The Moon and the Sun…

By Madhudvisa das

Srila Prabhupada has the strength to have complete faith in Krishna, in his spiritual master and in the Vedas. That is his unique qualification. Unfortunately most so-called devotees of Krishna today prefer to put their faith in the theories of modern science, rejecting the Vedic version. Such devotees have no faith and will never be able to understand the real imports of the Vedic knowledge as this requires absolute faith in the Lord and the bona fide spiritual master.

Modern “science” can never give us perfect knowledge. For it is a result of imperfect information observed through the imperfect senses of “scientists” who all have the tendency to cheat and make mistakes and are illusioned [they accept so many things to be facts which are not facts at all]. So no perfect knowledge can come from such scientists.

Of course the “scientists” put on a grand show and try to convince us they know everything about how the universe works. If you ask them any question they have an answer ready… They give the impression that they know everything. But when one closely analyses any field of science one finds nothing is really very “scientific” at all. There are still so many unanswered questions and contradictions.

One big problem with science is every scientist comes up with his own idea, his own theory and sets about to prove it. That is called the hypothesis, then, according to the “scientific method,” one must prove it or disprove the hypothesis by observation and experimentation. In the process the tendency is for the scientist to ignore everything except the evidence that supports his hypothesis. So much evidence gets ignored or suppressed in this way.

The world of “science” is limited by the theories of the scientists. If the “scientists” can not imagine something then there is no way this so-called “scientific method” can ever discover it.

From the Vedas we know many things about this universe–and what to speak of the spiritual world–are beyond the ability of or minds to imagine and beyond the ability of our senses to perceive. So all this knowledge is forever unattainable by the so-called “scientific method.”

Thanks to Srila Prabhupada we know that many of the basic fundamental principles of modern science are completely wrong. The whole philosophy of science is based on the assumption that everything can be explained by studying four of the material elements [earth, water, fire and air] but this assumption is completely flawed. Modern “science” is completely ignorant of ether, mind, intelligence, false ego and of course the soul and the supersoul.

Modern “science” is something like studying a motor car engine to try and work out how the motor car knows how to get to its destination… Actually the motor car engine has no way at all of getting to the destination. It is the driver who is controlling it and directing it who knows how to get to the destination. But modern science refuses to accept that there is any driver at all in either the individual bodies or in the universal body. They can not see the driver in the motor car and so try to explain all the complex workings and movements of the car by studying the mechanics of the car… Without even knowing that the driver exists…

Modern “science” is childish, it is foolish. They are fools and rascals and we should stand up and tell everyone that the so-called modern scientists are nothing but fools, asses and rascals as Srila Prabhupada quite fearlessly did. But very few devotees seem to have faith in Prabhupada and the Vedas these days… They seem to have more faith in the scientists… Maya is very strong…

So there is so much evidence to support the Vedic history of the world and the Vedic understanding of the universe but no one is really very interested in proving the Vedic history of the world or the universe is correct therefore the evidence mostly gets ignored or swept under the carpet.

Sadaputa Prabhu did come up with a nice presentation on this point, he called it “knowledge filtering.” Science only accepts “knowledge” if it fits in with their understanding of the world, otherwise they reject it. So when the Vedas describes a very advanced civilization that existed hundreds of thousands of years ago, even millions of years ago, they can not accept it. Even when they find the proof of it they still refuse to accept it. It is unthinkable to them. It completely contradicts the world–as they know it. But, little do they know, the real world, the real universe, is not at all like the world they have imagined and the world that all their scientific theories describe.

Modern “science” has created an imaginary world where there is no soul, there is no need for any higher intelligence, a world where everything can be explained by the chance interaction of material elements. A world where the life force does not exist at all, it is simply a manifestation, a reaction from a certain chance chemical combination… and if we give them information about the real world they can not accept it… They will not accept it.

Their whole world is evolution. Evolution is the most fundamental belief that practically all of today’s science is built on. And there is evolution also–but it is the consciousness that evolves or devolves–not the body. All the bodies of all the 8,400,000 species of life are existing–if not in a physical form in a subtle form–and when a particular living entities’ consciousness matches a particular body he is awarded that type of body. But all the individual species exist eternally. It is the individual souls who are evolving and devolving up and down through the different species of life, not that one species is evolving into another species by “natural selection.” That is a completely incorrect theory.

According to the wonderful and insane theory of “modern” evolution somehow magically single-celled creatures appeared by chance–perhaps because of a lightning storm, which also came from nowhere and had no cause… and somehow these single-celled creatures who magically and inexplicably appeared gradually developed, by chance mutations, into more advanced creatures… and after millions of years, completely by chance random mutations, humans were produced, completely by chance with no higher intelligence involved. This modern evolution theory a fairy-tale for adults. It is so far-fetched and so impossible but the “scientists” cling to it as if their very lives depend on it because evolution is the only “logical” way they can explain that we came into existence with no higher intelligence above us… Evolution is the religion of the atheists.

