An exerpt from the original purport to Gita 15:12, in which Prabhupada explains that there is only one sun in our universe, and all else are planets:

"...From this verse we can understand that the sun is illuminating the
whole solar system. There are different universes and solar systems,
and there are different suns, moons and planets also, but in each
universe there is only one sun. As stated in Bhagavad-gita (10.21), the
moon is one of the stars (naksatranam aham sasi). Sunlight is due to
the spiritual effulgence in the spiritual sky of the Supreme Lord. With
the rise of the sun, the activities of human beings are set up. They
set fire to prepare their foodstuff, they set fire to start the
factories, etc. So many things are done with the help of fire.
Therefore sunrise, fire and moonlight are so pleasing to the living
entities. Without their help no living entity can live. So if one can
understand that the light and splendor of the sun, moon and fire are
emanating from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna, then one's
Krsna consciousness will begin. By the moonshine, all the vegetables
are nourished. The moonshine is so pleasing that people can easily
understand that they are living by the mercy of the Supreme Personality
of Godhead Krsna. Without His mercy there cannot be sun, without His
mercy there cannot be moon, and without His mercy there cannot be fire,
and without the help of sun, moon and fire, no one can live. These are
some thoughts to provoke Krsna consciousness in the conditioned soul."

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zeuszor
An exerpt from the original purport to Gita 15:12, in which Prabhupada explains that there is only one sun in our universe, and all else are planets:

"..., but in each universe there is only one sun."

Yes - there it is in black and white, straight from the horse's mouth.

I am not sure if he has mistaken some of the terminology here and meant to say "in each solar system there is only one sun" - but the accepted meaning of "universe" is everything that we can see, and this includes all the stars, and I really don't think he could have mistaken that.

According to the scientists, our Sun is just a relatively small sized insignificant star among 100 billion or so within our own Galaxy... Beyond this there are billions of other galaxies as far as the eye (or scope) can see. All these galaxies are situated within the Universe.

According to the scientists, our Sun seems so prominent to us because of its proximity to the earth (relatively very close, astronomically speaking). the other suns are seen as dots of light because of the huge distances away from our planet Earth.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta criticizes the scientists as being narrow-minded for not accepting that living beings can live on the Sun Planet.... However, it could also seem to be narrow minded to think that our sun is the one and only sun in the universe?

:?:

That kind of thing is so bizarre (Canto 5 and all that) that I washed my hands of Vaisnavism once I read it, pretty much.

You know the bottom line is that by definition ole Gurudeva had to be all things to all people and a polymath to boot.

He was no scientist (that is obvious) and he probably knew less about Astronomy than did Nostradamous.

So he did what all gurus did and do in his situation, he made sh--t up.

Am I making excuses for him? Not at all. A charlatan is what a charlatan is.

I have read the Cantos in question and if you are going to believe that our one and true God was once a thief of cow's milk when he was a little blue baby, than it is not much a stretch to believe that we did not go to the moon.

So here we are. I am thankful to Rick for this site and more thanful for those of you who come here day after day and beat back the most absurd commentaries on the planet.

My hats off to you. Keep up the good fight.

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zeuszor
That kind of thing is so bizarre (Canto 5 and all that) that I washed my hands of Vaisnavism once I read it, pretty much.

Yes, I think this happened to quite a few people. I once attended a lecture where the lecturer was reading from this Canto and speaking about the different kinds of hell. Needless to say, the newcomers at the lecture were vehemently poo-pooing the whole idea and would go and never be seen again.

When I first became involved with the group, the 5th canto had not yet been translated. We were still enamored by the "Ocean of Milk" and such other ideas, which were so far-fetched it took us away to a dreamland where everything was okay.

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PhillyExile
You know the bottom line is that by definition ole Gurudeva had to be all things to all people and a polymath to boot.

He was no scientist (that is obvious) and he probably knew less about Astronomy than did Nostradamous.

So he did what all gurus did and do in his situation, he made sh--t up.

His fanciful Vedic cosmology certainly flew in the face of all science, logic, and common sense. I think another one of his statements was that the Moon is larger than the Sun, and I think they even had drawings of the map of the solar system to illustrate these absurd things. (I wish I had the book in question on hand at present - I am just going from memory right now).

