Of course, in the categories of mystic perfection there are certain processes which the material scientists have not yet been able to develop. For instance, a mystic yogī can enter into the sun planet simply by using the rays of the sunshine. This perfection is called laghimā. Similarly, a yogī can touch the moon with his finger. Though the modern astronauts go to the moon with the help of spaceships, they undergo many difficulties, whereas a person with mystic perfection can extend his hand and touch the moon with his finger. This siddhi is called prāpti, or acquisition. With this prāpti-siddhi, not only can the perfect mystic yogī touch the moon planet, but he can extend his hand anywhere and take whatever he likes. He may be sitting thousands of miles away from a certain place, and if he likes he can take fruit from a garden there. This is prāpti-siddhi.
Astronaut
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 2
Modern enterprisers (the astronauts who travel in space) may take information from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that in space there are fourteen divisions of planetary systems. The situation is calculated from the earthly planetary system, which is called Bhūrloka. Above Bhūrloka is Bhuvarloka, and the topmost planetary system is called Satyaloka. These are the upper seven lokas, or planetary systems. And similarly, there are seven lower planetary systems, known as Atala, Vitala, Sutala, Talātala, Mahātala, Rasātala and Pātāla lokas. All these planetary systems are scattered over the complete universe, which occupies an area of two billion times two billion square miles. The modern astronauts can travel only a few thousand miles away from the earth, and therefore their attempt to travel in the sky is something like child's play on the shore of an expansive ocean. The moon is situated in the third status of the upper planetary system, and in the Fifth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam we shall be able to know the distant situation of the various planets scattered over the vast material sky. There are innumerable universes beyond the one in which we are put, and all these material universes cover only an insignificant portion of the spiritual sky, which is described above as sanātana Brahmaloka. The Supreme Lord very kindly invites the intelligent human beings to return home, back to Godhead, in the following verse of the Bhagavad-gītā (8.16):
- ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ
- punar āvartino 'rjuna
- mām upetya tu kaunteya
- punar janma na vidyate
Beginning from Satyaloka, the topmost planet of the universe, situated just below the eternal Brahmaloka, as described above, all the planets are material. And one's situation in any of the many material planets is still subject to the laws of material nature, namely birth, death, old age and disease. But one can get complete liberation from all the above-mentioned material pangs when one enters into the eternal Brahmaloka sanātana atmosphere, the kingdom of God. Therefore liberation, as contemplated by the speculative philosophers and the mystics, is possible only when one becomes a devotee of the Lord. Anyone who is not a devotee cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Only by attainment of a service attitude in the transcendental position can one enter into the kingdom of Godhead. Therefore the speculative philosophers, as well as the mystics, must first of all be attracted to the devotional cult before they can factually attain liberation.
The so-called material scientist says that he would need to live forty thousand years to reach the highest planet of the universe, being carried by a sputnik. This is also utopian because no one can be expected to live forty thousand years. Besides, when the space pilot returned from his travel, none of his friends would be present to receive him back as the greatest astronaut, as has become fashionable for modern bewildered scientific men. One scientific man, who had no belief in God, was very much enthusiastic in making plans for his material existence and therefore opened a hospital to save the living. But after opening the hospital, he himself died within six months. So one should not spoil his human life, species of life, simply for the concocted material happiness of life through increasing artificial needs in the name of advancement of economic development and scientific knowledge. Rather, one should simply surrender unto the feet of the Lord to make a solution to all miseries of life.
In the upper planetary system the duration of one complete day and night is equal to one complete year of this earth. This is accepted even by the modern scientist and attested by the astronauts. Similarly, in the region of still higher planetary systems the duration of day and night is still greater than in the heavenly planets. The four yugas are calculated in terms of the heavenly calendars and accordingly are twelve thousand years in terms of the heavenly planets. This is called a divya-yuga, and one thousand divya-yugas make one day of Brahmā. The creation during the day of Brahmā is called kalpa, and the creation of Brahmā is called vikalpa. When vikalpas are made possible by the breathing of Mahā-viṣṇu, this is called a mahā-kalpa. There are regular and systematic cycles of these mahā-kalpas, vikalpas and kalpas.
