Prabhupada’s statements on the moon mission_ How to understand?

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Hare Krishna with the Chandrayaan being launched by India and its live launch on YouTube a social media attracting record viewership those who are followers of Shila Prabhupada can often get questions how do we reconcile his statements about the moon with what is happening in India and what we are seeing so in this session I will take three parts, first is what were Shila Prabhupada’s statements sometimes only one particular statement is attributed to him that he said that I did not go to the moon but actually Prabhupada made a wide variety of statements, so we look at those statements then we will see how do we make sense, harmonize these various statements and then we can see how we can move forward from the position that we are in at present so let’s look at some of the quotes of Shila Prabhupada so here we will see the basic statement that Shila Prabhupada broadly made was that he said that our going to moon is like illegal immigration his point was not so much that ecologically the spacecrafts whether they can go to the moon or not that was not his question, his question was his objection was not objection to science per se it was from a higher dimensional perspective, that the moon planet from the Shastra we understand that nobody can go there unless he is free, 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 if you go there you will be driven away, what is use of such attempt, so this is Srimad Bhagavatam 5.5.5 lecture Stockholm September 10 1973, that is the key thesis, now Prabhupada also said other things, went they went but they couldn’t stay there and practically we see they are going to the moon planet but they cannot stay, uselessly going and coming, so and practically we see, so Prabhupada is not denying what is being seen through the practical vision this is lecture on Srimad Bhagavatam 6.1.1 124 Melbourne May 20, 1975 so he is saying that what is the use of it going there, what it meant was that at that time, if you look at the broader context at that time, there was a hype that will not only go there, eventually it will be like a the moon will be like a tourist destination routine, regular spacecrafts will be going there, people will buy land on the moon and have their own resort and retreat center so, none of that materialized even half a half a decade after Prabhupada that event happened, which Prabhupada speak in 1975, that event happened in 1969 and now so Prabhupada is pointing the futility of it then, again he is not denying that they went, they are going to the moon but what are they doing, now Prabhupada significantly says that 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 very earlier lecture 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, this is Parpur, Ishopanishad 12 so, that spaceships can take us there is not something which Prabhupada is denying that’s one of the ways now, another point Prabhupada said is that they were diverted elsewhere again, one of the 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 license let them be diverted to the deserted portion and disappointed they will go back, lecture nectar of devotion, Bombay December 28 1972, so here, again Prabhupada is saying, okay they went to the moon but they didn’t actually access the moon, so he gives the example that suppose immigrants come into a country and they are not stopped then they may not be they may not be stopped in coming into the country but they may not be wanted in the prosperous elite parts of the country, they might be sent to some remote backwater kind of the part of that country and that’s what happens in America, when immigrants who came in were taken or transported to some place where all the elites live there is a big UN cry and they were immediately sent away from there to somewhere else so, there is diversion so again, there is no denial that they went but they were diverted, now of course this is the statement which is most commonly attributed that it is a hoax the devotee says was all this a bluff yes, here they are all laboratory work that’s all, they all made it up Prabhupada said yes so, again now, we might say this is the final position but Prabhupada said exactly the opposite also, they went there but didn’t get much out of it it is not like 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 552 London, September 17, 1969 now, in the introduction to the Bhagavad Gita, Prabhupada makes the statement that, 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 practice of remembering the Supreme Personality of God so, the focus is on endeavoring for spiritual elevation, not for material elevation, we see a range of positions that Shrila Prabhupada has taken, now how do we make sense of this so, we have to harmonize various positions one could be that we absolutize this is what Prabhupada did, Prabhupada did not go to the moon and that’s all, anybody who does not accept it, is having no faith in Prabhupada, no faith in Shastra that person is doomed spiritually well, when Prabhupada has made multiple statements, on what basis can we say that our faith in Prabhupada is to be judged by only our faith in one statement of Shrila Prabhupada which statement is to be absolutized and on what basis so, when Prabhupada himself has made multiple statements, so that is one extreme of the pendulum is to absolutize the other extreme would be to relativize and we say actually, Prabhupada didn’t know maybe at that time Prabhupada has made different opinions, so he was just guessing and now we accept Prabhupada when he is talking about spiritual subject matters, material subject matters well, you know he is not in authority once he started going in the direction of relativizing then it’s a slippery slope, then which statements are to be relativized and who decides that so, our guidance from an authority source of wisdom will be lost it’s a slippery slope, so we have to be careful we don’t want to go to that extreme also, in between absolutizing and relativizing is contextualizing that means we look at the specific context, when was this spoken and more importantly what is the underlying universal purpose for which this is spoken so, how do we contextualize this now, for that purpose we can say that we can look at three broad principles this is mission movement when was it spoken and movement the forward motion, so M-O-M-E-N-T and M-O-V-E-M-E-N-T so, the mission that Srila Prabhupada started was the international society for Krishna consciousness it is not the international society for moon conspiracy exposure now, that was incidental if we consider Srila