View source for The moon (and this is also bogus, that such a brilliant illuminating planet, it is full of rocks and sand)?

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[[Category:Questions asked to Srila Prabhupada]]
[[Category:Questions asked to SP... 1976]]
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<div id="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="section" sec_index="5" parent="compilation" text="Conversations and Morning Walks"><h2>Conversations and Morning Walks</h2>
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<div id="1976_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" class="sub_section" sec_index="9" parent="Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" text="1976 Conversations and Morning Walks"><h3>1976 Conversations and Morning Walks</h3>
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<div id="RoomConversationJuly61976WashingtonDC_0" class="quote" parent="1976_Conversations_and_Morning_Walks" book="Con" index="189" link="Room Conversation -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C." link_text="Room Conversation -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.">
<div class="heading">Yes. It is so brilliant that it is illuminating the whole universe... Whatever it may be. Why reflection not come in our Sahara desert? Why you don't see such reflection in the Sahara desert so that the whole world may be illuminated?
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<span class="link">[[Vanisource:Room Conversation -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.|Room Conversation -- July 6, 1976, Washington, D.C.]]: </span><div class="text"><p style="display: inline;">Prabhupāda: ...and it is a fact, he did not fix it. I wanted both of you to take various detailed photographs of that Capitol.</p>
<p>Yadubara: The Capitol Building. For what purpose, Śrīla Prabhupāda?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: We shall have picture, planetarium in Māyāpur. (aside:) That's better. (break) ...spiritual world, material world, and so on, so on. Planetary..., succession of the planetary systems, everything. A building like that.</p>
<p>Yadubara: That would be a separate building from the temple?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. We are acquiring 350 acres of land for life for constructing a small township...</p>
<p>Yadubara: I think we...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: ...to attract people from all the world to see the planetarium.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Is this near the temple?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. Planetarium name, actually it will be temple. But all round, things will be... Anyway.</p>
<p>Yadubara: I know before the idea was to have it inside the main temple.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Hm?</p>
<p>Yadubara: As you walked up the outside of the, or the inside of the main temple, inside that dome, they would have it on the walls. But that would... That original plan was to have it inside the main temple.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. You take all details, inside, outside. That will be nice.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Can you take inside? Is it allowed?</p>
<p>Yadubara: Yes, I think so.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa... (japa) And you prove that sun planet is first. It is stated in the Bible.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: I was going to inquire about that.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Hm?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: The order, Sunday, Monday, whether it has to do anything with the distance.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Distance, whatever it may be. But the sun is first, then moon, then Mars, then Jupiter, then like that. One after another. Otherwise, why Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, like that?</p>
<p>Yadubara: That means the distance, then, from the earth?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Yadubara: Sun is first.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: According to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the moon is situated 1,600,000 miles away up to the sun. Upper. So according to their calculation, 93,000,000 miles, sun is situated from the earth. And if the moon is plus 1,600,000 then it becomes 15,000,000 miles. So 15,000,000 miles it takes about...</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Ninety-five million.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Ah?</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Ninety-five million.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. That. Ninety five millions. It takes at least seven...</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Seven months.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Seven months, to the speed they are going, 18,000 miles per hour. So how they have gone in four days?</p>
<p>Yadubara: According to...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: They have brought some sand. Such a brilliant planet which is illuminating the whole universe and they brought sand. All bluff.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: They've studied this very carefully.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: All bluff.</p>
<p>Yadubara: According to the Bhāgavatam, the sun is also 93,000,000 miles away from the earth?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is we shall see later on. It is about. The whole diameter is 4 billions. And sun is situated almost in the middle. It is my firm conviction that they did not go to the moon. Neither they'll be able to go to the Mars as they have planned it.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: But their scientists would be mad...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: They are mad already, they're talking all nonsense. Already they're mad.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: They're studying all the rocks from the moon.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Rascals. What they will get? They studied the rock. And they have found one crack in the whole moon planet, and there's no living being?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually the rocks are being distributed all over the world.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Ah?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: For analysis. Little portion of the rock that they have brought from different stratas(?), they have distributed all over the world. And the report is coming that a portion of the elements (indistinct), so from there they calculate how old the moon is. It's about the same age as the earth, about 4.5 million years.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: They say similar rocks are available here.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Then why they bother about bringing rock from there?