SB Canto 4
It is said, yānti deva-vratā devān: persons who worship the demigods are elevated to the heavenly planets (BG 9.25). But elsewhere in Bhagavad-gītā (9.21) we find, kṣīṇe puṇye martya-lokaṁ viśanti: those who are elevated to the higher planetary systems must come down again as soon as the results of their pious activities are exhausted. They are like the modern astronauts who go to the moon; as soon as their fuel is used up, they are obliged to come back down to this earth. As the modern astronauts who go to the moon or other heavenly planets by force of jet propulsion have to come down again after exhausting their fuel, so also do those who are elevated to the heavenly planets by force of yajñas and pious activities. Antakāsi-lulitāt: by the sword of time one is cut from his exalted position within this material world, and he comes down again. Dhruva Mahārāja appreciated that the results of devotional service are far more valuable than merging into the Absolute or being elevated to the heavenly planets.
The airplane was piloted by the two chief associates of Lord Viṣṇu, namely Sunanda and Nanda. Only such spiritual astronauts can pilot their airplane beyond the seven planets and arrive in the region of eternal blissful life. It is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā also (paras tasmāt tu bhāvo 'nyaḥ (BG 8.20)) that beyond this planetary system begins the spiritual sky, where everything is permanent and blissful. The planets there are known as Viṣṇuloka or Vaikuṇṭhaloka. Only there can one get an eternal blissful life of knowledge. Below Vaikuṇṭhaloka is the material universe, where Lord Brahmā and others in Brahmaloka can live until the annihilation of this universe; but that life is not permanent. That is also confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (ābrahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ).
In dreams we sometimes see things that we have never experienced in the present body. Sometimes in dreams we think that we are flying in the sky, although we have no experience of flying. This means that once in a previous life, either as a demigod or astronaut, we flew in the sky. The impression is there in the stockpile of the mind, and it suddenly expresses itself. It is like fermentation taking place in the depths of water, which sometimes manifests itself in bubbles on the water's surface. Sometimes we dream of coming to a place we have never known or experienced in this lifetime, but this is proof that in a past life we experienced this. The impression is kept within the mind and sometimes becomes manifest either in dream or in thought. The conclusion is that the mind is the storehouse of various thoughts and experiences undergone during our past lives.
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta
CC Adi-lila
The best plan is to prepare oneself to return to the spiritual sky after leaving the body. However, if one is intent on enjoying material facilities, one can transfer himself to other planets in the material sky by utilizing yogic powers. The playful spaceships of the astronauts are but childish entertainments and are of no use for this purpose. The aṣṭāṅga-yoga system is a materialistic art of controlling air by transferring it from the stomach to the navel, from the navel to the heart, from the heart to the collarbone, from there to the eyeballs, from there to the cerebellum and from there to any desired planet. The velocities of air and light are taken into consideration by the material scientist, but he has no information of the velocity of the mind and intelligence. We have some limited experience of the velocity of the mind because in a moment we can transfer our minds to places hundreds of thousands of miles away. Intelligence is even finer.
Other Books by Srila Prabhupada
Nectar of Devotion
Lectures
Philosophy Discussions
Prabhupāda: Bolo... (Bengali—to Svarūpa Dāmodara)
Svarūpa Dāmodara: The age of the rocks, by determining by scientific techniques, find how old the rock (indistinct) is, and how correct it is. So I asked (indistinct) of this department, Professor Roland, and he told me that (indistinct) such and such, I mean the rocks coming from the moon, brought by astronauts. They calculate that by this (indistinct) technique, they find that they are about three to fourteen million years old, these rocks from the moon, the moon samples. But that does not give the real age of the rocks. He told me that what you call the age means how long that crystal... For example they tried to find out the crystals like iridium and strontium crystals, that the method that they use is strontium iridium technique and so he told me that the age, this age, about three times three billion years old, that means that crystal containing that iridium model has crystallized for that long year, that gives the age.
Svarūpa Dāmodara: Another example is lot of these astronauts going to the moon, and sometimes they are afraid, they call the transition from the earth's gravitational force and the moon's gravitational force, there is a layer, this transition from one to another it is very critical. So they said that when the, these rockets or these Apollo instruments either go up or go down, they have to go to a certain angle, very specific, and if the angle is slightly changed, so they'll be either circulating the moon or either they'll be circulating the earth. They'll never be able to come down or go up, but they'll be floating like... There's no control.
