Bhagavatam cosmology 2 – Moon mission analysis

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They move on the moon mission is the cause of great confusion so when i was introduced to krishna bhakti there was one friend also was introduced with me very intelligent person and he started coming the programme used to happen at my at my room itself and he used to come and used to have a lot of discussions but when he heard in the class that we did not go to the moon it was like for him it was yad gatvan anivartante after that he stopped coming and i was very concerned about it and then over the years i studied this topic more i talked with various senior devotees and i discovered how oversimplified and almost distorted many of the statements that we make about the moon mission are so here i’ll give you some samples of how diverse prabhupada’s statements about the moon were most often we’ll hear prabhupada said man did not go to the moon but that’s only one of the many different kinds of statement that prabhupada has made and i’ll talk later about why this particular statement became highlighted but yes so maybe there are many statements different devotees could read on one statement now you go ahead so i’ll discuss these three things prabhupada statements then we’ll talk about what might have happened with respect to the moon mission and then we will discuss how we can avoid distraction from devotion go ahead please yeah who would like to be illegal immigration the moon so at the top i have summarised what the main point that prabhupada is making is given go ahead the moon planet from the shastra we understand that nobody can go there unless he’s fit just like to enter into some foreign country you have to take visa you have to take passport immigration then you will be allowed so such attempt to go there and even if you go there you will be driven away so what is the use of such attempt yeah you can read the where also lecture on srimad bhagavatam fifth canto fifth chapter fifth verse stockholm september 10 1973 so prabhupada is here comparing the various parts of the universe to sovereign nations and we cannot just get crashed into those nations that’s the point that the prabhupada makes over here so his if you see the thrust of his reasoning is is very significant and specific so that you cannot enter because there is illegal immigration and go ahead we will not be able to go there will only be temporary and then another statement yes well done when but couldn’t stay there and practically we see they are going to the moon planet but they cannot stay uselessly going and coming lecture on srimad bhagavatam 6.1.1 to 4 melbourne may 20th 1975 yes so here prabhupada thank you prabhupada is not denying that they went to the moon they’re going and going and coming what is the big deal so what is the use of what is the utility of it all and this utility point is very significant because initially when the moon mission was touted it was started off it was at one level it was an ego battle between the two countries which are having the cold war britain usa and ussr another point was that there was a lot of hope that in the future we might have colonies on the moon and then we could we could emigrate to the moon also we could live on the moon and said if we can’t emigrate at least we could have tourism to the moon if we can’t have tourism to the moon at least we have mining on the moon and we’ll find but once they went there they went a few times after that none of the things happened leave alone emigration there is no mine there is no tourism no space tourism there is no mining also so nothing no further things happen now the enthusiasm is let’s go to the mars but the original prisons which were driving it they are not being talked about so prabhupada making this point okay what did you get even if you went there what did you get there so here the emphasis is not that you didn’t go there at all you went but what is the utility can you go ahead yes can we go go there spacecraft with their advanced consciousness human beings are naturally inclined to travel in outer space and to reach other planets either by spaceships mystic powers or demigod worship in the vedic scriptures it is said that one can reach other planets by any one of these three ways but the most common way is by worshipping the demigod presiding over a particular planet yes so here prabhupada is not denying the possibility of going even by spacecraft three ways worship of the devatas the getting some mystic powers and spacecraft so now one of the first books that prabhupada wrote was easy journey to other planets and you know whom did prabhupada dedicate that book to it is dedicated to the scientists of the world it is not dedicated to his spiritual master it is dedicated to the scientists of the world and in that book if you read it prabhupada’s tone is not at all confrontational says you have you have discovered antimatter and prabhupada very creatively says antimatter matter what actually if it is anti all its properties will be opposite to that of matter the current scientific understanding is that there is antimatter matter antimatter unite it is like minus one plus one will become zero so both will get destroyed but prabhupada says actually antimatter would be what if matter is temporary antimatter would be eternal and that antimatter antimaterial particle is described in the bhagavad-gita that is the atma and prabhupada uses that as segue to talk about the bhagavad-gita’s concept and he also talks about because at that time there is fascination with space travel it has not happened it happened in 1969 when prabhupada was in america but the fascination was there and there also prabhupada in his journey to other planets prabhupada doesn’t condemn or deny the possibility of going to the moon or to other planets he says okay you want to go but what is the point