The search goes on

"The search for Sri Krishna: Reality the Beautiful" is a book by Bhakti Raksaka Srila Sridhara Deva Goswami (a.k.a. Srila Sridhar and countless other aliases), the founder of the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math. The message of this organization is based on Gaudiya Vaishnavism, a charismatic-ascetic movement within Hinduism centred on worship of Krishna as the Supreme Personality of the Godhead. Gaudiya Vaishnavism was launched by the 16th century Hindu saint Sri Chaitanya. Today, there are several different groups preaching and practising this particular form of Hinduism.

Srila Sridhar's organization is similar to the more well-known ISKCON or Hare Krishna movement. While the Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math doesn't consider itself to be in opposition to the ISKCON, they do implicitly claim to be "higher up" in the Gaudiya Vaishnava hierarchy, pointing out (or claiming) that ISKCON's founder Prabhupada considered Srila Sridhar to be his guru. Indeed, one of the articles reprinted in this book is a paean by Prabhupada in honour (and obeisance) to Sridhar.

The rest of the book is standard "Hare Krishna" fare. Srila Sridhar is often quite outspoken, as when he says that Krishna is an autocrat standing above the Law, that reforming society or stopping World War III is pointless since everybody will end up dead anyway in this vale of tears, that all other forms of religion should be subordinated to Krishna consciousness, which is "the zenith of theism", and so on. However, he gracefully concedes that not everyone can reach the highest form of God-realization at once, and that different stages on the road might be necessary for most people. It seems that Christianity can play the role of such a stage. In contrast to his rogue disciple Prabhupada, Srila Sridhar doesn't talk that much about the Moon landing, evolution or Christ and Krishna being the same person. In a sense, this sounds like Krishna consciousness without the Downstate Californian addenda!

Srila Sridhar's criticism of Christianity strikes me as weak, even apart from the "Christian students" asking him questions not being very critical. The siksa-guru is too orthodox to claim Jesus as just another avatar of Vishnu or Krishna, which I think is the usual strategy of modern Hinduism. Essentially, Sridhar has two criticisms of Christianity. One is that it has a nebulous conception of God. Here, the author is presumably referring to the Father as he is portrayed in the New Testament. However, virtually all Christian groups centre their worship on Jesus Christ, who is anything but nebulous. Christ and Krishna are about equally "personal". The second critique is that Jesus is seen as static, rather than an evolving soul. This criticism doesn't hit home either, since Christians consider Jesus to be perfect, in the same manner as Gaudiya Vaishnavas consider Krishna to be perfect. Srila Sridhar believes that Jesus is evolving to Krishna consciousness!

But then, trying to make out which religion is the "true" one might be somewhat difficult...

I'm not sure how to rate this "search for Reality the Beautiful", so I give it the standard OK rating (three stars).

BTW, I actually read this book in a Swedish translation!