Sputnik (Conversations and Letters)

Expressions researched:
"sputnik" |"sputniks"

1968 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- March 20, 1968, San Francisco:

Mālatī: They could go to another planet?

Prabhupāda: Yes. There are so many places. The living entity is described in the Bhagavad-gītā as sarvaga. Sarvaga means he can go anywhere within this universe. He can go in the spiritual sky also. Sarvaga means including everywhere, if he likes. As I explained yesterday, last night, yānti deva-vratā devān (BG 9.25). If he likes, he can go to the planets of the demigods, to the Pitrloka, he can remain here, or if he likes, he can go to the planet of Kṛṣṇa. He has got this freedom. Just like there are many government posts. You can select any one of them, but you must be qualified for that. So it is a question of qualification, how you can go to the planets of the demigods, how you can go to the planet of the pitṛs. Ūrdhvaṁ gacchanti sattva-sthā (BG 14.18). If you develop your modes of goodness, then you go to the, promoted to the higher planets because in the higher planets, the third-class living entities are not allowed. Don't you see that in here also, in America, for permanent visa we have to undergo so many formalities? Why? The restriction is there, that American government cannot allow everyone to become a permanent resident here. Restriction. Similarly, in higher planets, only those who have developed the quality of goodness... The quality of goodness contains those eight principles: religiosity, truthfulness, cleanliness... So ūrdhvaṁ gacchanti sattva-sthā (BG 14.18). Sattva means quality of goodness. So one has to develop the quality of goodness. Not an upstart, simply having a play sputnik, he wants to go to the Candraloka, moon planet. It is not possible. What quality he has got? He will immediately die. Temperature is... (end)

Press Interview -- December 30, 1968, Los Angeles:

Journalist: Well, I know that's a question that, of course, one asks oneself all the time, I guess. It's part of man's quest to find himself and...

Prabhupāda: But they should have common sense that you are trying to float one sputnik, so many scientific brains are working. And millions of wonderful sputniks which are called planets, they are floating in the air, there is no brain behind it. What is this? Is that very good reasoning?

Journalist: I don't know. I must ponder that.

Prabhupāda: You should know it. How it can be. There must be a very big brain behind this. They are working.

Journalist: Now do you say that the moon is, so to speak...? What should I say? Headquarters, where these demigods live?

1973 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk At Cheviot Hills Golf Course -- May 17, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Fool. Simply childish. Bālaka. What are they gaining? For the last, how many years they are trying? For going to the moon planet?

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Russia started in 1957. First sputnik where Gagarin was there...

Prabhupāda: Twenty-five years. So they could not get anything, not a single farthing even. Still, they are doing. Just see, obstinacy. Punaḥ punaś carvita. This is called chewing the chewed. Punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām (SB 7.5.30). They will never be successful. So I am a layman. When I wrote that Easy Journey? In 1950, 67. How many years?

Morning Walk -- December 7, 1973, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes. That's all right. But we are not so fools that we shall waste our time for imitation. We have got already real thing. Why shall I go to the imitation.

Karandhara: Their imitations are cheap. Like a sputnik, how does it compare with a planet?

Prabhupāda: Not cheap! Their imitation... They are going to the... They're spending millions and millions. It is very dear, costly. First thing is imitation, and that imitation is very, very costly. Very expensive. So that is their foolishness. They'll be satisfied with the imitation which is very costly.

1974 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- January 11, 1974, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: You are serving somewhere. You don't get sufficient salary. So you desire to give up this, this service. Resignation. But if you don't get any better service, then what will be the result of resignation? You'll starve. Again you'll go, "Master, I did wrong. Please give me that service." So that is... The Māyāvādīs' position is like that. They want to become merged into the Supreme. But that is not possible. After some time... āruhya kṛcchreṇa paraṁ padaṁ tataḥ patanty adhaḥ (SB 10.2.32). They undergo very good auster..., severe austerities and reach the brahma-jyotir, but there, everything being vacant, they cannot remain there. And they have no information of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore they again come down. Patanty adhaḥ. He wants enjoyment, but there is no enjoyment. Simply thinking, "I am Brahman." What is the enjoyment there? You think like a rascal Brahman. Yes, you are Brahman already. Why these sputnik wālās, they go...? (Laughter)

Devotee: Sputnik wālās.

