Moon is beyond the sun.

Bluffing Their Way to the Moon

Authoritative knowledge vs speculation

PRABHUPADA: Moon is beyond the sun.

INDIAN MAN: Beyond the sun. How would you explain about eclipse which we get?

PRABHUPADA: That you ask some astronomer. I am not astronomer. But I understand from Vedic scripture that moon is beyond the sun.

INDIAN MAN: Because we have seen that the moon comes between...

PRABHUPADA: Yes, eclipse, it is Rahu. It is Rahu between the sun and, sun and moon. Yes.

INDIAN MAN: Between the earth and the sun.

PRABHUPADA: No earth. No, Rahu. Earth is...

CYAVANA: What they see is Rahu, not moon. No.

INDIAN MAN: At night the planets which give light to this universe...

PRABHUPADA: That is moon.

INDIAN MAN: Moon.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. They say that every planet gives light. That is not fact.

INDIAN MAN: The reflection I think, of the sun...

PRABHUPADA: No, there is fire.

INDIAN MAN: In the moon too there is fire? But it is cold, as the, our sages say.

PRABHUPADA: It is surrounded by cooling atmosphere.

INDIAN MAN: It rotates?

PRABHUPADA: In a different way, not as they explain.

INDIAN MAN: They rotate.

PRABHUPADA: Just like my hands are moving... [break] ...like that.

INDIAN MAN: And it does not go all around other planets?

PRABHUPADA: No.

CYAVANA: They all move together?

PRABHUPADA: Yes.

CYAVANA: They move together?

PRABHUPADA: Yes. The pivot is the polestar. Fixing, the pole-star, they are moving like this. And there is sun's movement.

INDIAN MAN: [break]...friend, and I told him that you said these things. So he asked me the question about the eclipse. So I would like to know to explain to him about it.

PRABHUPADA: The eclipse is... When the Rahu comes between sun and moon, there is eclipse.

INDIAN MAN: It does not eclipse the moon. But why people say that it's the moon that covers the sun? Because they don't know it's...

PRABHUPADA: They are misinformed.

INDIAN MAN: They suppose?

PRABHUPADA: It is not the fact.

INDIAN MAN: Astronomers too say that.

PRABHUPADA: It is up to the man to believe or not believe, but we have got authorities, different; they have got authorities, different. So if we follow our authorities, then we have to accept according to that.

INDIAN MAN: We get in a dilemma, we people who do not know more than they explain about.

PRABHUPADA: There is no dilemma, because our literature is there from millions and millions of years, and they have their knowledge within two, three hundred years. Now it is up to us whom to believe.

INDIAN MAN: You want to say that the astronomers are the mistaken? The astronomers have been mistaken to say all these things?

PRABHUPADA: Yes. Everyone commits mistake. Anyone who is conditioned, he must commit mistake. This is our position, that anyone who is not liberated, he must commit mistake. We take knowledge from liberated soul, not from the speculators. That is the difference.

CYAVANA: They prove their inadequacy by changing their theories every twenty years.

PRABHUPADA: Yes.

CYAVANA: They've proved that their brains are weak.

PRABHUPADA: No, they have no brain. If it is going to change, then what is their brain? [break] Still, there are so many big, big Vedic astronomers. They never change.

CYAVANA: The astronomers.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. They follow the old principles.

CYAVANA: Your Guru Maharaja, he was an astronomer?

PRABHUPADA: Yes.

CYAVANA: [break] ...some astronomers who have the correct understanding?

PRABHUPADA: Oh, yes. Many.

CYAVANA: There are some still. They understand correct.

PRABHUPADA: The Indian astronomer, they correctly say, "This time, this moment, there will be eclipse." How do they say?

PUSTA KRSNA: On the basis of Rahu.

PRABHUPADA: Huh?

CYAVANA: No, he said they correctly know.

PUSTA KRSNA: Yes.

PRABHUPADA: Now recently some European astonomers, they said comet is coming, but he did not come. Just see. But no Indian astronomer said that comet is coming, no Indian astronomer. So he became a fool. So much arrangement was made: "Comet is coming." Nobody came. And in our childhood we saw one comet, and Indian astrologers, they very particularly said, "It will begin from this corner. It will rise like this," in this... Exactly it was done. The comet came, and as it is stated, "From this corner it will come," it happened so, everything correct. [break] When that comet did not come, what people said to this astronomer? Nothing?

HARIKESA: Nobody knows if it came or not.

PRABHUPADA: No, it was advertised.

BRAHMANANDA: Just like they were selling land on the moon.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. Just see. [laughter] He was telling me. Selling ticket. And if I say, "They are cheater, bluffer," they become angry. Just see. Actually they cheated and bluffed so many men. Now they say it is inhabitable. Why they sold ticket for going there? So many living entities there are, living within the sand, and they say there is no living entity. How they are eating? How they are sleeping? A small...

CYAVANA: Millions of them. [break]

INDIAN MAN: But on the moon it is airless, Swamiji. Therefore we can't have the life there. They have proved that it is airless, waterless and so on.

PRABHUPADA: How do you say there is no life? You see in the sand there are so many lives. So there, if it is desert, there are so many lives.

