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Stuff from "Vedic cosmography and astronomy" (was Re: The moon ..)

aq974@lafn.org (Bon Giovanni) wrote:

This is a slightly late follow-up to the moon landing thread. Jai Maharaj
posted an excerpt saying that Srila Prabhupada believed that the moon landing
was hoax. Upon which, HKS and Vivek (or Vijay) posted an explanation saying
that Richard Thompson had explained that it was the "spiritual moon" Srila
Prabhupada was talking about.

Note: Richard Thompson is a disciple of Srila Prabhupada and the book I'll be
      referring to is "Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy" by Thompson.

>I was one of the correspondents in the original thread about Swami
>Prabhupaada's assertion that Americans never landed on the moon. The
>principal person was Eric Pement, who first made that assertion that His
>Divine Grace had concluded, based on His Vedic study, that the mooon was
>much much farther away from the earth than the astronauts planned, and
>thus they could not have really journeyed that far in so short a time, nor
>rila Prabhupada had asserted that the astronats could not have travelled 
>Swamiji thought the US government lied. 

In my reading of the above book I found that,

1. Srila Prabhupada (SP) had asserted that the astronauts could not have 
   travelled to the moon. He merely mentioned the moon with no reference to 
   spiritual planets.
2. R. Thompson has taken it upon himself to explain this statement. He claims
   that it could have been only the "spiritual" moon S.P could have been
   talking about. He gives some weak 3-D, N-Dimensional arguments for this. 
   However let us accept even that. After all with his long association with 
   SP he may know better about what SP was talking about.

> In a previous article, susarla.krishna@studentserver1.swmed.edu (Hari
> Krishna Susarla) however recalls: 

However, the author talks next about what could have happened really in the
"moon trip" by the astronauts. He gives the following bizarre explanation
first:

"Thus the astronauts may have gone to the three dimensional location of the
moon without making the journey needed to actually reach the kingdom of Chandra
" pp 132-133

An even more bizarre explanation

"A second possibility is that the astronauts may have been deluded by the
demigods at some stage of their journey and may have never reached the gross
moon planet" pp 133.

Next he suggests "man-made illusions". Here he _clearly_ states that 

"A third possibility, ofcourse, is that the true story of the moon trip has been
obscured by man made illusions. *******Srila Prabhupada has expressed doubt as
to the honesty of the moon explorers, both in the Bhagavatam 5.17.4p and in
private conversations.*********" (emphasis mine)

The _honesty_ here cannot refer to the "spiritual moon", but only the physical
moon, since the astronauts made no claim about seeing chandra deva or whatever.
So _if_ SP had been talking about the "spiritual planets" then he could have
easily said that they hadn't gone to the actual moon, but only to the inert
form we see in the sky. Instead he _doubts_ the veracity of the story itself. 
Thus, the explanation of HKS and the Pai's conveniently ignored the latter part
of the discussion on the moon travel by Thompson, where he clearly states that
SP doubted the _honesty_ of the moon travelers. If SP was not talking about
the 3D moon, but only the N-Dimensional moon (which supposedly has chandradeva
et al), in his statement that "astronauts haven't visited the moon", why is 
there any mention about the dishonesty of the moon travelers?

Further, Mr Thompson shows a photograph of the vehicle which had landed on the
moon and gives some childish arguments to "prove" that the story of the US
government is a hoax (pp 133). If SP had been only talking about the spiritual
planet then this problem of the astronauts lying does not arise at all! Finally
Thompson says trying to find out the truth about the moon travel is dangerous.

"Apart from these firm conclusions, SP mentioned a few tentative possibilities
as to what might have actually transpired on the moon flight, and he expressed
general doubts as to the *honesty* of the people involved with space
exploration" (emphasis mine) pp 133.

".. and there is evidence that some cheating has taken place. However to obtain
conclusive proof of large scale cheating would be difficult, and possibly
dangerous". (pp 134)

This _clearly_ shows that whether SP had been talking about the spiritual moon
or not, he doubted the honesty of the moon travelers. Since the moon
travelers only claimed that they saw the lifeless "non-spiritual moon", it is
quite clear that SP was doubting this fact itself. The whole story of
spiritual planets etc, has been, IMO, given by Thompson to make the ISKCON 
not look so ridiculous (justification of bizarre assertions, is the correct
phrase).

>Nice to see such states of mind posited by Susarla.  That is a lovely
>idea, but a state of mind does not address the matter of DISTANCE, as was
>mentioned also in previous articles at ase-c in the thread UNCONDITIONAL
>LOVE. There, Istvan and Eric Pement addressed purported statements of
>Swami Prabhupaada that the moon landings were faked by the U.S.
>government. I asked for the actual quotes, then Pai offered the same
>interpretation as of late which Susarl echoed, and when Pement got
>specific about DISTANCE Pai then changed the heading. Pement was not
>distracted, rebutted, and showed why he held that Prabhupaadaji was

>Any who have the full quotes, might please supply them?