Morning Walk -- February 23, 1974, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: It can come.

Dr. Patel: Not so.

Prabhupāda: Now, this is also tantra. Just like nowadays, they were flying sputnik, and from here controlling everything. Millions and millions of miles...

Dr. Patel: But there is a science behind it, no?

Prabhupāda: So that is also a kind of science, subtle science.

Dr. Patel: This writing, writing letters, two and two, and, and...

Prabhupāda: Yes. There are subtle sciences. These are gross sciences. There are subtle science also. Just like now mechanically you are flying. But there is science... Anything. I can fly with this stick. That is possible. Ākāśa-patana. There is a science, ākāśa-patana. Kapota-vāyu. Kapota-vāyu. Now, you can train the pigeons, and it will, you'll fly in the sky.

Morning Walk -- March 6, 1974, Mayapura:

Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes. It is simply waste of time and energy. That's all. And in 1968 I wrote that Easy Journey: "And this is all childish."

Siddha-svarūpānanda: Sputniks.

Prabhupāda: Yes. Have you read that?

Siddha-svarūpānanda: Yes. It is very nice.

Prabhupāda: So we can boldly say on the strength of Vedic literature that all these attempts are childish and those who are attempting, they're all fools and rascals. That's all. Now they're silent about moon expedition. They're trying to go to Venus. What happened to moon, moon planet?

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- June 16, 1975, Honolulu:

Prabhupāda: But why do you teach us? We do not see whatever you say. We do not, so why do you place upon us? If seeing is evidence, then we don't see what nonsense you are talking.

Siddha-svarūpa: We don't see their atoms. We don't see their sputniks flying and landing or anything.

Prabhupāda: Why do you talk?

Bali-mardana: They want to put themselves in the place of the supreme authority.

Prabhupāda: No, no, that's all right. If that is your reason, that you don't see God, but we don't see that you are going to the moon planet. Why you make us believe that you are going to moon planet?

Morning Walk -- July 24, 1975, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: But they cannot go. That's a fact. According to their estimation, the moon is the nearest. So they cannot go there. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. (break) ...deva-vratā devān. Moon is one of the heavenly planets. So unless one is very advanced in karma-kāṇḍa, offering sacrifices, nobody can go there. It is not so easy. Ūrdhvaṁ gacchanti sattva-sthāḥ (BG 14.18). Those who are more and more higher status of goodness, they are promoted in the highest planet. Not by drinking wine and driving a sputnik one can... (laughter) It is not so easy. (break) ...also drink soma-rasa. The residents of the moon, they live for ten thousand years.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Ten thousand of their years.

Prabhupāda: Yes, deva.

Morning Walk -- November 7, 1975, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: No, no. That is another thing. That is another thing, that with their this sputnik, how they can go in four days fifteen millions miles?

Dr. Patel: You see, in the cosmos, the whole cosmos is as big... Modern scientists understand it by what we call the force of attraction and repulsion. When you go in between the two, there is no attraction, repulsion. Then you just have this and it goes on.

Prabhupāda: No, no. Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Bhāgavata: So we should display the real planetary system...

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Morning Walk -- November 20, 1975, Bombay:

Dr. Patel: We have in Mahābhārata, that, I mean, Bhima threw away those elephants and rowing in the sky. And when Parīkṣit thought "How could it be?" then that elephants came down in the story. That means they were rowing about just like sputniks of today, perhaps. I don't know how they might have...

Prabhupāda: No, three books they have taken. They paid some eight lakhs of rupees. That Mr. Badhuri told me. (aside) Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Dr. Patel: That means this civilization must have felt the pangs of the modern sciences and then they must have lost it. No?

Prabhupāda: Not lost. It is there. You don't take it. That's it. What is there? One who can read... Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. Good boy.