We know that this whole theory is so WRONG. We know the first creature born in this universe was Lord Brahma. He took birth on the lotus flower atop the stem that sprouted from the abdomen of Vishnu. Lord Brahma, the first life in this universe, except for Vishnu, is the MOST evolved creature with the highest intelligence and is greater and more evolved than any other creature in the universe. So the first life was the most evolved creature. Not a single-cell creature at all…

So “science” is so, so wrong. But they love evolution because it enables them to believe that everything happens by chance, that there is no authority, there is no higher intelligence above them. They do not have to surrender to anyone, they do not have to serve anyone. This is the real point of science. To provide a world-view where there is no necessity for a God or any form of higher intelligence. That way humans are at the top of the ladder and the most powerful, and free to do as we like… But it is all wrong, so terribly wrong…

The Vedic view of the universe is correct and the so-called scientific view is incorrect. There are so many issues here and I have explored them in some detail and know the Vedic view of the universe presents a model of the workings of the universe which perfectly predicts all the observations we can make. It predicts the movement of the planets, the stars, the constellations, the sun, the moon, the changing seasons, the changing length of the days and nights, the solar and Luna eclipses, etc. Everything is perfectly predicted.

Let us not forget since the beginning of time this Vedic model of the universe has been used and the Vedic culture has had such advanced astronomical and astrological information which Western science has only discovered in the past 80 years.

The Vedas are books of scientific knowledge. Everything in them is correct including the descriptions of the workings of the universe in Srimad-Bhagavatam. However the real workings of the universe may be completely different from the way modern science has imagined them to be.

Our position is something like that of a tiny ant stuck in one small corner of a huge machine of great complexity. We can not move out of our tiny corner and we can only see a very small part of a couple of small pieces of the great machine and a few flashing lights moving in the distance. How, stuck in that tiny corner, can we ever understand the workings of that machine?

We could speculate for millions of years but it would not help. We can not see what is going on and we can not see how the machine is working or what is making it work. These things are simply beyond the power of our senses to perceive. We can never understand the universe in this way.

The only way we could ever understand how the universe is working is if we could get that information from someone who actually knows how the universe is working.

Fortunately Narada Muni, the spiritual master of Srila Vyasadeva, the father of Sukadeva Gosvami, who spoke the Srimad-Bhagavatam, is not like us. Srila Narada Muni is a transcendental spaceman, he can, at his will, immediately travel to any place in the universe and even to the spiritual world. So he has the ability of seeing the universe from every angle of vision therefore he can describe how the universe is working as he has seen how it is working.

Sukadeva Goswami has got this information of how the universe is moving from Narada Muni in the disciplic succession and although he may not have personally seen it with his eyes he has seen it through the disciplic succession. That is real seeing. Real seeing is done with the ears by hearing from the bona fide spiritual master. This type of seeing is perfect. We should see through the eyes of the sastra, not through the imperfect mundane eyes of modern so-called science.

Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!

Your servant
Madhudvisa dasa

Comment by Santosh: “Although I have been putting faith in Srila Prabhupada’s teachings for around 3 years,I am totally unable to believe when Prabhupada says that “the sun is nearer to the earth than the moon”.It is very common experience that now there are satellites in space than help in communication.No one can deny this right?And there are many photos taken in space which show that the moon is much much nearer to us than the sun…..how can we accept everything as chaeating by the wicked scientists….Every person knows that the moon is nearer,right…

I find the philosophy of Krsna Consciouness to be wonderful…But this particular claim of the Bhagavatam has bewildered me….How can I deny everything that I see?Suppose I see someone drinking…..and someone else says….”no, he is not drinking….your imperfect eyes are seeing that”—what am I supposed to think? I request to give a convincing reply to my doubt so that I can develop stronger faith in Prabhupada,and follow what he says.”

Comment by Madhudvisa: “Prabhu this is not Srila Prabhupada’s idea. This is the description of the universe given in the Srimad-Bhagavatam. There are so many contradictions with what modern science thinks the universe is like. Prabhupada uses the ‘frog in the well’ analogy and that is a very perfect way to understand it. The frog can only see the round circle above his head that is the top of the well he is living in. That is all he can see of the whole universe. Sometimes it is dark [night], sometimes it is daytime, and very occasionally in the night he may get a glimpse of the moon and on very rare occasions the sun may be directly above his well so he can see that, maybe once each year or something like that. And in the harvest season he hears the rumblings of the farmers tractors when he is harvesting his crops. So our Dr. Frog has carefully observed all these things and he can even predict now the day the sun will be above his well and he has a great philosophy to explain everything else in the universe also. But what can he actually see of the universe? How can he really understand anything about how the universe works? He can not see any of the workings of the universe. How can he even comprehend what that rumbling of the farmers tractor is? He has no idea what is farming, what is a tractor, his only experience for his whole life is in that 3 foot well.