INDIAN MAN: In the Sahara desert we can have life there, Swamiji?

PRABHUPADA: They say, but we see practically there are lives. Why shall I believe them? Here I see so many lives are there within the sand. So why shall I believe you when you say that nobody can live there because it is sand or dust. I see practically.

INDIAN MAN: Here we have air and water.

PRABHUPADA: There also there is everything. Therefore I say they did not go there.

INDIAN MAN: In the moon it may be. But where they went, there. There could have not been there. They say there no life there. It may be in Rahuloka, as you have said that.

PRABHUPADA: No, there is life in Rahu.

CYAVANA: In the ocean they have air? In the ocean is there air? What is the chemical combination of water?

PRABHUPADA: You cannot live within the water. Why do you think that others cannot live?

INDIAN MAN: No, no, I don't mean... Please, Swamiji... I want to say that they have said there is no air and water there.

PRABHUPADA: That's all right. Where is water within the water? Where the air?

INDIAN MAN: Not as you call because...

CYAVANA: How do they live, then?

INDIAN MAN: Live where?

CYAVANA: How do they live, then? The same example.

PRABHUPADA: How they live? So this is all misconception.

INDIAN MAN: Oh. There should be life there.

CYAVANA: They have a different way of getting the air than we do.

PRABHUPADA: Or they may not require air. It is God's creation.

INDIAN MAN: And because they have not seen, therefore they say that.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. Here people take in consideration of his position. That is rascaldom. One should not think... There are varieties of life. And how they're in the sun? There is life. So you cannot conceive that there is life in the sun, but there is life. Otherwise how Krishna went there and talked with the president of the sun? The president means he's alone there? President means there is kingdom. They have got body made of fire. Can you imagine there can be body made of fire?

INDIAN MAN: If Krishna says, then there must be.

PRABHUPADA: That's all right. That is our business. But you cannot interpret. They cannot accommodate within their tiny brain what is going on in the creation. They think in their own way. That's it. Now, they say that the water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. And who supplied so much hydrogen, oxygen?

INDIAN MAN: God.

PRABHUPADA: So therefore it is, everything, in God's hand. Their difficulty is that they'll not accept God. That is the... Therefore we are very much angry with them. We want to kick on their face. The atheist number one, all these so-called scientists.

BRAHMANANDA: As soon as they were able to create some oxygen and hydrogen in the laboratory, then "Oh, there's no God."

PRABHUPADA: "There is no God." So you bring hydrogen, oxygen; create another ocean. Simply talking nonsense. Now, our challenge is "You just get one egg." Can they? Ask any scientist. Can he make one seed which will bring such a big tree? And where is that science? They're all nonsense.

INDIAN MAN: They were trying to...

PRABHUPADA: "Trying." That's it. And therefore they should be kicked on their face. They are trying like foolish man and it will never be successful; therefore they should be kicked. This is our proposition. "Trying," "in future," this is their bluff. We don't accept this. [break] ...one cheque, million dollars, postdated. Then, if you ask me, "Why you have postdated?" "No, I have no money now. In future it will be deposited." Will you accept that cheque? This is their bluff.

HARIKESA: Well, why not accept it? It might turn out. It might turn out in the future.

PRABHUPADA: So a rascal like you will accept. (laughter) We are not so... [break] ...transaction, even today's date cheque, they will not accept. Bring cash.

BRAHMANANDA: Because the cheating tendency is there.

PRABHUPADA: That's all. It is cheating. Postdated cheque means he cheats. What is the guarantee that there will be deposit of money? Will the bank guarantee?

HARIKESA: They've done so many good things in the past, you can understand that...

PRABHUPADA: No good things. All bluffs. What good things they have done which has benefited the human society or saved the human society from birth, death, old age and disease? What they have done? Our main problem is this. And when there is no food, what the scientists can do? If there is no rice, no wheat? That will come. The scientists will be taught very nicely. Time is coming when there will be no food. Let them produce. Therefore they are trying chemical food, one, one tablet. This is another cheating. Why tablet? Why not actually produce rice by chemical composition? Why tablet? This is their bluff. The Western people, they take dozen of tablets every day. Still, they are the same condition.

CYAVANA: They are becoming more crazy.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. [break] Contraceptive tablet, sleeping tablet, or...

PUSTA KRSNA: Waking tablets.

PRABHUPADA: Waking tablets and so on, so on. Tranquilization tablet.

BRAHMANANDA: They had one tablet for pregnant mothers, and that tablet was used very much in Europe, and that tablet proved to be very harmful to the children that were born. They created terrible deformities amongst many, many children. So there was a tremendous lawsuit against the company. I think it was a German company.

PRABHUPADA: What for the tablet was used?

BRAHMANANDA: Some vitamin for the pregnant mothers.

PUSTA KRSNA: Thalidomide, yes?

BRAHMANANDA: Yes.

PUSTA KRSNA: The babies they came out with no arms. Just hands like this coming from their shoulder. Flippers.