you go there you’ll have to come back prabhupada also says in one of his lectures that when he wrote this book and then there’s a prominent scientist he said oh through vedic he said swami with vedic technology we can go to the moon he says yes we can go to the moon we can go to the sun we can go to wherever you want then he said the next question he asks can we come back he said why do you want to come back there’s a much better place he said no no can we come back so prabhupada will give something sometimes give this sometimes as an example of how you know we might be so attached even if we go to a higher place we want to come back so the point is prabhupada did not consider that at that stage he did not deny the possibility of going to the going to a higher planet he said there is a better way to go there so we cannot bracket prabhupada or reduce him to one approach prabhupada used different approaches at different times there were times of course when he made confrontational statements but there are times when he made non-confrontational statements also so he’s acknowledging the possibility here of going by spacecraft so two things he said they may have gone and now you say okay they may have gone by spacecraft also go ahead and there is another possibility yes would like to read they were they were diverted elsewhere moon planet is heavenly planet heavenly planet there their demigods they live so we get this information or just like if somebody comes to the this earthly planet and drops in the arabian desert he may conclude that this is desert but there is europe america and nice cities and nice bungalows but he has no chance to see them so these people are going so now in this diversion he talks about two distinct things one is that somebody comes to the earth but they are sent to like uninhabited part of the earth and they don’t see anything over there so that means they could be diverted on moon to a particular area where they don’t see anything or they were diverted away from the moon itself elsewhere go ahead the mic is not working anymore they were diverted elsewhere they had no chance maybe they were they are they are also diverting them to the deserted portion of the moon they were also intelligent that they refers to the moon when they say ufo is unidentified flying object has come over here send it away so like that go ahead that these people are coming from earthly planet unauthorised so let them so let them diverted to the deserted portion there are so many things so therefore because if moon planet is heavenly planet they are more intelligent than you yeah they are more intelligent than you they can divert you can you go ahead it’s a long quote but this illustrates prabhupada’s overall tenor of thought yeah if you have got some machine to reach there they have got some machine to divert you why not think like that that these rascals are coming here without any immigration licence let them be diverted to the deserted portion and disappointed they will go back lecture on nectar of devotion bombay december 28 1972 yeah thank you so let them be diverted somewhere else go ahead now of course this is the standard what we often hear but that’s one statement prabhupada made yeah go ahead please hoax in the laboratory devotee prabhupada when they said they went to the moon and they showed films of them landing and walking on the moon was this all a bluff prabhupada yes here they all laboratory all laboratory work that’s all devotee they all made it up prabhupada yes morning walk june 2nd 1975 honolulu yeah now this brings us to an interesting point that you know sometimes prabhupada used certain empirical sources and if those empirical sources also spoke some point which was in his view in harmony with scripture then he would quote those empirical sources also so but later on if that empirical source was proven to be not so trustworthy prabhupada would stop quoting that when prabhupada was in america there was some people would read many different books when somebody came to prabhupada and they gave him a book called the aquarian gospel the aquarian gospel is a book which describes how jesus they describe it basically it says many things one of the things they describe is jesus lost years so in the life of jesus certain years where he was it’s not known at all and different people have different theories so in that aquarian gospel it is said that he travelled eastward and he came to india he came to jagannath puri and prabhupada quoted that prabhupada read that and prabhupada quoted that in the class and then now rajendra saurav prabhu was one of the most scholarly disciples of prabhupada he said prabhupada this aquarian gospel this is authorised isn’t it it’s a gospel isn’t it no no that’s just the name it’s a later book written in the 17th 18th century that’s what the historians say and the catholic church also doesn’t accept it as a part of the gospel so prabhupada really asked oh i thought it’s part of the gospel is it good that part of jesus coming to puri that is good but interestingly after that prabhupada stopped quoting that book so sometimes prabhupada would quote certain things which which seem to support the broad vedic understanding so our vedic understanding is that ultimately all the messengers or sons or whoever comes and raises god consciousness they are ultimately coming from god so if that could be vindicated for some that could be confirmed from the empirical source prabhupada would quote that but prabhupada would not give too much weight on that empirical source because the empirical source can sometimes be authoritative sometimes it need not be authoritative so there is another there is even now it’s in the namarat where prabhupada says that by 2000 there will be so much pollution on the earth that nobody will be able to live on the surface of the earth everybody will have to live underground