BTW, there are more interesting things in the book:

1. There is no force called gravitation. The earth moves due to a "wind",
   apparently you can call this gravitation if you wish. 
     "SP has pointed out that, according to Vedic understanding, planets float
      in outer space by the manipulation of air", "He has rejected the idea of
      gravitation, calling it an imaginary law." (pp128)
2. The geocentric theory "may be" correct. (pp 125)

I also got an explanation for whether the moon is a "star" or not. Readers
might remember the thread where a reader quoted from the BG, "I am the moon
among the stars" and asked how Lord kR^ishhNa could make such a mistake. I got 
this "explanation" from the book

"SP says, "... therefore the stars that twinkle in the sky also reflect the
light of the sun. The theory that there are many suns in the universe is not
accepted by Vedic literature .... The Sun is one, and as by the reflection of
the sun the moon illuminates, so also do the stars, the twinkling stars are not
suns but similar to the moon."" (pp 139)

Further,

"In response to this objection, two points  must be made. The first is that it
is not necessary to suppose that stars do not generate their own light. SP
compares the stars to the moon, but also ****gives an "educated guess" to the
effect that there are mild and pleasing flames on the moon that generate
illumination ****(SB 5.20.13p)." (pp 142) (emphasis mine)

More interesting things about the book:

The author postulates that there is an N-Dimensional reality, of which we are
experiencing only a 3-D reality. He says he'll prove it scientifically and
gives some cheap Z-grade, sci-fi movie kind of arguments. Then he proceeds to
say that science is totally silent about this N-D reality and hence science is
a total waste of time. QED. Then he proceeds ad nauseam with this "concept".
The size and the shape of the earth, so grossly wrongly given in the
bhagavatam is also explained with this ridiculous argument. So are a host of
other things.

He also gives very nonsensical analogies from Quantum Mechanics with terms like
Hilbert space used in a glaringly wrong manner. Luckily, I am reasonably
acquainted with both Hilbert spaces+Quantum mechanics. For the gullible folks,
who want to believe this book, and who have little knowledge of mathematics and
the physics, these pages probably form the height of scientific reasoning.

Also he mentions in the beginning, that the word puranic and vedic are used
interchangeably in the book. Apparently this is quite correct and only "modern"
scholars don't agree with this. Now, this is very interesting. As far as I know
most traditions (advaita, dvaita, vishishtadvaita) don't accept this. I am
quite surprised to realize that Shankara is then a "modern" scholar. Perhaps he
was a "neo-advaitin"? Of course there is virtually _no_ reference to the vedas
at all. The book is concerned mainly with the bhagavatam only (apart from
ancient Indian _real_ astronomy treatises). The presence of "Vedic" in the
title is, IMO, _very_ dubious.

(The following may be of particular interest to Shrisha Rao, Manish Tandon and
other tattvavaadis).

Another interesting thing is that the author gives the impression that the
Gaudiya tradition is somehow connected with shrii aananda tiirtha. It seems to
me that this is a gross mis-representation, and makes me wonder if there is an
attempt to ride piggy-back on shrii aananda tiirtha's achievements.

"As a final point we note that the history of the Madhva-Gaudiya sampradaya
sheds some light on the higher-dimensional nature of reality. In SB 1.4.15p SP
points out that Vyasadeva is residing in Samyaprasa in Badarikashram. Many
people in India make a pilgrimage to Badarikashrama ever year, but it is not
possible for an ordinary person to meet Vyasadeva. However it is said that
Madhvacharya met Vyasadeva there and took initiation from him. It is through
this higher dimensional link that the Madhva-Gaudiya sampradaya was passed down
from Srila Vyasadeva to the recent line of acharyas." (pp 45)

This attempt to link the tattvavaadis to his N-Dimensional arguments seems to
me as very pathetic. It is also quite clear that he is implying that the
gaudiyas have the sanction of aanandatiirtha and through him that of Vyasa's. 
These kinds of misrepresentations do no good to the credibility of the book,
which is already pretty low.

Final Comments:

1. I am extremely disappointed by the general mis-representation of the book by
   both HKS and Vivek Pai. I thought that they were probably right and Mr
   Pement must have mis-interpreted it due to his lack of understanding of the
   Indian tradition, but no such luck.
2. The book is badly written, and believe me, I am being _very_ charitable
   here.

Ramakrishnan.
-- 
Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, "The flag is moving." The other
said, "The wind is moving." The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He
told them, "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving." - The Gateless Gate
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