Devas and asuras, gods and anti-gods, servants of Krishna and servants of Maya. These are our Vedic categories. We should see the world through this lens rather than the many categories invented and foisted upon us by the asuras: pro-science vs. anti-science, progressive vs. alt-right, racist vs. inclusive, communist vs. capitalist.
It seems to me that with the ‘enlightenment’ came the hiding of Lucifer in Science. The Devil disappeared, and what remained was Man in all his individualistic glory. We are the highest living entity in the universe (no longer the ‘Creation’) and to survive and satisfy our appetites is all in all.
The Srila Prabhupada that Mayesvara dasa (of Ireland) invokes in this article is well-proved by his every judicious citation, and yet the ‘progressive Vaishnavas’ would strike down this Srila Prabhupada as ‘ultra-right wing’–even conspiracy-obsessed. They would then install their own ‘Srila Prabhupada’ made in their politically-correct image.
My Srila Prabhupada is represented in this article by Mayesvara. Mayesvara is not only interested in discussing Vedic flat Earth, but in how worldview itself is hijacked by asuras to our disadvantage. This article analyzes the “pandemic” strictly using the Vedic categories “devotees and demons”: suras and asuras, or gods and anti-gods. My comments here are merely to support his fine work.
A result of the ‘progressive’ Vaishnavas who prefer to interpret Srila Prabhupada is that the Devil has pulled off his greatest trick in convincing them that he doesn’t exist! They shy away from the very term ‘demon’ which Srila Prabhupada so oft used. The division of the world’s living entities into two was done by Krishna–not by me or even Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada didn’t say that there are demons and devotees, Krishna did!
dvau bhūta-sargau loke ‘smin daiva āsura eva ca daivo vistaraśaḥ prokta āsuraṁ pārtha me śṛṇu
“O son of Pṛthā, in this world there are two kinds of created beings. One is called the divine and the other demonic. I have already explained to you at length the divine qualities. Now hear from Me of the demoniac.” (BG 16.6)
A devotee of Krishna, therefore, creates his world view around the categories created by the Lord, not those shrewdly crafted by the asuras.
When ‘devotees’ demonize other devotees for calling out the asuric structural frame within which they are operating this is motivated by an agenda. The agenda is not Srila Prabhupada’s agenda and many of those ‘devotees’ are being used by string-pullers well above their pay-grade. It’s complex on one hand, but simple on the other. Srila Prabhupada taught us the formula for practical analysis: phalena parichiyate (judge by the result).
If the final analysis comes to “these demons are not working in our best interest and we need to take full shelter of Harinama so that Krishna can intervene” that is a good outcome. If the final analysis comes to “we need to be more inclusive of race and gender and sexual orientation while we partner up with the UN/WEF/WHO, stay home and stay safe, take the safe-and-effective shots…also Srila Prabhupada was wrong about these scientists, politicians and bankers, they’re really not so bad…perhaps we should annotate the racist and misogynistic statements in his books to adapt to the ‘changing times’”, well, the asuras are winning then, no?
Srila Prabhupada never asked for the permission of Big Science when he called out the Moon landing as a hoax to cheat the masses, nor did he ever back down from this view at a later time. He never asked permission from historians to reverse the ‘enlightenment’ by re-establishing the Great Chain of Being that begins with the Original Father, Krishna (that comprehends 8,400,000 species of life–thousands of which are superior to feeble humans).
He never asked permission from the government to chant the Lord’s Name in public places. He never bowed to the vox populi to call out the essential differences that exist between men and women. He never asked permission to smash the atheistic frame of thought that is the West and give us the seed of Krishna prema in the chanting of the Holy Name:
HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE HARE RAMA HARE RAMA RAMA RAMA HARE HARE
Srila Prabhupada acts on the platform of the authority given him by Krishna, not by the extroverts of this material world. He is a surrendered servant of Krishna and this gives him the mace. You can sit on the sidelines and criticize–from within the frame of the asuras–or you can surrender to his right and correct perception which is guided by the worldview that ultimately holds weight, that of Lord Krishna. As sung by the great Narottama Dasa Thakur, “My only wish is to have my consciousness purified by the words emanating from his lotus mouth.”
Krishna prema (love for God) is the ultimate necessity of every living soul (imagine a dot within a circle). Actions, knowledge and conditions that bring us closer to Krishna prema are also necessary (this corresponds to the area within the circle). Actions, knowledge and conditions that move us away from Krishna prema are unnecessary and undesirable. (Imagine arrows outside the circle pointing away from the center dot). In this analogy there are two necessities that are legitimate requirements for a human being: (1) Krishna prema, and (2) Pious civilization that enables progress to this stage. Other modes of life go against the purpose of creation and result in misery and degradation.
I want to relate this dot within a circle to the cosmology presented in the Srimad Bhagavatam versus the planetary motion formulas presented in Surya Siddhanta. In their sincere search to understand the mysteries of the Vedic universe, many devotees are conflating the value of these two sources of revealed knowledge.