like rats by 2000 now 2000 has come and gone we are not living exactly like underground like rats so now when i read this for the first time i was first time i read lila amruth it was just so ecstatic i didn’t even notice it but i read that the future times then one of the times he just stood out to me it was a little disturbing but then i checked with devotees i checked with nagaraj who is a btg editor often i ask him so he went back and two days before when prabhupada spoke this there was a morning walk and in that morning walk somebody had given told prabhupada a report of some environmental protection society meteorological society and they had said that by 2000 nobody will be able to walk on the surface of the earth so prabhupada is simply quoting an empirical source and prabhupada’s point is don’t get so excited about this material progress and material advancement focus on spiritual growth don’t think this is going to solve all your problems so if some empirical source could support that prabhupada would quote that but now unfortunately the way it is put in lila amruth is prabhupada is making a prophecy by 2000 then nobody will be able to walk on the surface of the earth so when i had mentioned this to ravindra saruprabhu he made a striking point prabhupada was not in the prophecy business so prabhupada didn’t make prophecies like that there’s a story of prabhupada also talking about third world war happening prabhupada was told by certain people third world war may happen and prabhupada used that in his preaching too and actually there was a lot of fear that third world war might happen between the cuban missile crisis was there and other times in the USSR and USA were at loggerheads so it could well have happened so now at that time on one side there was a lot of excitement and national pride when the moon mission happened and the moon landing is said to have happened but along with that from that time onwards from 1969 there have been some sceptics some sceptics who doubted it and there are some movies there are some documentaries made about it books written about it and it’s it’s something which is they there are many several movies made about it then NASA and other scientists have refuted those also and somebody has refuted their refutations also and they have refuted their refutations so it’s like it’s just going on so at that time in general if you see those those people who were attracted to our movement in the 1960s most of them were anti-establishment that the hippies themselves were counterculture they were anti-establishment and the things that the mainstream was proud of they mocked it it’s all worthless so in that sense the overall tenor of the people who are coming to our movement was of people who are sceptical of mainstream society mainstream society’s claims it’s claims of progress it’s claims of advancement it claims of prosperity and that was the demographic that came to Prabhupada at that time and when Prabhupada was interacting with people especially in the western world the way Prabhupada operated was in India he knew the ground realities and that’s why once the movement started off expanding in India Prabhupada made his base here and most of the American preaching he delegated it to his western disciples and he would just once a once a year or twice a year he would visit and they would expand the preaching but in India he was hands-on there so many of the statements that Prabhupada made they were in response to what was presented to him so when Prabhupada makes a particular statement in response to what is presented to him that statement can’t be absolutised as Prabhupada’s only position because Prabhupada has made different statements at different times and we have examples of when Prabhupada I gave two examples of how Prabhupada when the information was told one example of course Aquarian Gospel told that this is not authority Prabhupada stop using it there is also the famous incident of Prabhupada in book distribution that and some devotees told Prabhupada that that for expanding book distribution if we wear civil clothes instead of the devotee clothes that would be better Prabhupada said yes if you’re distributing books more that’s fine but then somebody told Prabhupada that actually in the name of wearing civil clothes people are going back to their hippie ways and Prabhupada said this is nonsense stop it stop it he said and then several of the leading book distributors they actually went they immediately flew to India and they told Prabhupada that actually if we stop wearing civil clothes our book distribution will go down by half because people just feel they feel very strange when they’re talking with somebody in a strange dress and he said Prabhupada they’re not they’re not wearing they’re not wearing dishevelled dishevelled clothes they’re actually wearing respectable clothes that can attract people to them and Prabhupada said oh I thought they are going back to their hippie ways means they are going back to the hippie lifestyle hippie dress everything in the name of distributing books if they are dressing respectively that’s fine and I don’t have any objection to that so this is also another example of how Prabhupada responded to the information that was presented to him so during that time the demographic that was coming to our movement was a demographic that was highly sceptical of mainstream society and the information that was presented to him was often centred on scepticism to everything that the mainstream society claimed was great so the moon mission was also a great accomplishment of mainstream society and those who were in the counterculture they were sceptical of that so Prabhupada made certain statements in response to what was presented to him and this is one example so this devotee is quoting about that documentary and yes it’s like that Prabhupada said go ahead now