Prabhupāda: Without any control.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1968 Conversations and Morning Walks
Reporter: Do you think that the, say astronauts that would land on the moon, do you think they would encounter any difficulty in going about and doing what they wanted to and then leaving?
Prabhupāda: The first thing is that according to our knowledge from the Vedic literature they cannot go there.
Reporter: But you admitted that it may be possible for them to go there for a short time and leave.
Prabhupāda: That I am taking this example just like we go for a short time on the sea but we cannot make any permanent settlement there.
Reporter: Yeah. But according to the Vedic literature they cannot go there.
Reporter: Would a spacesuit substitute for that?
Prabhupāda: Space?
Reporter: In other words, the spacesuits that the astronauts wear...
Prabhupāda: I don't think so. I don't think so. Spacesuits are...
Reporter: You see I'm a little confused because I can't tell whether you feel that based on Vedic literature, that you said it may be possible for them to land and to return for a short visit, yet you say they cannot go with this body.
Prabhupāda: Yes. I say also this, that to land there you must have the specific body suitable for that place.
Reporter: To land there you must have...
Prabhupāda: For entering that moon planet... That is your statement, but I say that spacesuit is not suitable for entering into the...
Reporter: If I think the spacesuit is suitable and, say, if I am an astronaut and I land there, I can land there?
Prabhupāda: If it is suitable. First thing that if it is suitable you can land. But to my opinion it is not suitable. Therefore you cannot land.
Reporter: Well... So then you are not saying then that it would be impossible for...
Prabhupāda: That I never say. I say in the beginning that in order to enter moon planet you have to get a suitable type of body. That suitable type of body is not that spacesuit. Therefore the conclusion is that you cannot enter with this spacesuit. Is it clear?
Prabhupāda: Why? I don't support you. I say that you cannot enter. You are supporting me. You say that I have no ticket, therefore I could not enter.
Reporter: And these astronauts did not have the ticket...
Prabhupāda: Therefore my statement is that you cannot enter in this way, therefore you support me. What do you think? Huh?
Hayagrīva: They haven't been able to enter yet.
Prabhupāda: Therefore they haven't got the ticket. Even going near sixty miles, still they could not enter. So they are supporting my statement. Whether you admit or not, this? If they could not enter even being off sixty miles, then my statement is strongly supported, that you cannot enter. You go, you went there sixty miles up to, just off sixty miles; still you could not.
Reporter: What I'm saying is that if astronauts were able to land and return to the earth successfully...
Prabhupāda: What is that successful?
Reporter: I would predict that you would not feel that there was... Would you then interpret it that they were able to get the visa or to...
Prabhupāda: No, if you go and land there and come back, that may be a pleasant thing for you, but we don't think it is a very nice thing. If I go in New York border and see and come back and I am not allowed to enter, why should I take so much trouble? It is useless trouble.
1972 Conversations and Morning Walks
Jayatīrtha: When I was in Chicago, the one section where the temple is close by, more than sixty percent of the people were heroin addicts in this one section. They were so much degraded. (indistinct conversation) I was reading in the newspaper that the astronauts that are going to the moon, they wanted to take wine with them, so that when they got to the moon they could celebrate their victory.
Prabhupāda: There is a story, (Sanskrit). One man said to his friend, "Oh, you are drinking. You will go to hell." "Oh, my father is also drinking." "Oh, he will also go to hell." "My mother is drinking." "Oh, she will also go to hell." "My brother is drinking." "Oh, he will also go to hell." In this way, the last fellow was, "Oh, everyone is going to hell, then hell is heaven. Why do you say hell? We shall live together and drink. Why do you call hell? This is heaven." (laughter)
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Svarūpa Dāmodara: That is why they were very careful. When the astronauts from the moon, when they come back on the surface of the planet, they thought there might be some germs which they do not know yet. So they put it in quarantine for several days, to make sure that they are...
Prabhupāda: First of all make sure whether he had gone there, and then talk of all these things. (laughing) I am not sure they are going there.
