[Posted Sep 24, 2008]

The Ultimate Elevator

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

You're on it. Going up or down?

Telegraph Sep 22, 2008 - JON SWAINE

Lift could take passengers straight into space

Japanese scientists are attempting to build a lift that will take passengers 62,000 miles into space.

The project could see the realisation of a vision that has inspired science fiction writers for generations.

The lift's carriages, which will themselves require new feats of engineering, would move up and down 22,000 mile-long cables.

Those cables would need to be stronger and lighter than any material ever woven.

They would be anchored to the ground and disappear into the sky, eventually reaching a satellite docking station orbiting above the Earth.

Scientists hope that as well as carrying human passengers, the carriages could also haul huge, solar-powered generators that could power homes and businesses back on Earth. It could also remove barrels of nuclear waste, dumping them into space. go to story

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Scientific Progress

Drowned Horses A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

PARAMAHAMSA: Well, this is the point, is that... It was called the Apollo-Soyuz flight. In any case, they have announced... They made a joint speech where they said, "Together we can conquer outer space. That is the purpose." So now the Russians and the Americans are trying to get... to combine in their efforts to conquer.

PRABHUPADA: Bora bora goye gala rasatala, vetta gore bole katha jala. There is a river. The horses, they can swim. So the river was so ferocious and many horses drowned. So one vetta gora ( means third-class horse), he said, "How was the water? Let me try."

PARAMAHAMSA: [laughing] They all drowned.

PRABHUPADA: The vetta gora These are vetta gora, horses...

SATSVARUPA: But they can point to progress, not that they're all drowning.

PRABHUPADA: What is that progress?

SATSVARUPA: Well, people never thought they could reach the moon. Now they think they have.

PRABHUPADA: So that is not progress. Progress means when you conquer death. That is progress. more

Science has not touched on the real problems

excerpt from lecture on Bhagavad-gita 13.5, Paris, August 13, 1973

Brahma-sutra says, athato brahma jijñasa. Brahma-sutra says, "Now it is the time for inquiring about the Absolute Truth." "Now" means in this life, human form of life.

Just like in Europe and America it is the time now to inquire about the Absolute Truth because materially they are advanced. They have seen all material advancements. The scientists are now perplexed that "How we shall maintain ourselves because we have nothing to give anymore? Whatever stock we had, that is finished." Now they are simply to bluff, no more stock to give. They have given us motorcar and atomic bomb and aeroplane and electronic activities. So many things they have given. That's all right. Simply they could not give us relief from birth, death, old age, and disease. That's all. The real problems are there. But they have given some superfluous...

Just like this is also scientific improvement, microphone, but the microphone sometimes goes wrong. That does not mean I stop speaking. We can do without microphone. That is not a very great problem. Suppose science has given us motorcar. That's all right. But sometimes, without motorcar, we walk. Or there is bullock cart. So real problem, which very much disturbing us, that we, all of us, we do not want to die, but the science could not give us any formula assuring that "There is no more death." That is not possible. So athato brahma jijñasa.

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