again the same another quote but same point and he didn’t get yeah go ahead went but didn’t get much of it it is not like that that after spending many millions of dollars you go to the moon planet and touch it and bring some sand and you are satisfied you see don’t waste in that if you go live there lecture on Srimad Bhagavatam 5th Canto 5th chapter 2nd chapter yes so thank you so Prabhupada is saying okay what is so here he is talking more in terms of the financial investment returns what is the you spending millions of dollars what are you getting out of it go ahead yeah this is i would say one of the most important statement which indicates Prabhupada’s overall mood yeah endeavour for spiritual elevation not material elevation modern man has struggled very hard to reach the moon but he has not tried very hard to elevate himself spiritually if one has 50 years of life ahead of him he should engage that brief time in cultivating this practise of remembering the supreme personality of a godhead introduction bhagavad-gita as it is yeah so this is right in the introduction Prabhupada is saying this that he is not saying that you don’t whether we go to the moon or not okay you endeavoured so much for that why not endeavour a little bit for this and there Prabhupada is not in any way condemning that or even judging that he is just taking that as a impetus for inspiration and redirection of efforts yeah can you go ahead so now this is a complicated issue and though definitive answer but when Prabhupada has made many different statements on one issue then we cannot take one statement as his sole authority to statement so to say that Prabhupada said we didn’t go to the moon yes that’s true but that was not the only thing that he said he said many different things also so now if we look at various statements he has made we can which is the most important statement if you want to say well we don’t know he has made all those statements but one way we can understand which is most important is which statement resonates with his overall message a proper central message was he didn’t care whether man went to the moon or not the Prabhupada didn’t go from Vrindavan to America to tell Americans you didn’t go to the moon you know he went to them to tell them how they can go to Krishna so how they can make spiritual advancement so we focus on that position that fulfils Prabhupada’s purpose the most Prabhupada started a society international society for refuting moon hoax for moon conspiracy no that’s not our purpose the international society for Krishna consciousness so that week that means among the various positions that Prabhupada has taken in our outreach we can we can present or highlight that position which fulfils Prabhupada’s ultimate purpose that that position which helps people to actually go to to come to Krishna or to rise toward Krishna consciousness if anything else is distracting people from the spiritual world from spiritual growth then there is no need to highlight that position and again no need to make that as an issue of faith now why we are talking this in the cosmology section so in the cosmology section there is discussion of different planets and different planetary motions but in the Shastra itself there is no normative or definitive statement that one cannot go to a higher planet it is said that one cannot go in a normal means normal means is as Prabhupada says you have to acquire the proper visa the proper immigration status and then you go there now then the question may come then what actually happened can you go ahead so before we go into that so if you say that okay those who don’t have punya how can they go to heavens well in the Shastra also there is there is there are some examples of people gate crashing into heaven where the Asuras when they attack now the Asuras are not going by doing punya the Asuras are going by their brute prowess and they are we might say okay they have done some austerities and that’s how they got some powers but that austerity is not exactly the same as punya for going toward heaven so but they are able to go there so Ravana tries to go there and then Ravana actually goes there and he is defeated and is arrested by Indra and then Indrajith Meghnath goes there and rescues him and he he turns the tables around he arrests Indra then Brahmaji and he actually brings Indra as a prisoner to Lanka then Brahmaji comes and says please please release him otherwise the universal order will be disrupted then Indrajith asks for some special benedictions from him so Ravana is able to go to heaven Hiranyakashyap also terrorises the Devatas we see in the 8th canto the Devatas are dispossessed of heavens and that’s why Diti is in great distress and then she prays please arrange some relief and then Vamanadev comes so there are examples of people without doing the requisite punya to go to heaven but that is not that is a quasi stable quasi stable stage they go there for some time they disrupt the universal order and go there and then they are eventually evicted out of there so modern people are definitely not as powerful as the past asuras so they cannot go and take over the heavens but they might go there for some time go ahead now by by certain prowess what to speak of going to swarga loka somebody can go to Vaikuntha also Durvasa Muni goes to Vaikuntha when he is being chased by by the suvarshan chakra but then going to Vaikuntha is not just a matter of like say transportation of physical relocation it’s a matter of consciousness otherwise he may go there but he can’t stay there and he doesn’t even want to stay there so then that going is not really going yeah now specifically by mechanical mechanical devices we have in the Rama in the Mahabharata as Arjuna goes to swarga and he goes to swarga with the chariot which Maitili with Indra has sent through Maitili to him and then he goes in the in the