PRABHUPADA: Just see. This is their cheating. [break] ...everything had been experimented, and they were defeated; still, "science." This is their foolishness. [break] Who was telling me that fifty thousand people died by motor accident?

PUSTA KRSNA: I was telling you that. In America they used to have...

PRABHUPADA: One city is finished.

HARIKESA: Fifty thousand?

PUSTA KRSNA: Each year.

BRAHMANANDA: It used to be ten thousand.

PUSTA KRSNA: Oh, fifty thousand. That was years ago even.

PRABHUPADA: So this is the advancement. Every year one city is finished. This is the advancement.

BRAHMANANDA: They were making one joke that on the independence day of America everyone goes out in their car and celebrates. They were making a joke that more people will die by the celebration than died in the original battle of getting the independence. [laughter]

PRABHUPADA: Just see their intelligence. Andha yathandhair upaniyamanas te 'pisa-tantryam uru-damni baddhah [Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.5.31]. By nature's law they are bound up hands and legs, and still, they are trying to do something independently. That is their fault.

INDIAN MAN: Don't you think that the scientists have done good things but people have...

PRABHUPADA: What is that good thing, first of all say.

INDIAN MAN: For example, they have invented medicines like the...

PRABHUPADA: But have they stopped disease?

INDIAN MAN: But...

PRABHUPADA: Now, no "but." First of all, they have got medicine for making money, but have they stopped disease?

INDIAN MAN: To some extent.

PRABHUPADA: "To some extent," that is another bluff. That is another bluff. "To future," "some extent." Why some extent? Stop it.

INDIAN MAN: There were many people dying in Africa.

PRABHUPADA: Everyone is dying. How you will live?

INDIAN MAN: Malaria...

PRABHUPADA: No, no. Will you live forever?

INDIAN MAN: No, sir.

PRABHUPADA: Then why do you speak that many are living? You cannot live. That is nature's law. You must die — today or tomorrow. It doesn't matter.

INDIAN MAN: They died before time comes. People die before time if there is no...

PRABHUPADA: At the present moment they are not dying?

INDIAN MAN: Not... They should... There have been more deaths than...

PRABHUPADA: So more or less, they are dying. Can you stop it? This is all bluffing, and fools are bewildered by these, all these propositions. You have to die today or tomorrow. Can you stop your death?

INDIAN MAN: No.

PRABHUPADA: Then what is the benefit of this? And pay the scientists money for bluffing. You'll die today or tomorrow. It doesn't matter. Why you are anxious? After all, we have to die. Just like we are in a friend's place. We have to vacate it. And if two days' advance, "All right, you can remain two days," that means I have got the proprietorship of the house? It is all nonsense. You have to die. Stop this death; then there is credit. If I become proprietor of the house, there is credit. And if I am living for four days, if they give concession, "All right, you can live two days more," is that very great benefit? I'll have to leave it. Similarly, you will have to die today or tomorrow. It doesn't matter.

INDIAN MAN: But the Jains(?) can stop this death...

PRABHUPADA: Nobody is... Rascals and fools will that: "I'll not die. Tomorrow I shall die. (laughter) Tomorrow." This is rascal. These things will be done by the rascals. "I'll not die today. I'll die tomorrow." This is rascaldom.

INDIAN MAN: About religion, Swamiji. Religion is capable to stop death?

PRABHUPADA: Yes. Here the... Tyaktva deham punar janma naiti mam eti [Bg. 4.9]. That is our proposal, to go back to home, back to Godhead. No more death.

INDIAN MAN: After death no death?

PRABHUPADA: No death.

INDIAN MAN: Okay, then, Swamiji, we should...

PRABHUPADA: "After death" means we have got this body; we'll have to leave it. That is certain. But after leaving this body, you are not going to get another body which will die. This is Krishna consciousness movement. If they can manufacture some medicine that "You have suffered from diseases. Now you take this medicineÑno more disease," then there is credit, no more disease. But there is no guarantee.

INDIAN MAN: One kind of disease.

PRABHUPADA: One kind or another kind, disease is disease. Disease is disease. It is foolish for the person to think, "If I would have gotten that disease, it was better for me." This is foolish, another foolishness. Disease is disease. Disease means suffering. You have to suffer, that's all, this disease or that disease.

BRAHMANANDA: The man who owns this house, his wife died recently from cancer. He sent her to London for special treatment, very costly, and they could not do anything.

PRABHUPADA: Oh. Just see. Where is this? That is their science? Take money and do nothing.

PUSTA KRSNA: At least in the past when there was disease people would depend on God more. Now they depend on the doctors.

PRABHUPADA: No, still they have to depend on God. Otherwise this man spent so much money. God denied, "No, your wife will not stay," and she had to die.

BRAHMANANDA: [break] ...when she went to London for treatment she became worse.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. Just like vitamin pill—no hand.

CYAVANA: Yes. No arms.

PRABHUPADA: Simply they are cheating. There was one gentleman, English gentleman, Sir William Temple. He used to say, "I wish to die without a doctor. Don't bring doctor."

CYAVANA: Without a doctor.

PRABHUPADA: Yes. "Let me die peacefully. Don't bring doctor." I say also. Don't bring doctor when I am diseased.