MOON-THING

The rest of the Moon-thing series will be background reference quotes from BBTI copyrighted materials (used with permission):

Taken from The Transcendental Teachings of Prahlada Maharaja:

Belief is the basic principle of understanding. You may believe the scientists, or you may believe the Vedas. It is up to you which source you believe. The difference is that the information from the Vedas is infallible, while that received from the scientists is fallible. Why is the scientists' information fallible? Because an ordinary man conditioned by material nature has four defects. What are they? The first is that a conditioned human being has imperfect senses. We view the sun as a small disc. Why? It is far, far greater than this earth, but we see it as just a disc. Everyone knows that our seeing power, our hearing power, and so on are limited. And because his senses are imperfect, the conditioned soul is sure to commit mistakes, however great a scientist he may be. Not very long ago in this country, there was a disaster when the scientists tried to send a rocket up but it at once burned to ashes. So there was a mistake. The conditioned soul must make mistakes, because that is the nature of conditioned life. The mistake may be very great or very slight--that doesn't matter--but a human being conditioned by material nature is sure to commit mistakes.

Further, the conditioned soul must become illusioned. This happens when he continually mistakes one thing for something else. For example, we accept the body as the self. Since I am not this body, my acceptance of the body as my self is an illusion. The whole world is going on under the illusion that "I am this body." Therefore there is no peace. I am thinking that I am Indian, you are thinking that you are American, and a Chinese man is thinking that he is Chinese. What is this "Chinese," "American," and "Indian"? It is an illusion based on the body. That's all.

The propensity to cheat is the fourth defect of conditioned life. I may be a fool, but I will boast that I am very learned. Everyone who is illusioned and commits mistakes is a fool, but still such fools pose themselves as being sources of infallible knowledge. So all conditioned souls have imperfect senses, they are subject to commit mistakes and become illusioned, and they are influenced by the propensity to cheat.

How can one expect real knowledge from such conditioned souls? There is no possibility of receiving actual knowledge from them. Whether a person is a scientist, a philosopher, or whatever, because he is conditioned he cannot give complete information, no matter how educated he may be. That is a fact. One may now ask, How can we get complete information? The process is to receive knowledge via the disciplic succession of spiritual masters and disciples beginning with KRSNa. In the Bhagavad-gItA Lord KRSNa says to Arjuna, "This knowledge of Bhagavad-gItA was first spoken by Me to the sun-god, and the sun-god spoke it to his son, Manu. In turn, Manu spoke this knowledge to his son IkSvAku, and then IkSvAku spoke the same to his son. In this way the knowledge has come down. But unfortunately that disciplic succession is now broken. Therefore, O Arjuna, I am now imparting the same knowledge to you because you are My very dear friend and good devotee." This is the process of receiving perfect knowledge--to accept the transcendental vibration coming down from higher sources. The entire stock of Vedic knowledge is a transcendental vibration to help us understand the Supreme Lord.

The above article was first published several years ago in the now defunct soc.religion.vaishnava newsgroup. The following are the Bhaktivedanta sources relating to the moon-thing:

A SYNOPSIS
THESE QUESTIONS DO NOT ARISE
BOOK REFERENCES
LECTURES
SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM
PRESS INTERVIEW
MOON DISTANCE DIFFERENCE
CONCLUSION