physical form of the earth and he sits Mahadasanartham the Bhagavatam says that Indra has him sit on his own throne so half of the throne Indra occupies half of the throne Arjuna occupies so there is the possibility of going in this in this body itself to heavens so now I talked about Prabhupada’s statements and what Shastra says and now we look at what might have happened with respect to the moon mission so broadly we could say that the humans went to a 3D projection of Chandraloka I mean I’ll explain what I mean by that or there was a high-tech diversion as Prabhupada says by the devatas and they went somewhere else or they didn’t go out of the earth at all everything was hoaxed so anything could have happened now what do you mean by a 2D projection of a 3D object what do I mean by projection see basically the heavenly planets exist at a higher level of reality like we discussed in our previous sessions when everybody in India and America will say heaven is up but up is two opposite directions so what’s up so it is which direction is up so it’s a subtle thing so even if so when you say it’s subtle means what it exists at a different level of reality it exists at different dimensions so even if we could travel in 3D space to heavens we won’t access the reality that is heaven because heaven is and Chandraloka is also considered a part of the heavenly planets so it is existing at a different level of reality so if we had a can we go to the next slide I’ll explain this afterward yeah so if we have a map so a map we could say is like a 2D projection of a multi-dimensional object so there is Mumbai and there is Pune say if I am in Mumbai and on a map I move my finger from Mumbai to Pune I’m not going to experience anything about Pune I might say I went to Pune okay you bend your finger went to the location that corresponds to Pune on the map but you not experienced anything about Pune so just having the technology to look relook to transport to a place doesn’t mean that we have got got access to higher levels of reality so so it could be that they went to the moon but they didn’t access the moon because we’ve gone with the gross body and with the gross body we’ll only see the gross realities and this is that if what to speak of we going to the heavens even the devatas come to the earth we cannot see the devatas unless they grant us the vision they grant us the vision many times when the sacrifices are performed the the sacrifice at the end of the fire sacrifice the devatas come and accept the sacrificial offering but most of the times the performance sacrifice don’t see the devatas it’s only when they are specially pleased that they grant that vision and they are able to see so we might have gone like that in 2D in 3D space to the moon but we didn’t access any of the higher reality that is the moon yeah can you go ahead so now if you want to take a math analogy you know 3 plus 3 is 6 if somebody says 3 plus 3 is not 6 then they are wrong if somebody will give them somebody assignment 3 plus 3 and what is your answer is it 6 no it’s not 6 now what is the answer you can get 1 from infinite numbers you can have any answer if it is not 6 we know it is wrong but what is the specific answer that they got that that particular person might have got it can be infinite possibilities so like that if somebody goes to moon and doesn’t experience the higher reality that is the moon doesn’t experience its varga loka that means something went wrong now what exactly went wrong that we don’t know so as cosmonauts are not experienced chandra loka with all its opulence that means they have not got 3 plus 3 is 6 so they have missed out something and prabhupada’s point was that you cannot you cannot it’s a heavenly planet you cannot access heaven without the right karma so you can go maybe they can go physically but that doesn’t mean they experience they have actually entered in svarga loka this is something similar to somebody going to vrindavan but they don’t really see vrindavan much i’ll talk about that in tomorrow’s class but that is the broad principle now and the last point in this discussion about the moon mission our focus should be that we avoid people from getting distracted from devotion and the growth in devotion go ahead so now if we consider what is the essence of preaching when we are trying to share krishna bhakti with others say krishna is there and there is some this wall is like an obstacle between people and krishna so the preacher’s job is to break this wall so to remove obstacles on the path of people to come to krishna now at particular time in history the excitement oh we went to the moon we are going to go to the moon something wonderful is going to happen we are going to conquer space that excitement was a big distraction for people so can you go ahead yeah so we will go to the moon we are going to the moon we have gone to the moon there was so much elation and that was distracting people from devotion in the 1960s 1970s and prabhupada’s whole mood was don’t get excited about it so much sometimes they didn’t go to the moon they went elsewhere they were diverted whatever don’t get so excited about it so what is the obstacle we have to remove that obstacle so if there is too much excitement about something don’t get so excited about it now in at least in today’s world what i have seen is the obstacle is something different can you go next slide if yeah go behind there’s no it’s a different statement so today if people here we haven’t gone to the moon that is what agitates them what do you mean you say we didn’t go to the moon see till they hear it they don’t care much about it but as soon as they hear it you claim like this that means i’ll have to believe this we didn’t go to the moon so the the moon mission is not at all an issue for people in their krishna bhakti till we make it an issue so why make it an issue isn’t it so it’s