Indeed, they seem to talk about the same planets, in the same universe, but there is a gulf of difference between these two texts. They differ in rank and context, but in the end, their purposes are in harmony.
Rank and context?
They are both texts in the Vedic tradition but let us consider their provenance. They are both revelations from divine beings of higher status to enlighten ordinary humans. One should disparage neither. However, one should be understood to clearly out-rank the other.
Surya Siddhanta is the record of a conversation between the empowered expansion (amsa) of the Sun god and the demon king Mayadanava. He propitiated the sun god by his austerity and as a result the sun god became pleased to reveal the knowledge that the demon desired. This knowledge is an extremely detailed download of mathematical formulas which are practical and functional in predicting the precise locations of any planet at any time. This includes solar and lunar eclipses, the equinoxes, retrograde motion, and hundreds of other details. Part of this methodology involves conceiving of Earth as a sphere with lines of longitude and latitude in order that the formulas give the desired outcomes. There is almost zero philosophical content regarding the nature and purpose of human life. Nor is there any claim to the reality of what is being described. The only given guarantee is technical accuracy in timing. This is extremely useful for creating accurate calendars by which the masses can take advantage of auspicious timings for rituals, worship, festivals, marriages, etc. Civilization requires astronomy and astrology which are legitimate sciences that support gradual progress of humanity from lower to higher stages of realization.
On the other hand, Srimad Bhagavatam is teaching the highest possible goal for the human being, namely, pure love for Krishna–free from the contaminations of karma and jnana. It was spoken by the liberated sage Sukadeva Goswami to the saintly king Parikshit, who had only seven days in which to understand the essence of all knowledge before death. Lord Chaitanya praised Srimad Bhagavatam as the spotless purana. Jiva Goswami proved in his Sandarbhas that it is the highest authority amongst all Vedic literatures. In it’s second verse, Vyasadeva announces: “Completely rejecting all religious activities which are materially motivated, this Bhāgavata Purāṇa propounds the highest truth, which is understandable by those devotees who are fully pure in heart. The highest truth is reality distinguished from illusion for the welfare of all. Such truth uproots the threefold miseries. This beautiful Bhāgavatam, compiled by the great sage Vyāsadeva [in his maturity], is sufficient in itself for God realization. What is the need of any other scripture? As soon as one attentively and submissively hears the message of Bhāgavatam, by this culture of knowledge the Supreme Lord is established within his heart.”
Purpose?
Based on rank these text could hardly be further apart, however, they both share the purpose of serving the legitimate necessities of human beings. These are:
(1) Unalloyed love for Krishna as the perfection of self-realization (Srimad Bhagavatam), and;
(2) To support ritual religious progress toward this ultimate end (Surya Siddhanta).
The author A.K. Ramanujan posits that Indian thought tends to be context-sensitive, whereas, Western thought seeks context-freedom. Ramanujan provides a good framework for this question as we attempt to harmonize the reality of the jyotish viewpoint with that of Srimad Bhagavatam.
I assert that these are both valid viewpoints when applied to their intended purpose. Conversely, the one has little utility for the purpose of the other. An example may clarify what I mean. Jyotish astronomical calculations can aid you in knowing the precise day and time according to the sun or the moon. You can therefore create a horoscope for a child and guide his educational path according to his indicated varna and ashrama. You can know where the sun, moon and stars will appear in the sky using the spherical Earth concept and the concept of the ‘celestial sphere’. This knowledge does not, however, equip us with a map to travel by land, air or sea. Jyotish was not revealed to man by the gods for this purpose!
On the other hand, the Puranic ‘map’–given in the 5th canto– is actually navigable by land, air and sea. Indeed, Maharaja Parikshit himself had traveled North in his conquest of all the nine varshas of the island of Jambudvipa of which he was sovereign:
“Mahārāja Parīkṣit then conquered all parts of the earthly planet-Bhadrāśva, Ketumāla, Bhārata, the northern Kuru, Kimpuruṣa, etc.-and exacted tributes from their respective rulers.” SB 1.16.12
Also, Parikshit’s grand-uncle, Maharaja Yuddhisthira is mentioned as the ruler of the whole of Jambudvipa. In the Sanskrit of the verse below, the word used is jambudvipadhipatyam which indicates Yudhisthira’s sovereignty over all nine varshas of Jambudvipa.
“News even reached the celestial planets about Maharaja Yudhisthira’s worldly possessions, the sacrifices by which he would attain a better destination, his queen, his stalwart brothers, his extensive land, his sovereignty over the planet earth, and his fame, etc.” (SB 1.12.5)
Western thinkers want to take a context-sensitive type of knowledge and try to stretch it beyond it’s intended purpose. Their idea is to boil all truth down to a formula that you could print on the front of a t-shirt–a formula that would apply in all times and places. This typifies context-free knowledge. Jyotish is not a travel map, however, as it cannot be used to send rockets to the planets that roam overhead. It has it’s circumscribed purpose in creating calendars, advising persons based on their natal charts and all progressive religious human necessities. The effort to ‘stretch’ the revelation of jyotish into a ‘map’ of reality fails.