Prabhupada’s teachings there are primary teachings, secondary teachings there are tertiary teachings now, how do we decide what is primary, secondary, tertiary well, we don’t decide, we look at what Srila Prabhupada himself has said Srila Prabhupada said that among all the very name that he gave to his movement was international society for Krishna consciousness the seven purposes that he had when he started the movement were all centered on this theme of Krishna consciousness correcting the imbalance of spiritual values, creating facilities where people could come together closer to each other and closer to God distributing literatures so, in none, neither in the name nor in the seven defining purposes does Prabhupada talk about exposure of moon conspiracy so, that is not his central teaching and so we have to make sure that what is a secondary or a tertiary teaching doesn’t distract us from the primary message so the mission is what is to focus on then we may say, ok, if it is secondary or tertiary statement then why was it even made for that we look at the movement and more immediately when was it spoken it was spoken at a particular time in history when there was huge hype and excitement about humanity’s conquest of space 1960s were characterized by the space race between the two big powers in the cold war, USSR and USA and America ostensibly won the space race and people were literally, people believed they were on top of the moon and they thought we are on the top of the world this is the pinnacle of humanity’s success and Prabhupada’s focus was, don’t get distracted from all this ok, whether this is whether somebody has gone to the moon or not the important thing is that we need to elevate our consciousness, that was his primary focus, that was a distraction, he wanted to challenge that distraction and now again, Prabhupada’s statement was not anti-science per se, it was from a different perspective that the Chandra Loka is a higher planetary system and we cannot access it we cannot get crash into it, we cannot be illegal immigrants in there, so that was a very different from anti-science kind of tiding so if we consider that existence is multi-level within the Vedic texts, that means that we can see our physical body, but beyond the physical matter, there is subtle matter and then beyond that there is spirit so gross matter, subtle matter and spirit and our perception is largely limited to subtle gross matter so now the higher levels of reality like the heavenly planets they exist at multiple levels so they have an aspect of them which could be visible at the physical level, but they have an aspect to them which is not visible at the physical level, just like our existence, our body is visible at the physical level, but the mind and the soul are not visible at the physical level the same principle applies to celestial bodies, so Chandra Loka is a higher planetary system, now some aspect of it is visible to us as the moon planet, but we are perceiving within three-dimensional space, we have our senses which can perceive gross matter only so we are perceiving basically a gross replica or a gross image of what is a multi- level reality, it’s gross and subtle reality, it’s like if we have a map of a particular territory if we have a map of a particular territory now the map itself is not the territory, if somebody moves their finger from Mumbai to Pune they are not actually moving from Mumbai to Pune, the map is a replica so it is a useful replica for certain purposes but it is not the actual reality so similarly what we perceive with our senses is a partial replica of Chandra Loka and that replica what we perceive exists within the domain of gross matter but there is more to the moon beyond gross matter or more to Chandra Loka beyond the gross matter moon that we see and that is inaccessible to us so that was the thrust of Srila Prabhupada’s teachings and the key point is that the moment that particular moment is no longer there and when we are trying to share spiritual wisdom we need to focus on what is obstructing people from going toward Krishna so there are people here and there is a wall, there is an obstacle from going toward Krishna and whatever is the obstacle we want to remove that obstacle, help people remove that obstacle so with respect to the moon issue there could be people who say that some people who say astronauts went to the moon and some people say no absolutely they didn’t go some people who can say that it’s a hoax others can say that actually they didn’t even go out of the earth and no you are wrong the key point is we choose to keep moving toward Krishna that is what is important for us so the movement, our forward movement toward Krishna should not be distracted by either infatuation with the moon mission or suspicion about the moon mission so we have to know which statements remove obstacles and which statements can themselves become obstacles so there could be a wide range given that Prabhupada has made a wide variety of statements there could be an acceptable range of positions that are all faithful to Srila Prabhupada so somebody might say that ok astronauts went to the moon somebody said they didn’t go out of the earth also but whatever be the position or temporal issue that we accept given that Prabhupada had multiple positions the key point is we keep moving toward Krishna and that is something that is Srila Prabhupada’s focus and that is his gift the facility for doing that that he has provided so by Krishna’s mercy and by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy irrespective of whether man went to the moon or not, whether man goes to the moon or not, in future we can still keep going beyond beyond the moon, further beyond to Krishna’s eternal abode so to summarize faithfulness to Prabhupada should not be reduced to one statement that man did not go to the moon because Prabhupada made various statements and in trying to harmonize those statements, we don’t absolutize or relativize, we contextualize and to understand the context we look at what was the primary mission that was Krishna consciousness, not anything to do with the moon and what was the moment when these statements were spoken when Prabhupada was here, the hype over the moon issue, so that could have been a distraction and the moment, the key is how can we keep moving forward toward Krishna so there could be an acceptable range of positions that different devotees, followers of Srila Prabhupada may accept with respect to their own understanding and they can still keep moving toward Krishna without making this issue an issue of faith or an issue of inordinate confrontation, thank you Hare Krishna