it’s irrelevant you know yeah okay we read in our books we went to the moon and so for many people see what happens is many people don’t know science much many people are not very scientific but they like to believe and claim i am scientific and especially if they are told that to come to spirituality you have to stop being scientific or you reject science that becomes very difficult for them that becomes very difficult so and there was this devotee friend of mine well i could say i mean he’s a devotee he was a friend he’s a semi-devotee he was coming up and he got a job in ISRO ISRO ISRO so indian space which is organisation and ISRO he started preaching man did not go to the moon so that was one of the most ridiculous things you could do then apparently his boss was actually Sri Vaishnava and his boss called him and told him i don’t know i also read the bhagavatam we also worship krishna we also have krishna bhaktas but we don’t make this an issue now where does the bhagavatam say that you can’t go to the moon so then he asked the devotees he asked the devotees he knew he asked them where does the bhagavatam say it can’t go to the moon he says if that person is saying like this that person is damaging your faith in prabhupada stop associating with him he’s a non-devotee that’s what he was told so then sometimes see all over the world when somebody takes to a particular path that is what is called the zeal of the new convert zero the new convert means i know the truth and i’m going to deliver and enlighten everyone that’s the idea so he tried to argue with his boss and he got into a lot of trouble because of that then eventually he wrote to me on my website and then we had a long discussion and i presented in various statements of prabhupada and then he calmed down he realised this is this is not an issue this is in english there is saying that like if two armies are fighting a war and there is some minor fort or hill which if you lose it it doesn’t matter you can always that is not such an important hill for you so this is not the hill i want to die on what i mean this is not a big battle for us our big battle is how to get people to come to krishna so we don’t have to make this a faith issue or make this a central issue in our preaching we go ahead so when we have to do outreach we have to look at which statements remove obstacles we sorry we have to we have to make those statements which will remove the obstacles for people not make statement that will become obstacles for people so na buddhi vedam janayet krishna says don’t disturb people’s minds and there he is saying even if those people are attached and ignorant don’t disturb their minds elevate them gradually na buddhi vedam janayet ajnanam karma sangina joshet sarva karmani vidvan yukta samacharan elevate them krishna is saying and now here we don’t even know actually what happened prabhupada has not taken one position so why make that a issue at all can you go ahead so now now in many ways today’s technological advancement it is like mystic power prabhupada talks about this in the nectar of devotion introduction how the various siddhis modern man has achieved that in some ways you know we can penetrate into penetrate into stone or something by tunnels we can fly into the sky using planes that’s like anima maima laghima prabhupada gives like a generic comparison of those siddhis and prabhupada’s point in the nectar of devotion is that actually this technology is nothing to be excited about the siddhis are also nothing to be excited about so now today’s mystic power sorry today so just as there are mystic powers in the past technology is in some way like a mystic power now go ahead whether today’s technology can do everything that mystic powers could do or not that’s open to question mystic powers might be able to do certain things more technology might be able to do certain things different but the key thing is just as in our tradition go ahead that mystic power is understood to be a distraction similarly technology can also be a distraction so prabhupada’s point is don’t get distracted by technological accomplishments just as by yogic accomplishments don’t get distracted similarly technological accomplishments don’t get distracted so you know we have distraction device so device means what happens is if we have a device and we don’t have devotion then we end up with vice so device minus devotion you remove the d so we can get distracted by technology in so many ways in today’s world so we just have to avoid distraction go ahead so our you know sarva vidhi dishi dasur etaya raya kinkaram smartha ve sataram vishnu vistavartam jyotruchit always remember krishna never forget krishna so now in general there is a rather than thinking of faithfulness to gurusadha shastra as like one position has to be followed there could be acceptable range of positions so one would be one acceptable range would be that astronauts went to the moon but they didn’t access the moon the other would be they didn’t go out of the earth at all. Devotees can have any of these positions and all these positions could be based on Prabhupada’s statements.
So we can take any position, but which position should we take? See our purpose is not whether they went to the moon or they didn’t go, our purpose is whether we keep moving towards Krishna and we help others to move towards Krishna. So we take the position which helps us and others to move towards Krishna and rather than saying this person is faithful and this person is not faithful, this person is serious and this person is loose, we don’t have to get in that, which we can be pragmatic with respect to this, whatever helps us move towards Krishna. So whether anyone went to the moon or not, we can by Krishna’s mercy go beyond the moon to Goloka and that is Prabhupada’s real gift that he has given us.
Thank you very much. Shrila Prabhupada ki Jai.