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: To investigate more.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: What is investigation? Simply bluff.</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Similar rocks are available here, because the same rock was taken from here.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: If the rock is the same, so why not living beings there?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: They claim there is no atmosphere.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, if the atmosphere is different, the rock must be different. The sun must be different. The atmosphere is different, but the rock sand is the same? They have to believe that? Everything should be different.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Some of the rocks can be similar.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So similar, then atmosphere cannot be dissimilar. It is common sense. And this is also bogus, that such a brilliant illuminating planet, it is full of rocks and sand.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: The moon?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. It is so brilliant that it is illuminating the whole universe.</p>
<p>Devotee: They say the moon is a reflection.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Whatever it may be. Why reflection not come in our Sahara desert? Why you don't see such reflection in the Sahara desert so that the whole world may be illuminated?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: This is also going to be very critical.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Which one?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: This moon is farther away than the sun. That brings a whole new concept that poses some problem.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Eh?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: In speaking (at) colleges and universities. The other day when you spoke there, we were not speaking about astronomy, you were speaking of the origin of life, and these people, outsiders, they already had the concept to raise up that question. So without any connection they brought up. So the question was, "Whatever you present is very nice, fine, but what about the moon? Do you believe that the moon is farther away than the sun?"</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: But they have already...?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yeah, they already studied, they are ready to ask those things, and they say, "Just give me an answer, yes or no."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: They asked you? They asked you?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So what did you answer?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: We said yes, but our explanation was much (indistinct) in the sense that we said you have to study this more carefully, but we tried to remark the concept that now we are conditioned to believe certain things.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Now, how they heard that we are believing in this way?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: From Bhāgavatam.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Oh.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: From Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. And sometimes devotees go around the colleges and sometimes they say, "What you are doing is all wrong, the moon is far away." So I think this is spread all over.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: But that is a fact.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: But we had one explanation saying that now, the way we percept knowledge, though we understand things, there is also a conditioning behind it. So actually this is a fact, but in Mathematics, if we change the axiom, then we have a whole new understanding, it's almost completely upside down, but still we can interpret the result. It is just like a simple jumble(?), while Nils Bohr, studying the structure of the atom. Now he had a mathematical equation to fit the phenomena of this atom, and actually you can perfectly describe this phenomena by this equation, but, now, at morning times, this quantum mechanics, it turns out whatever he did was completely wrong, but it can be described completely, perfectly well as his model, as is our present understanding. But now his theories (indistinct), he could explain things on his own, but still it's completely wrong. So similarly...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: They are right. They may present the wrong thing, but still they are right.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is their proposition?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: It is possible, but that's why we're claiming that. They agree that because not only there is several facts in science, that one should be (indistinct) this is true, then suddenly by some new discoveries came out all wrong.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: So we are discussing about our limitations of our so-called knowledge-finding technique. So we said, "One has to be a little open-minded and discuss these things..."</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: What does they say about that disi, astralogic kalokyam (Hindi) ?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: (Hindi)</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: (Hindi)</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: And in this connection we actually wanted to also study Bhaktisiddhānta Prabhupāda's...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Sūrya-siddhānta.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yeah.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. But where is that book?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Pradyumna told me that it's available in Bengali, Śrīla Prabhupāda?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: If it is available, get it. (indistinct) He was one of the authorities about sun movements.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: I heard that it will be very...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: (indistinct) He got this Sūrya-siddhānta, Siddhānta Sarasvatī. He was very expert astrologer.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: So we were thinking that there must be some more information there.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: (indistinct) There are (in) Calcutta many... Some of them still, living or dead I do not know. But in India, in Benares you'll find many astrologers. You said in your book that the sun is the nearest planet?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, I didn't say that. We actually took the concept of the... I wasn't talking much there, saying that there is one star, the sun is the nearest star.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Nearest star.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So that means near star, nearest, which relationship, with the earth?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: With the other stars.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Ah?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: With the other stars.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Other stars? Nearest means?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: To the earth.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: To the earth. So they are... We are speaking the same thing. The sun is the nearest, then moon.</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: But they don't care if the moon is a star.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: No, moon star is described in the Bhagavad-gītā. Nakṣatrāṇām ahaṁ śaśī. It is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā. Moon is one of the stars, but brilliant star.</p>