1976 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- April 27, 1976, Auckland, New Zealand:

Prabhupāda: And they're taking it, highly civilized way of life. Where you are going? You cannot go beyond this earth. You attempted so much to go to the moon planet, you failed. And where you can go, put-put-put-put? You'll have to stay here. But that rascal does not understand. He thinks, "I am going very fast." Where you are going? You are destined to stay here. That he does not understand. Not only this put-put motorcycle, the put-put airplane also. They're also trying to go to this planet around, round. That sputnik, first sputnik, eighteen thousand miles, and they simply rounded over the world in one hour and twenty-five minutes. And where did you go? And when he's tired, then come down again. They cannot understand, these so-called scientists, that we cannot go in this way. There is higher authority.

Morning Walk -- June 4, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Devotee: These karmīs and their sputniks, they're claiming they're going to heavenly planets, all these planets all over the universe, but you tell us that they can't actually go to these places.

Prabhupāda: Yes, if you have got suitable machine you can go.

Bhūdhara: Śrīla Prabhupāda?

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Bhūdhara: They now say that they're going to attempt to create a planet that has perfect air, and trees, and they're only charging...

Garden Conversation -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: So God is very kind in all circumstances. Now we proposing to enjoy this material world under different situations, and God is helping us. Bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). You want to wander within this material world. That is your proposal. So, in order to enjoy this material world, you require different types of body. Just like they are trying to go to the moon planet. It requires a different body. So yānti deva-vratā devān: (BG 9.25) this life, you aspire of going to the moon planet; next life, automatically you will go there. Why you are trying unnecessarily to go to the moon planet by sputnik? You'll go there. You just always think of the moon and you'll go to the moon. It is simple process. And by this way, you cannot go. Now, exactly in the same way that you get the body of a fish and you very easily, whole day and night, for so many years, you jump over in the sea.

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Therefore, I'm stressing on this point, that it is not mythology. It is fact. It is history. (break)

Rāmeśvara: ...they are sending their sputniks to..., with televisions.

Prabhupāda: They can never stay there. They're coming back.

Rāmeśvara: No.

Prabhupāda: They cannot go there.

Rāmeśvara: But they have TV camera on the sputnik, and the sputnik is flying over the planet, and they are filming it, and they don't see any life. That is their argument.

Morning Walk -- June 8, 1976, Los Angeles:

Prabhupāda: Yes.

Rāmeśvara: So, if ordinary man went to some other planet through his sputnik, would he be able to see the demigods?

Prabhupāda: No, why not? Some men arguing that.... Because he did not see, it does not mean there is no life. That they cannot say. Just like in the water we don't see. Superficially.

Hṛdayānanda: Yeah, if they take a sputnik...

Prabhupāda: Eh?

Morning Walk -- June 15, 1976, Detroit:

Prabhupāda: Today, there was description, there is description, the fight was so severe that the blood sprinkled up to the sun planet. So why not moon planet? Why they say sun planet? The sun is the nearest planet from the earth. So this calculation.... They say the sun planet is 93,000,000 miles away from earth? And if you add further 1,600,000 miles, it comes to about fifteen (50?) million miles. Fifteen (50?) million miles, they have calculated, go there by the sputnik at the rate of 13,000 miles per hour. (indistinct)

Ambarīṣa: They said they went fifteen million?

Hari-śauri: No, according to our calculation.... We agree with the figure 93,000,000, as approximate to the sun, but then our figure is 1,600,000 beyond it to the moon.

Room Conversation -- July 2, 1976, New Vrindaban:

Prabhupāda: No? Kīrtanānanda said "It is inhabitable." Ten years ago I said there's no use going there. It is childish, waste of money. But who hears about us? We know moon planet is inhabited by high-class living entities. (laughs) (sarcastically:) And they will allow these rascals to go by their machine.

Hari-śauri: When they originally started sending sputniks to the moon, they couldn't even land them properly. They would crash, they said that they were crash-landing spaceships into the moon's surface.

Prabhupāda: Crashed?

