Man (1): I also understand that we are not this body, we are spirit, soul. But if it wasn't for your body you are using now, you wouldn't be able to communicate this message to other people. So . . .
Prabhupāda: We do not neglect this body, but we don't identify it. That is our principle. Just like you have got a car. It is helping you to take you from one place to another. You don't neglect it; we maintain the car nicely. But we never identify. Suppose, some way or other, the car is damaged, is lost. Then I do not become overwhelmed, because I know that I am not this car. I can get another car. That's all.
Man (2): Prabhupāda, in quite a few places in your writings you say that of all the billions of astronomical bodies in this universe, that the sun is the only self-luminous one, the only one that gives off its own light. Now, astronomers throughout the world are in universal agreement and teach as an absolutely verifiable fact that there are millions of bodies in our universe that give off their own light, just like our sun does; that our sun is just one of them. Now, on this point your teaching is diametrically opposed to the teachings of all the qualified astronomers in the world, and I would like to know . . .
Prabhupāda: What is that astronomical calculation?
Madhudviṣa: He is saying that this . . . do you understand the question?
Prabhupāda: No. Explain.
Madhudviṣa: He is saying that in your teachings you say the sun is the only self-illuminous body in the universe, whereas the scientists say that there is many millions of stars that are in the sky that are also self-illuminous.
Prabhupāda: No. We say that there are innumerable universes. We say.
Man (2): But in this particular universe, we're talking about.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
- Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi.
- (Bs 5.40)
(I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, whose effulgence is the source of the nondifferentiated Brahman mentioned in the Upaniṣads, being differentiated from the infinity of glories of the mundane universe appears as the indivisible, infinite, limitless, truth.)
Jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi. Jagad-aṇḍa means universe, and koṭi means millions. So there are millions and millions of universes, and in each universe there are millions and millions of planets. Yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam (Bs 5.40). And each planet is differently constituted. The atmosphere of each planet is different from another. This is God's creation. Now as there are innumerable universes, there may be innumerable suns also.