Kṛṣṇa-Kāntī: You know they made another blunder.
Prabhupāda: That's all right. What is that?
Kṛṣṇa-Kāntī: They made a spaceship that they wanted to orbit around the earth so that they could send men and ship an outpost.
1974 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Now, because he is not surrendered soul to Kṛṣṇa, so he is suffering from time immemorial, and nobody can say how long he will suffer. He will go on suffering. It cannot stop. Therefore Kṛṣṇa says, mūḍha: "Rascal." Na māṁ prapadyante mūḍhāḥ (BG 7.15). He does not know, by simply surrendering to Kṛṣṇa, everything will be nice. That he does not know. And if you advise, he will not accept. matir na kṛṣṇe parataḥ svato vā. That is explained by Prahlāda Mahārāja, that "These rascals who have got this idea that 'By adjustment, we shall be happy in this material world,' they will never understand what is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They will never understand because their aim is..." That picture we gave in Back to Godhead, anchor? Yes. Their anchor is to remain here and enjoy. That is their main disease. They do not... Just like the Russian astronaut has gone so high, he was seeing, "Where is Moscow?" The anchor is there in the Moscow. Therefore he has to come down. Āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adho 'nādṛta-yuṣmad-aṅghrayaḥ (SB 10.2.32). So everyone wants to keep this anchor of this material attachment. They say that "Yes, I am ready to accept Kṛṣṇa consciousness, provided Kṛṣṇa gives us so many material..." Just like in Germany.
Prabhupāda: No, many other rascals are going also. And Indian rascals are supporting that, "Oh, now science is so advanced. Now there is no question of this Bhagavad-gītā. Now we have to go to the moon planet."
Dr. Patel: That, that... I told you that story? Those astronauts who have gone on... (break) I have read it.
Prabhupāda: The astronautics...
Chandobhai: It is so said like that. The astronauts, they were all talking of philosophy only and nothing else, after coming from Moon.
Prabhupāda: The astronautics... That Russian... Even Nehru went to receive. Just see, such a rascal minister we have. An astronaut is to be received. (break)
Dr. Patel: All astronauts...
Dr. Patel: All astronauts...
Prabhupāda: ...he was received by Nehru? Eh?
Dr. Patel: Might have. All astronauts, they have got no sex desire. All of them. (break)
Prabhupāda: ...still asiddha... So do you mean to say by avoiding sex life one becomes siddha?
Dr. Patel: That is what they do, but that is what...
Prabhupāda: That is your standard?
Dr. Patel: ...as far as sex is concerned, they are siddhas.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: They could not mix in this planet, they are going to mix in another planet.
Srutakirti: They'll probably have some argument in outer space. The astronauts will get into a fight.
Prabhupāda: The rascal could not compromise here, they're going in the sky. All mental concoction.
Gaṇeśa: They actually have never got to the moon.
Prabhupāda: Eh?
Amogha: He says did they actually get to the moon or not?
Prabhupāda: Yes, they are not qualified. Even in this planet, unless one is bona fide, he is not allowed to enter America. How you can go to the moon planet? That is demigods' planet.
Harikeśa: Some of the astronauts became very religious after they supposedly went.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they are intelligent, that "This is all nonsense. Real thing is God." That is... They come to their senses. They are intelligent. (break) (In car:) ...real business is to enhance your Kṛṣṇa consciousness. These people, they are wasting time simply to know something else. There is no limit. Kliśyanti ye kevala-bodha-labdhaye. What is moon planet? What business you have got to know the...? Whatever is stated in the śāstra, accept it, that's all. What is the use of experiment and going there and then again say, "Oh, it is all failure."
Dharmādhyakṣa: There's this psychology book, and he says that the light spectrum is this long, and that we can see this much of the spectrum of energy. Very nice, this book makes many points that agree with Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy.
Bahulāśva: So, Prabhupāda, you say that these astronauts have gone to the Rahu planet.
Prabhupāda: Yes, they might. That is also very difficult.
Bahulāśva: I was trying to arrange a meeting between Your Divine Grace and this astronaut, Dr. Mitchell, and also this other famous scientist, Werner von Braun. But they are on the east coast at this time, so they couldn't come. But they both wrote nice letters that they would like to meet you if they could be in California at the same time.
