Vedic Astronomy outshines Modern Astronomy by Danavir Gosvami Regarding modern astronomy, you should study it carefully before deriding it. At least you should give a reasonable explanation of how astronomers mistakenly thought that there are heavenly bodies further away than two billion miles. It will also be helpful if you can explain why the earth was mistakenly thought to be a sphere rather than a flat plate. If you preach on these matters in universities, you will be confronted with such questions. I have heard from my spiritual master who has concluded that astronomers are worth being derided when they disagree with the Vedic conclusion. Now suppose personally, myself, we are challenging, we are calling them by names, rascal, but I am not a scientist. I never studied astronomy, astrology, or anything. But why I am telling? What power I have got? But I am challenging on the words of a superior answer. I am confident that the words spoken by Vydsadeva or Krsna, that is perfect. Therefore they are rascals, because their statement do not corroborate. In other words, we can understand. That is our advantage. Bhakti-yogena. If you practice bhakti-yoga, yasya deve para bhaktir yatha deve tat ha gurau, if one is, one has unflinching faith in the Supreme Personality of Godhead and his spiritual master, yathd-deve... Deve means the Supreme Lord, and guru, and guru also, the spiritual master. A person who has got unflinching faith in these two personalities — guru and Krsna — then the facility will be that all the revealed scriptures will be manifest automatically, even though he is not, not very learned. The purport of the whole knowledge will be revealed from within, because Krsna is within, and the spiritual master is without, so both of them will help. Our students are going so many places — in the schools, colleges, universities. Theyre surprised how theyre speaking so nicely, because they have got unflinching faith in Krsna and the spiritual master. They are not so learned. They have not gone to the college and learned so many things as the materialistic students do, but on this account: bhakti-yogena manasi. Vydsadeva also did like that. He became so great because he has accepted bhakti-yoga by the order of his spiritual master, Narada. Before that, he wrote so many books, Purdnas and others. He was not satisfied. When Narada said that You cannot be satisfied by describing so many material things. You try to describe the glories of the Lord. ..So after his instruction, bhakti-yogena, by practicing bhakti-yogena, manasi, unto the mind, pranihite, mind became settled up; intelligence, right intelligence came, and everything became amala. Amala means without any material contamination. (Room Conversation — New Delhi, December 1 1 , 1 971 ) If by compromising the literal meaning of the scripture to achieve some left-handed appreciation from scientists we must sacrifice the integrity and the very gist of the teaching, i.e. complete faith in and fidelity to the words of the Bhagavatam, then I feel we have too much to lose. I propose that the kind of careful reading that 1 advocated above represents complete faith in and fidelity to the words of the Bhagavatam. One must consider what the text is really saying, rather than embracing a superficial literalism that reduces the text to an absurdity. The text and Srila Prabhupada and Lord Krishna as quoted in the Caitanya-caritamrita all say clearly that the visible universe is four billion miles in diameter. That is not absurd nor superficial. Only because of conditioning by modern scientists theories does one consider that four billion miles is too small to accommodate so many stars and planets. Vaisnavas are not supposed to accept modern scientists as authorities in cosmic matters. Bhakti-prema: So how we will expose it before scientists? Prabhupada: We do not require to satisfy the scientists. We have to describe according to our book. Thats all. If they can understand, lei them understand. Otherwise... It is not our business to satisfy the so-called scientists. We are giving the real description. (Room Conversation — June 18, 1977, Vrndavana) Indications that the Bhagavatam is incorrect or incomplete are a drastic deviation from parampara and should not be espoused in any media. Let us work together to rectify such is understandings regarding Vaisnava cosmological siddhanla as quickly as possible. Granted, Srila Prabhupada did want to win over scientists — but not by waffling. If the devotees hear any more statements from 1SKCON scientists discrediting the Srimad Bhagavatams version, it will seriously attack their own delicate faith in Vedic scriptures. Faith in the Physical Should their faith be based on a simplistic physical interpretation of Bhu-mandala when the text of the Fifth Canto indicates otherwise? The text of the Fifth Canto does not indicate any other diameter for the universe than four billion miles. To assert that it does is the most ultra extremist interpretation. Instead of accepting sastric statements at face value, unfortunately you have presented a new theory but at the end, we are left with the same modern view telling us that within this universe there are many galaxies like the Milky Way distributed over millions of light years of outer space. Accepting the modern scientific notion that there are many suns within our universe is contradictory to the Srimad Bhagavatam and our spiritual master. The words of the spiritual master and the sastras are to be taken literally without fanciful so-called scientific interpretation. It is not allowed to pick and choose from Vedic evidence and then manufacture a conclusion in conjunction with modern so-called scientific theories which is contrary to the Srimad Bhagavatam. In order to accept modern astronomys ideas about the construction of the universe, one must reject the simple and straightforward words which Srila Prabhupada has so many times repeated... only one sun in the universe.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 22:28:03 +0000
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