Hari-śauri: Crash-landing. The spaceship was supposed to just smash into the surface of the moon, like that.

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Letter to Russian -- January 5, 1977, Bombay:

Prabhupāda: "Easy Journey to Other Planets. So this is a different culture, how to go to other planetary system, how to transfer the soul from one body to another. In other planets there are also living entities. One can transfer himself, after giving up this body, to anywhere he likes without any help of the sputnik, and without the help of the sputnik or any flying machine. This is the mystic system unknown to the world, but it is authorized in the Vedas, original culture of the human civilization."

Hari-śauri: It's on the tape. I'm recording it too.

Prabhupāda: So, "A preliminary booklet is presented herewith to your good self. Kindly read it carefully and let me know your reaction. We are prepared to answer all intricate questions in this subject." In this way present.

Talk with Svarupa Damodara -- June 20, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: They invented stories for going to the moon planet.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yeah, they're making stories about everything.

Prabhupāda: A small toy sputnik, background, a big picture, and photograph.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Did you see that article, "Moon Hoax?"

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Our Back to Godhead?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: No, there's an article that was published in a paper in America called "Moon Hoax."

Svarūpa Dāmodara: No, I didn't see.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: I'll show you that article.

Talk with Svarupa Damodara -- June 20, 1977, Vrndavana:

Svarūpa Dāmodara: And we also have a little chapter called "Intellectual Dishonesty Among the Scientists," and said, "Let's be honest about it. These things are not scientific."

Prabhupāda: This is intellectual dishonesty. They produce sputnik and going to the moon in the laboratory.

Svarūpa Dāmodara: Yes.

Prabhupāda: And then it is exposed, "Moon Hoax." This is intellect... There was a... There were many films. One film was... What is that? A big monkey?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: King Kong.

Prabhupāda: (laughs) King Kong. They are producing chemical laboratory, yes, studio, and the monkey played...

Discussion about Bhu-mandala -- July 5, 1977, Vrndavana:

Prabhupāda: That is already answered. You are limited within certain area. So you can conclude in so many ways. Sara bhuri kara, kara bhuri sara.(?) There is a vegetable prepared, the following vegetables are taken: sara, bhuri, and kara. And again you say kara bhuri sara. This way or that way. Sara bhuri kara, kara bhuri sara. That three things, either you take this way consecutively or that way consecutively. But you have got only that kara bhuri sara. You have no experience. There is potato, there is (indistinct), there is (indistinct-Sanskrit). You know these three things. Sara bhuri kara. Kara bhuri sara. Just like they are making arrangement in the laboratory. Companies are there. They present in such a way, that he was flying in the sky, and big sputnik and very small town. Do you know that man came?

1947 to 1965 Correspondence

Letter to Mr. Toshihiro Nakano -- Delhi 1 April, 1961:

My small booklet Easy Journey to Other Planets is a novel step towards the path of cultivating Human spirit. The Russian scientists are trying to reach other planets by sputniks but such attempt is more or less utopian. There are innumerable planets, within the visible sky and each of them have different climatic conditions. Human being of this planet can hardly adjust with the climatic conditions of other planets even if he is able to reach there by the sputniks. The easy method is suggested in my book which is called Bhakti-yoga easy to be performed by any layman in any part of the world. By such practice of Bhakti-yoga one can reach even the spiritual sky which is far far away from this material sky.

1970 Correspondence

Letter to Krsna dasa -- Calcutta 6 October, 1970:

When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is." (B.G. 8.20) "It is the highest destination, going, no one ever returns from that, My Supreme Abode." (B.G. 8.21) So although the Russians may be very much advanced by throwing sputniks into the outer space, they are missing the real point—Krsna Consciousness, the science of God. Although there are so many departments of knowledge, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, etc., the science of God is still to be introduced. When the scientist philosopher medical man will get the opportunity to study systematically what is God, what are His energies, what is my relationship, how to approach Him, then only there will be paradise. But paradise in the present condition of life in ignorance of God is parasite in temporary paradise.