Prabhupāda: They say? It is simply cheating. They found this in Arizona, somebody... (laughter) And laboratory work.
Bahulāśva: I have been trying to arrange a meeting between Your Divine Grace and that astronaut. He was going to come to Rathayātrā, but he had to go to Florida for some space project.
Prabhupāda: What does he say, astronaut?
Bahulāśva: He says that... His name is Edgar Mitchell, and he was one of the men who went to the moon. But we talked, and he said... He thinks he has gone to the moon. But he said that when he was there, he had a religious experience, and he felt that there was a God. When he went to the moon, he had this experience. So when he came back, he was telling all his scientist friends what his experience was. So they became very afraid, and they kicked him out of the space project. They thought he had become a fanatic, religious sentimentalist, so they kicked him out.
Prabhupāda: So therefore if I say that they did not go to the moon, how they can support?
Harikeśa: They cannot prove. They are so clever and sophisticated with their nonsense, they can even make the astronauts believe...
Prabhupāda: Therefore I asked you to ask them, "Why Sunday first and Monday next?"
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: It's very conceivable that they could have tricked everyone. They simply have a video. They go up in a space ship around. They simply show a film from the space ship back to the earth, how they were practicing in the Arizona desert and they collected some rocks and took it with them. It's very easy.
Harikeśa: Sanka dāsa, you know, in Bombay? He was in the CIA. And they..., when he was in Vietnam, they knocked him out one day and they brought him to a dentist and they took out three of his teeth, and they put in these little transistors. And these little transistors were connected to his brain. And they would talk to him and make him do things by speaking into these transistors into his brain. And if he ever said anything wrong..., like he was not supposed to reveal secrets. And if he ever revealed a secret, they would try to kill him by making a signal go to his brain, and they can explode his brain. So conceivably they can trick the astronauts completely like that by putting things and making them think like they went to the moon.
Prabhupāda: Śaṅkara dāsa?
Harikeśa: So there was one scene in which they are looking out and seeing all of these, this fight going on inside the blood, and the one scientist inside the machine said, "How can they say there is no God?"
Brahmānanda: Even when the American astronauts went up, they brought a Bible with them, and when they saw the earth, how wonderful it was...
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: And they didn't make it to the moon.
Brahmānanda: ...they quoted from the Bible about how wonderful the creation of God is, how He has made it.
Prabhupāda: And only they saw the moon planet is... There is no living entity. Why God made the moon planet? To keep it vacant? Full of dust?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Harikeśa: So it went through the air, it went through the space, sounds.
Prabhupāda: The moon (astronaut) says that "There is no life." Then who is speaking? Nonsense. (laughter) They talk in the moon, and they hear from here, and "There is no life." And we have to take these authorities. (laughter)
Akṣayānanda: I remember once you said that we may not live in the water but that doesn't mean there's no such thing as a fish.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Akṣayānanda: So that is also a very good argument. I remember you gave that one.
Harikeśa: So the air is coming from the ether, so...
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Duskrtino mūḍhaḥ. Anyone commits sin, he is a rascal. Ordinarily also. A person kills somebody—that means he is rascal. He is rascal. He does not care for the law. That means rascal. So any sinful man is a rascal. Without being rascal, one cannot commit sin.
Devotee: Last week in Bombay, Śrīla Prabhupāda, an American astronaut that went to the moon, they asked him if he experienced God or he felt some help from God in his trip. And he said, "No, I had no religious experience. God must have gone the other way."
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Gurukṛpā: Which way was that?
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: He said that when he...
Devotee: He went to the moon.
Prabhupāda: That is a fact. Beyond this material universe, very, very far away.
Hrdayananda: But another astronaut who went, he had religious experience, and after coming back he became missionary.
Prabhupāda: That is natural.
Sudāmā: Another astronaut went insane.
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Sudāmā: And another astronaut went insane, like a madman.
Prabhupāda: Hm. What was the reason?
Rāmeśvara: He says although.... Prabhupāda says although he's not feeling aged, the effect of age is there.
