from there. See the difference.
Just like an attorney may very well know that their client is guilty, but they are paid to prove his innocence. That's where you get all the smoke and mirrors, logical fallacies, etc.

[meeno8]

Fundamentalism is always a danger with any texts that are not in the vein of college chemistry text books. When we were at Haridas Navatirtha Shastri Baba's mandir in Vrindavan in 1980, my guru-bhai, Jagannath, asked him about taking things literally. Baba's reply was that one must see that there are many levels of meaning implied. He provided the example that Ravana's being depicted as having 10 heads and 20 arms is just a metaphor for his being highly intelligent and very strong.