What is the meaning of the Gita statement about the moon being the most prominent nakshatra?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
prema, actually liberation and pure love. Thank you. Hare Krishna.
A loss in terms of people. For example, you know in Hindi we say Bhagwan Krishna gave alagalag gunhe. So now many devotees who learn Hindi and they learn English, Krishna has different different qualities.
Now those who are coming from an English background, why do you have to say two different? Krishna has different qualities. Why do you need different different over there? One different is enough. So any translation always leads to some semantic confusion.
So the point here is the word nakshatra. In Sanskrit the point is nakshatrarakamsha. So now if we look at nakshatra, what exactly is a nakshatra? If we translate it as a star, then among stars there is a moon.
That’s the way Prabhupada translates it. But then Prabhupada’s translations are basically convenient verbal tools to get people some introductory grasp. But the exact concept cannot be translated into different languages.
For example, Prabhupada uses the word incarnation for Atta. But the word incarnation, in karma, karma means flesh. The karmini word was here.
It was going to flesh. So incarnation, this is word actually coming from Christian theology to refer to the descent of Jesus. So they say the divinity of God, divinity of Christ became manifested in the humanity of Jesus.
That’s a complex theological statement of Christianity. But the point is Jesus is supposed to have lived in flesh. And yet they consider him incarnation.
So now when we use the word incarnation, this word incarnation was used by western Indologists when they studied Indian literature. And they had a conception that Krishna also has a material body. Because that was the word familiar to them.
And now because of all these video games, the word avatar has become quite familiar. But at that time the word avatar was not familiar to people. So what Prabhupada did was, Prabhupada used the familiar verbal tool, that is incarnation.
But then he emphasized, Krishna does not have a material body. So like that, when we talk about the word nakshatra, we can come to… Yes, Prabhupada translated it as star. But it’s not star in the sense in which we use it in science.
It’s a different sense. For example, in the Krishna Sahasrana, it is described as Saptarchi, Saptarshi, Saptaghi. That there are seven kinds of fire.
Now, we just know one kind of fire, it’s called combustion. We know what are the seven kinds of fire, it is described. Now, that means that there are different kinds of, at least in conception, there are different kinds of fires.
You know, we have hot light sources, we have cold light sources. So, we know the moonlight is cooling and soothing them. Sunlight is heating and blazing.
So we can have some understanding of that. But the point is, that in the Vedic scriptures, the word nakshatra is not used in the same specific scientific sense as it is used in the modern scientific sense. So, we can’t just transplant, we can’t just transplant terms from here to there.
The point is, that the moon, nakshatrana, amshashi, what is the principle that Krishna is telling over here? That, okay, there are many celestial objects which to us seem luminous. Which to us seem luminous. But, among those luminous objects, the maximum luminosity in the night sky comes from the moon.
And, if there is a bright moon in the night sky, the moon catches our attention. And the whole purpose of the 10th chapter of Bhuti Yoga is that whatever catches our attention actually manifests as part of Krishna’s attractiveness. So, whenever anything attractive we find in this world, we should immediately connect it to Krishna and remember Krishna.
So, that way, we can connect things with Krishna and remember Krishna. So, the principle of this verse is that, now, what is the kind of illumination that comes from the stars, what is the kind of illumination that comes from the moon? That is a complex scientific subject which is not the focus of the Bhagavad Gita. The focus is among the objects that appear luminous to us which catches our attention, it is the moon.
And, then, that moon’s attraction catching potency comes from Krishna. And, therefore, the moon should remind us of Krishna. That is the point.
So, when Prabhupada is saying that, over there, the moon is a star, the important point which he is making over here is, not that it is a star exactly in a scientific sense. The point is, to our eyes, it appears to be a source of luminosity. And, there are different kinds of luminosity.
Science may say that, as of now, it may say that, it just reflects the light which comes from the moon. But, as we know that, the electromagnetic spectrum is large and what we call as light is only visible light. So, whether the moon is a source of a different kind of light, which the moon comes from, which comes from a different meaning, we don’t know.
The scriptures also talk about the fact that, the moon reflects the sun’s light. Chaitanya Chaitanya contains a metaphor. So, the moon reflects the sun’s light.
Similarly, the devotee of Lord Chaitanya reflected the beauty of Lord Chaitanya. That is also known to scripture. The point here which we are making is simple.
We shouldn’t divorce scriptural statements from their context and purpose. The purpose of the statement, is not to give a crash course in cosmology. It is simply to, when we look at the night sky, how that reflection in the night sky can remind us of Krishna.