<p>Yadubara: How many brilliant stars are there in this Universe?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Many. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam (Bs. 5.40). Aśeṣa. We cannot count.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: The description is also that there is only one star in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The description is that there is only one star in this universe. One star.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: One star?</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes, only one star.</p>
<p>Devotee: One sun.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: I'm sorry, one sun.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: One sun in this universe.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: This is one universe.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: So actually what they call solar system, science doesn't call it one universe. The concept of universe is very vast.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: That is not vast. Our concept...</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yeah, our conception is solar system, actually. The solar system is one universe.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Solar? There is no solar system. The ninth, I mean planets.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Solar system, what they mean, the science, the sun, and these planets that we know, consists of, comprises our Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam universe, concept of the universe.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, the (indistinct) is a big affair, the sun is one of the important planets. Not only the sun, moon, Mars, Jupiter, everyone.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Actually as astronomy and (indistinct) are especially astronomy is one of the most unscientific branch of study, knowledge is concerned. It's very, very little known. The way that... The techniques that they use, are very difficult to rely on.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: So their Astronomical calculation, the sun is fixed up, that is also wrong. The sun is not fixed up.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yeah, Your Divine Grace, you wrote me a letter saying about the universe is just like an inverted tree.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, ūrdhva-mūlam adhah-śākham ([[Vanisource:BG 15.1|BG 15.1]]), Bhagavad-gītā.</p>
<p>Svarūpa Dāmodara: And the tree, and the leaves, and the fruits and flowers are the planets.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Ūrdhva-mūlam, Gītā says, ūrdhva-mūlam adhah-śākham. The pole-star in the... And we see at night everything is moving. As a bunch it is moving.</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Does that means all the planets are fixed in relationship to each other as well?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. Just like a tree. Tree is fixed up, as a whole tree is moving.</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Because we see practically that the moon also moves, across the sky. Just like the sun does. So the sun has an orbit?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Sun is also... Yes.</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: And the moon has an orbit also?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: In the Brahma-saṁhitā it is said, yasyājñayā bhramati sambhṛta-kāla-cakraḥ. Yac-cakṣur eṣa savitā sakala-grahāṇāṁ rājā samasta-sura-mūrtir aśeṣa-tejāḥ. Unlimited temperature. Everything is there.</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Does the moon have an orbit also then?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes, every (indistinct). It is described as a chariot moving. Something, challenge must be given.</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: I think that when we try to explain to them that the sun is drawn by a chariot, then... (laughs)</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: The (indistinct) sun is God. He's one of the gods.</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Hm.</p>
<p>Yadubara: Won't they just take this...</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: (indistinct) He's a person, sun-god. That is described in the Bhagavad-gītā, imaṁ vivasvate yogaṁ proktavān aham avyayam ([[Vanisource:BG 4.1|BG 4.1]]), a person. That is his planet. He is the predominating Deity. And similarly moon. And the kṣatriyas, they are coming from these two planets. As it is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, vivasvān manave prāha manur ikṣvākave... Ikṣvāku is the sūrya-vaṁśa, the kṣatriya family coming from the sun.</p>
<p>Yadubara: Śrīla Prabhupāda, we're taking this from the Bhāgavatam. Won't they just think that this is myth?</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: (indistinct) is myth? Who believes you? If you don't believe me, I don't believe you. Finished.</p>
<p>Yadubara: So we should present our side.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. That is our business. If you don't believe me I don't believe you. Finished business. You have got your authority, I've got my authority. Why shall I...?</p>
<p>Hari-śauri: Actually we have authority and they have no authority.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: What is your age? You are all scientists within 200 years. And our Bhāgavata is written 5,000 years ago. Why shall I accept yours?</p>
<p>Yadubara: So no matter what they say we should present it at least.</p>
<p>Prabhupāda: Yes. You have become all scientists, and everything within 200 years. What is the age of your European, Western civilization? It cannot go more than 3,000 years? Our Bhāgavata is written 5,000 years ago. And before that, Śukadeva Gosvāmī says, "I have heard like this." That's all. Millions and millions (of years ago)...</p>
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