It ignored all laws of gravitation - namely that the size of a body and its proximity to another body will determine the gravitational pull. According to his solar system, the sun would be orbiting around the moon!

:?

I am surprised that the patiuclar speaker went into such Cantos with "Karmis" (non-Krishnas) present.

By the way, have you ever heard a guru with the phrase "I don't know" in his vocabulary?

I used to know a devotee who had been involved with "the movement" since 1969. He has been a devotee longer than anybody I've ever met. Back in the early 70's he was one of Prabhupada's travelling bodyguards and spent a lot of time guarding the old man. This devotee's name is Subhandu das. He's an old man now and doesn't live in any temple, nor did he take sannyasi. He told me that back when Canto 5 was first published upon the completion of the translation it was recieved with great anticipation and exitement, but when the devotees actually [i:0ad8abed1b]read[/i:0ad8abed1b] it, there were a lot of people that blooped because it's contents are so out there. He was taught that the reason that these folks left, the reason that they couldn't understand the Bhagavatam, was because they were being [i:0ad8abed1b]punsished[/i:0ad8abed1b] by Krsna for what they did in their previous lifetimes. So if you read Canto 5 and think it sounds crazy, it's because Krsna is punishing you, and only the true devotees can recieve it. Loony. Back when I was a bhakta (I was never initiated) there were a lot of old-school ISKCON Prabhupada disciples around and I'd say that in my experience...oh, I can't come up with a fair percentage, but I will say that a noteworthy number of the people I knew that were initiated by Prabhupada and around the movement for many years were whacked in the head. The old-timers had all kinds of mental illness. Very prevalent. Seriously living in a state of mind that is at conflict with reality. A lot of people who are with ISKCON for many years kind of go crazy.

Yeah, I was a "Bhakta" too for a while. I luckily left before I was initiated. My issues ended up being more carnal than theological, but that is a post for another day.

You touched on a good point. In any cult it seems that whatever questions or suspicions a member has than the leaders view this as some kind of personal defect of lack of faith. Never is it to be considered that the adherent may actually have a point, because of how "fallen" and "useless" they are.

This is the fundemental flaw of authoritarianism and why I think all such endeavors are doomed to fail. They will not allow for new information to penetrate their well-guarded orthodoxy or their infallibility will cease exisist.

ISKCON is a good example of this paradigm. There are still devotees riding around in ramshackle campers believing nuclear war is around the corner and that they must hide, all because of a lecture Prabhuppoo-poo gave over 20 years ago.

Amazing.

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PhillyExile
Yeah, I was a "Bhakta" too for a while. I luckily left before I was initiated. My issues ended up being more carnal than theological, but that is a post for another day.

You touched on a good point. In any cult it seems that whatever questions or suspicions a member has than the leaders view this as some kind of personal defect of lack of faith. Never is it to be considered that the adherent may actually have a point, because of how "fallen" and "useless" they are.

This is the fundemental flaw of authoritarianism and why I think all such endeavors are doomed to fail. They will not allow for new information to penetrate their well-guarded orthodoxy or their infallibility will cease exisist.

ISKCON is a good example of this paradigm. There are still devotees riding around in ramshackle campers believing nuclear war is around the corner and that they must hide, all because of a lecture Prabhuppoo-poo gave over 20 years ago.

Amazing.

Well, my disagreement with Prabhupada is not with his opinion itself (though I of course believe that Hare Krsna is some evil stuff), it is with the writings on which his opinions are based and his translations of those writings into English. Some Vaisnava scholars feel for instance that the word [i:575e0d18af]loka[/i:575e0d18af] is more properly interpreted into English as "world" and not "planet" as Bhaktivedanta Swami translated the word. But regardless of his skill as a translator, Canto 5 is nuts no matter of the language you translate it into. Some old Swami way back when was blazed on hashish or mushrooms or something sitting in a cave somewhere and writes a bunch of fanciful pseudo-Christian type bull (Krsna worship was very much "sanitized" as a result of the introduction of Christianity into the culture, you must realize, and then there's the question of the hitoricity of "Lord" Chaitanya. That's for another time) and now hundreds of years later some people revere it as sacred scripture? Hah! The great deception in strong in our times.