Prabhupāda: The stricture of nature's law, that is science. Is it not? Scientific effort. They will never be able to do so, but still, they are . . . to stop death, birth, death, old age, is very major problem, but even in small things you cannot do anything. Everywhere you are dependent. And still, they are very much proud that they are advancing in scientific knowledge so that they can overcome the stringent laws of nature and so on, so on. Durāśaya. It is called durāśaya, hope which will never be fulfilled. Is it not? Durāśaya. Śāstra, Bhāgavata, says, durāśaya. This is their foolishness. They are expecting something which will never be fulfilled. Therefore śāstra says durāśaya. Now what they are doing about the moon planet?
Harikeśa: They've forgotten about it.
Sudāmā: Now they're trying for Mars.
Prabhupāda: Just see. Hele dāntavān keuṭe.(?) A man was trying to capture snake. So there are snakes, hele. There are many snakes; they have no poison, especially the water snake, the hele. So hele dāntavān keuṭe.(?) Keuṭe means cobra. So one cannot capture the poisonless snake, and he is attempting to capture cobra. So they could not go to the moon planet, which is only 1,600,000 miles above the sun, and they are going to Venus, which is far, far away, still. How many miles the Venus is situated? They have committed some mistake.
Harikeśa: Yes. Well, they say here it's 600,000 yojanas, which makes 48,000,000 miles—no—480,000,000 miles above the sun.
Prabhupāda: So they cannot reach sun . . . they are trying to go above the sun. (someone enters) Bosen. Jaya. (Bengali with guest) (break) It is giving quotation from Vedas. How to act on Vedic principle, that is called smṛti. Sometimes the original law is explained by one lawyer in detail. So that detailed explanation is like smṛti, and the original law is śruti. In that we have to bathe. Smṛti means which is explaining śruti to understand easily.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: But we should never think that smṛti is an interpretation.
Prabhupāda: No, no. It is not inter . . . it is explanation.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Just like sometimes the smārtas, they argue that if you quote smṛti, it is not as good as śruti.
Prabhupāda: Yes. But smṛti . . . just like the Māyāvādīs. They do not accept, because their interpretation of Veda is different.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Right. So they say that smṛti is an interpretation.
Prabhupāda: Ah, yes.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They don't accept Bhagavad-gītā, many of them.
Prabhupāda: No.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: So what is our answer to such persons?
Prabhupāda: We have got our own ācāryas. If you don't accept, I don't accept you. That is my . . . what can be done?
Harikeśa: Madhvācārya made a commentary on the Gītā where he quoted a Sanskrit verse.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Harikeśa: He quoted a Vedic verse for every Bhagavad-gītā verse to prove that Bhagavad-gītā is śruti.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Madhvācārya?
Harikeśa: Or somebody like that.
Prabhupāda: Rāmānujācārya.
Harikeśa: Who?
Prabhupāda: Rāmānujācārya has quoted.
Harikeśa: Rāmānujācārya.
Prabhupāda: Rāmānujācārya has given quotation from śruti for every verse of Bhagavad-gītā.
(pause) (devotee enters and offers obeisances)
Prabhupāda: So read from the . . .
Bhavānanda: It starts off with big print: "Ācāryadeva Tridandi Swami Śrīla Bhaktivilāsa Tīrtha Mahārāja. All learned men are aware that in the dark days of India when the Hindu religion was in great danger . . ."
Prabhupāda: (laughs) This is nonsense.
Bhavānanda: ". . . our Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was born at Śrī Māyāpur, destined to remove the dark clouds which had overshadowed true religious thinking by traveling alone on foot throughout the length and breadth of India. Preaching His gospel of love, He brought about a religious upheaval which put an end to all religious conflicts and suicidal vociferous tendencies. The benign influence of His love philosophy made the whole of India a spiritually united cultural domain. Soul-enrapturing kīrtana music was organized from one end of the country to the other. A neo-humanism based on love regarded as the highest objective of human existence held sway. The difference between man and man was forgotten, and the fundamental unity of human nature and human destiny was stressed upon. But in the early nineteenth century, true religion was at a very low ebb due to lack of proper publicity of literature and also for want of great ācāryas to propagate the cults in their true aspect. It was a dark period for the Caitanya or Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism when it fell from its highest transcendentalism to the lowest possible degradation because of so many abuses and evil practices which crept into it through plenty of pseudo-followers. Vaiṣṇavism was almost abandoned by the educated section of people. Its literature was hardly read. Kīrtana was looked upon not as a form of prayer but as a means of gratification by people of loose morals. Most of the Vaiṣṇava followers of the period lost their high standard of morality, their loving aestheticism, their intellectual superiority and devotional fervor, which were the main characteristics of the previous masters. The influx of Western ideas came in, and English educated people fell into the hands of Christians. Fortunately, at that time, we got a great Vaiṣṇava savant and scholar, Ṭhākura Kedāranātha Bhaktivinoda, who wrote widely and successfully created an interest among the educated public in Vaiṣṇava religion and literature. His discovery of Śrīdhāma Māyāpur, the birthplace of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, which was so long hidden from the public eye, gave a new impetus to its propagation. The age of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism set in. Thereafter, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Gosvāmī Ṭhākura took hold of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism with a vow to propagate it in its true perspective, even as it was practiced with unparalleled and unprecedented transcendentalism by Śrī Rūpa and Śrī Sanātana Gosvāmīs, followers of Śrī Caitanya. In proper time, he got a great personality who readily shouldered the . . ."
Prabhupāda: Just see now: "He got a great personality." He is that personality. He'll also prove that.