So our scientists have no greater view of the universe than our Dr. Frog. They can not understand how it works because they can not see the workings. However the Bhagavatam is given to us by liberated souls who can see the actual situation of the whole universe. After all Lord Brahma is the chief engineer of the whole universe and he has created the whole thing out of the material in the lotus flower which grew from the navel of Lord Visnu on which he was born. And Lord Brahma is the source of our sampradaya, we are the brahma-madhva-gaudiya sampradaya. So with Lord Brahma as the leader of our sampradaya we really have got the best access to all information about the universe. Apart from Lord Krishna Himself there is no one who understands the workings of the universe better than Lord Brahma.

So Prabhu please do not dismiss the description of the universe in the Srimad-Bhagavatam because you can not comprehend it or line it up with what the scientists have told you. They know nothing, well maybe they know some little thing, but no more than the frog in the well.

It is certainly true that the scientists are able to put objects into earth orbit. And they have put satellite in earth orbit and we have proof of that because GPS works and the communications that depend on the satellites work. I even have a satellite internet connection so that would not work unless the satellite was there. These GPS geosynchronous satelites are around 22,000 miles above earth. And they have some higher ones also. But from this position the view of the universe, the sun, the moon, etc, is not much different from the view from Earth. According to there figures the moon is about a quarter of a million miles away from Earth. So from the satellites they can not see much.

As far as photos showing the relative positions of the sun, moon and earth, I do not think there are many. There are a few ‘earth rising’ pictures supposedly taken on the moon I have seen, but honestly I have not seen many such pictures and the problem is these things are so easy to fake. These days with computer graphics you can make any visual scene you want look very realistic.

Beyond the satellites and other objects in earth orbit like the international space station and the Hubble telescope there is practically nothing that we can validate about man’s exploration of space. And there are no results at all from 50 years of space exploration. To the contrary, in the 60’s we were supposedly able to send multiple successful manned missions to the moon and they were able to easily, with 1960’s technology, park their space ship in moon orbit and hop into their little ‘luna lander’ baby spaceship and fly down to the moon and take that big truck out of it and all the equipment one would need to broadcast live television from the moon to earth, and ride around on the moon and play golf and all that, then they hopped back in the luna lander and flew back up to their ship and successfully docked with it and flew it back to earth. And they supposedly did this successfully many times, maybe 5 or 6, I don’t know. But now no one knows how to fly to the moon. NASA can’t do it, many other countries have been talking about doing it for years but still at this point, since the Apollo missions in the 60’s no man has even left earth orbit… So the whole space exploration thing at this time is still quite questionable. It would appear that this man on the moon story was a hoax. Otherwise if we went to the moon in the 60’s we would still be able to go to the moon today…

Now they are saying that the Americans and Europeans will go to moon maybe in 10 or 20 years time… So let us wait and see. We need some proof that men can travel to the moon and other plants and see the universe from different perspectives. Because right now that proof simply does not exist.

Still now at least 20% of the Americans, it is probably a much higher percentage than that now, do no believe they ever went to the moon. So that is amazing, that after 50 years there is no proof that we can fly men to the moon… And that in 50 years no one has gone back to the moon…

So despite the loud voices of the scientists they know very little about the universe and how it works because they have no way of seeing how it works. They are just like the frog in the well.

Of course exactly how it is I can not tell you but I can tell you the description of the universe in the Bhagavatam is exactly how it is according to some perspective. You know things look different depending on where you are looking from. So maybe the description of the universe in the Bhagavatam is from the perspective of Lord Brahma and because he is looking down on it from the top of his lotus flower it is going to look a lot different from what our scientists see peering up through their little three-foot wide hole in the top of the well…

But there is no way they can tell actually if the sun or the moon is closer. It would look exactly the same if the moon was very big and further away and the sun was smaller than they think and closer. It is all relative. And all their ‘measurements’ are very prone to error and are based on assumptions that may not be true. The sun and the moon do exactly the same thing in the sky but the moon does it in 28 days and the sun does it in 365 days. But the way they move through the sky is identical. Western science tells us however that the sun and the moon are moving in a completely different way. According to them the earth is rotating around a relatively stationary sun and the moon is rotating around the earth, and that the movements of the sun and moon in the sky are the same is just a coincidence. Whereas the Vedic model is the earth is stationary and the sun and moon are both moving around the earth in a similar way but at different speeds and distances from the Earth. So it is a completely different model. But it is still a very good predictive model. The Vedic earth-centered model can be used for calculations that perfectly predict solar and lunar eclipses for example and in India pundits have been doing these calculations for thousands and thousands of years and Western science has only worked out how to make these calculations in the last 100 years. So the Vedic knowledge of the universe is so far ahead of the western astronomers. There must be something to it otherwise calculations using the Vedic model would not make such exact predictions of the things we observe happening in the sky…”

Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!
Madhudvisa dasa