Reporter: When I interviewed you perhaps five or six years ago, it was before there were reports of the astronauts landing on the moon, and I asked you at that time if you thought, what you thought about it, and you said that, as I recall, that they would not be able to land or explore, because spirits or creatures that lived on the moon would not allow it. The reports of course said that indeed people did land and explore and return safely. I understand you have further thoughts about that (laughter) and you've even written a lot about it. I wonder if you could tell me, not at great length perhaps, but what your belief about those events is.
Prabhupāda: Yes. From the.... That question I was discussing the other day. In the common sense, gross sense, that all over the world, they accept Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, in this way Saturday last. So why these arrangement? Sunday first and Monday second, and nobody could reply it. But as a layman I can conclude that Sun planet is first and the moon planet is next. So if you cannot go to the sun planet, which is ninety-three million miles away, how you can go to the moon planet within four days? Nobody could answer me. Can you answer?
Reporter: Do you, in other words, do you believe that astronauts landed somewhere?
Prabhupāda: That is next question. First of all, whether you actually went to the moon, that is the first question. You have to conclude that you did not, because the sun planet is first, the moon planet is second. You cannot go to the sun planet, ninety-three millions of miles, how can you go to the moon planet?
Reporter: Well, except that...
Prabhupāda: According to our śāstra, the moon planet is above the sun planet, and the distance is 1,600,000 miles. So accepting that the sun is 93,000,000 miles away, then you add another 1,600,000, almost 2,000,000, it becomes 15,000,000 miles away. So if you go at the speed of 18,000 miles per hour, it takes more than 6 months. So how you go there in 4 days? And you advertise in the paper: "Now, they have reached." After 4 days.
Prabhupāda: Why this arrangement: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday? There is some system. The system is, just like first, second, third, fourth. So it is naturally concluded the moon planet is next to the sun planet.
Reporter: Do you feel—maybe you answered this, but I didn't understand the answer—do you feel that astronauts did land somewhere, but it was some other planet?
Prabhupāda: That may be. Or it may not be also.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: What about that sometimes people ask us what about the pictures of man on the moon?
Rāmeśvara: They show man in a spacesuit walking on some other planet.
Prabhupāda: That is also, what is called, argumentative. Somebody says it is arbitrary arrangement.
Prabhupāda: So how he can understand? He's a fool. How he can understand? (break) ...into the moon planet, what does he understand about water there? There are so many millions and trillions of planets. How he can understand what is there?
Devotee (1): Where did the astronauts go?
Prabhupāda: They'll go to hell (laughter). To pick up some sand, as if sand is not there.
Sadāpūta: Śrīla Prabhupāda, is māyā especially empowering the scientists to come up with nonsense?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Sadāpūta: It is all coming from Kṛṣṇa, though, isn't it?
Prabhupāda: So you should not remain under the laws of material nature. Daivī hy eṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14). It is very difficult.
Bill Sauer: In one of the cover letters that went out to some of the people in the American Institute of the Aeronautics and Astronautics, I referred to mankind as a biological phenomenon to solve one of nature's big problems. And a man wrote back, "Anyone who calls man a biological phenomenon shouldn't try and talk to me." So I don't know what he thinks we are, but...
Prabhupāda: Biological phenomenon...
Bill Sauer: It is nature, it is governed by the laws of nature, exactly.
Prabhupāda: They cannot settle up their misunderstanding here. By going to the moon planet, they'll do it.
Hari-śauri: That's one thing that they said they were going to do, actually. They had some Russian astronauts and some American astronauts, and they had them meet in space, and then they joined their spaceships together and then they had a meal together and did some experiments, and then they left again. So that was very much acclaimed as bringing the two nations closer together.
Prabhupāda: We are afraid of these two classes of rascals. "Afraid of" means we don't want their association. It is very dangerous.
Pradyumna: You said in the Bhāgavatam just that, that we are afraid of the materialistic men.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Hari-śauri: Oh, scientists.
Prabhupāda: Acchā. And you said that they are drinking their own urine?
Hari-śauri: Yes. The astronauts.
Prabhupāda: It is a fact?
Rāmeśvara: Yes. They recycled it.
