A fellow Vaisnava wrote to me, asking about the flavor of Gaudiya Vaisnavism I followed since joining the Gaudiya Kutir. (Not that the Kutir is a movement to join!) He understood, reading my profile and the faq page at the Kutir's website, that there must be a fair deal of plurality among the Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition, and wanted to hear more. Here's what ensued.

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I do have a history with both ISKCON and Gaudiya Matha. I haven't really joined Gaudiya Kutir as such, inasmuch as my being one of the founding members of the Kutir doesn't count. But let me be clear in that Gaudiya Kutir is not a movement or a mission one would join to begin with, unlike one might for example join ISKCON or Gaudiya Matha. Gaudiya Kutir is an organization founded for advancing pan-Gaudiya interests. It is not a branch of the tree as such, it's more of a gardener's tool, or a fresh load of fertilizer thrown in to help the tree grow.

But yes, I have received initiation from a Gaudiya Vaisnava guru outside of ISKCON. I am initiated by 108 Sri Ananta dasa Babaji Maharaja, the current mahanta of Radha-kunda and as such the 34th holder of Sri Raghunatha dasa Gosvami's post, and one of the most substantial and respected devotional scholars in contemporary Gaudiya Vaisnavism.

There is much, much diversity out there among the broad Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition. I wouldn't know where to start describing such a broad topic, would you not happen to have any more specific questions to start with? There are substantial differences both among the diverse GV branches spread across India, between them and ISKCON & Gaudiya Matha, as well as between ISKCON and Gaudiya Matha, and even between different sub-groups within ISKCON, and even more so within the Gaudiya Matha. While some of the diverging views are not great enough to have caused division, some others have led to long-standing friction between different branches of our tradition. Frictions have been particularly prominent among and around groups founded by charismatic leaders where reform and re-establishment of "the truth" have significantly featured in the group's carrying spirit.

As a general observation, I might note that Gaudiya Matha, and more so ISKCON, are practically more "modernized" in that they have attempted to tailor their presentation so as to cater to a Western audience, and as such both their philosophical emphases as well as their praxis have evolved from the more traditional forms of Gaudiya Vaisnavism available in India. Some differences are there also on account of their spirit of attempting to reform what they perceive have been shortcomings in the older tradition's ability to represent Mahaprabhu's aims — which is, it goes without saying, a fairly complex theme to explore with all the myriads of interpretations and all the subjectivity that is involved in making such assessments.

A skilled sadhaka will know how to harvest the essence of what makes devotion flourish from wherever it is that Sri Caitanya's mercy has been sprinkled, regardless of external and even substantial disagreements that may be there between one's so-called "own" branch and the rest of the Gaudiya Vaisnava landscape. Love for what Sri Caitanya brought gives one the talent of being able to recognize and admire his gifts of grace in even the remotest and unlikely places.