Hari-śauri: They recycled it. After they passed urine, they put it through a machine that was supposed to purify it, and then they could drink it again.
Prabhupāda: And still, they have to go to the Mars. Just see how degraded they have become. By drinking urine, they are going to Mars and bringing report, all false propaganda to keep the prestige of the scientists.
Prabhupāda: No. They say they have gone from the paper. We say from the paper they have not gone. Then where is the difference? We have got our paper; they have got their paper. They say they have gone. Nobody has gone with them. I have not gone. They have not gone. They say from the paper.
Hari-śauri: Well, they'll produce so many astronauts.
Prabhupāda: Third-class, third-class newspaper, and we have got the knowledge.
Hari-śauri: They'll produce so many astronauts who'll say, "Yes, I was there on the moon. I went."
Prabhupāda: So that is foolish action of that...? Some witness, drunkard witness for the liquor men. This is their own philosophy. Anyway, they'll produce some, what is called? Aeronauts. But still I have not gone. You are still hearing from a third person.
Prabhupāda: No, no, that we hearsay, and you also hearsay. Then were is the difference? I hearsay from Bhāgavata, you hearsay from astronaut. The position is, your position and my..., the same. If you don't believe me, why shall I believe you? You are not in better position. It has been proved that many cheater scientists and many doctors, cheaters. Why shall I believe you?
Hari-śauri: But there are thousands of men working on the space program. There are thousands of men working on the space program.
Prabhupāda: So thousands of men reading our Bhāgavata. No, many.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: If numbers is proof, we have more.
Prabhupāda: "Probably." Everything "probably."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: It says here, "There is thick dust covering and no evidence to suggest that the moon has ever supported life." In that newspaper article the man who is exposing them said—because they say it is covered by dust—"How is it that no dust is shown on the astronauts' suits when they walked around?" He says, "If there's such a thick dust, then, when the rocket landed, it would have made a pocket within that dust." He says, "But there's no crater around the rocket. Then how it is possible that these things are like that?" 'Cause actually they forgot. When they were making the stage setting in Arizona, they forgot these things.
Yaśodā-nandana: One argument Your Divine Grace gave in 1971 was that if they went to the moon and they found it was rock, how do they explain the moon is so shiny and gives such a cooling effect? They cannot explain that.
Prabhupāda: And paper plate.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I always use the example that whenever a great personality in the Vedic time, when Kṛṣṇa was there, whenever..., there was shower of flowers from the demigods. Now, when the astronauts went, they throw confetti.
Prabhupāda: Where they went? All bogus.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And they were rewarded by people throwing cut-up newspaper on their heads. That's considered a great... When someone gets this... It's called ticker-tape parade.
Prabhupāda: Purposely the Western money has been taken. What is the meaning of?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I think Jayādvaita has called their number in the Back to Godhead article: demons. Right out he calls them demons.
Correspondence
1969 Correspondence
I was just this morning asking Purusottama to inform you of increasing the publication of Issue #26 because the article, "Beyond the Universe," is very interesting. In the present atmosphere of space exploration this kind of article will be much appreciated, and people will know that we are not sentimentalists. Our background is solid, scientific and authorized. Actually, the modern astronauts are trying to reach the moon planet, and even if they reach there they cannot live there; and even if they live there, that is also not permanent. But our ambition is far, far greater, nobler and more sublime than these astronauts because we are trying to reach the Supreme Planet, Krishna Loka, and live there eternally in association with Krishna. Krishna has also advised in Bhagavad-gita that even if we go to the topmost planet, Brahma Loka, still we have to come back again. But if we go to Krishna Loka, there is no coming back to this material world.
1976 Correspondence
Regarding the "dust" supposedly brought from the moon, that dust can be gotten anywhere. It has already been openly admitted that the same dust is available on this earth planet. These astronauts and scientists are all bluffing. But Srila Vyasadeva is the correct authority. Just study Srimad-Bhagavatam carefully with full faith in Krishna and Guru and all knowledge will be revealed.
| Page Title: | Astronaut |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, RupaManjari |
| Created: | 06 of Mar, 2012 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=6, CC=1, OB=1, Lec=2, Con=31, Let=2 |
| No. of Quotes: | 43 |