Remembering that we are tiny jiva souls–1/10,000th the tip of a hair in size–let us be grateful for the descent of knowledge from the divine realm to our very humble position. By the grace of the Supreme Lord, we are given our necessities. Prayojana meansnecessity. We should be grateful for the divine statements of the Bhagavatam just as we are grateful for the air that we breathe and the food that sustains us. Even given our limited capacity to comprehend the cosmos, the Lord is so kind that he makes our cup overflow! The Vedas provide liberal instructions and guidance toward not only the good, but especially the best.
It is in this context that I propose we create our ‘map’ of the universe. For the purpose of ultimate reality, the Puranas (and specifically the Srimad Bhagavatam) provide the accurate map. Not only are we informed by this ‘map’ that the Earth upon which we live is non-different from the body of our beloved Lord, but ultimately, we are placed here for the purpose of reviving our lost relationship and regaining our long-lost true love.
The fact that a conceptual sphere is used in the mathematical calculations required for Jyotish should not distract us from the higher guiding principles of the Bhagavatam. I am not even saying that Earth is both flat and round simultaneously. I am saying that because we are limited beings, we are fully dependent on the great divine beings to provide us with context-sensitive knowledge that serves our necessities. For the purposes of our senses, the world is physically ‘flat’ as described in the 5th canto. Bharata-varsha (what we call ‘Earth’) is contiguous with the larger ‘flat’ landscape of bhu-mandala. Yet, for the purposes of astronomical and astrological calculations, the Earth can be considered ‘mentally’ spherical.
While the conceptual uses differ, it is interesting to note what the Puranic and Jyotish descriptions have in common: Earth is immovable, fixed in the center of the universe and it neither spins nor orbits.
Why has modern ‘science’ propagated so many lies in regard to their so-called space adventures and conquests? This is the nature of the anti-gods, the asuras. They will not accept the authority of Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, or his authorized line of disciples.
Only because of greed to dominate and lord over nature does one go beyond these two necessities that I have delineated (ultimate and progressive). By the misuse of revealed knowledge for purposes of exploitation of nature and violence done to God’s children, we are cast into the abyss of illusion. In this state of illusion we are condemned to see up as down and down as up. Nothing will be successful if we go beyond what we need. This applies to our physical necessities as well as to our thirst for knowledge. It is natural to be curious about the world. I was born curious! However, when we receive the authoritative answers, we should be grateful and satisfied.
Remember that at the beginning of his description of the universe, the great Mahajana Sukadeva Goswami made this statement, providing a general ‘disclaimer’:
“The great ṛṣi Śukadeva Gosvāmī said: My dear King, there is no limit to the expansion of the Supreme Personality of Godhead’s material energy. This material world is a transformation of the material qualities [sattva-guṇa, rajo-guṇa and tamo-guṇa], yet no one could possibly explain it perfectly, even in a lifetime as long as that of Brahmā. No one in the material world is perfect, and an imperfect person could not describe this material universe accurately, even after continued speculation. O King, I shall nevertheless try to explain to you the principal regions, such as Bhū-goloka [Bhūloka], with their names, forms, measurements and various symptoms.”
Indeed, the desire to fully and completely know everything is tantamount to desiring the position of God. Only God knows everything, and we should be happy and satisfied to be in a favorable relationship with God. We can be completely self-satisfied and blissful as servants of God. Otherwise we will be lost in the labyrinth of unknowability, suffering in the cycle of birth and death. The Vedas warn us to turn from this darkness and go to the light.
tamasi ma jyotir gama
Srimad Bhagavatam is presenting the Supreme Absolute Truth, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, while Surya Siddhanta plays a supporting role for progressive spiritual development in human life. The light of the Vedas shines brightly to illuminate our minds and save us from the darkness of ignorance. The Vedas shine with a common purpose to elevate human beings from the lower modes of tama-guna and raja-guna to the mode of sattva-guna and beyond. Between the Srimad Bhagavatam and Surya Siddhanta, this overarching common purpose creates harmony. However, in order to profit from each, their utility must be seen contextually. A subway map will not guide you to heaven. Nor should a personal audience with God be wasted in begging for a better apartment.
Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu defeated the Mayavadi scholars by demonstrating that the simple, clear, literal reading of the Vedanta Sutra was self-evident. Their mistake had been to cover this self-effulgent truth by importing into the reading of the text something that is not there in the original. They were culturally conditioned by the idea that the Supreme Absolute Truth must necessarily be impersonal and thus–like the sun obscured by clouds–they could not see what was self-evident in the sutras all along: The Supreme Absolute Truth is the Supreme Personality of Godhead who has unlimited energies which emanate from Him. The Lord converted all these lost souls by his clear explanations of the sutras. The terms mukhya vritti and gauna vritti emerge from this conversation of the Lord with the Mayavadi scholars. Srila Prabhpada explains the distinction here:
“Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura comments that mukhya-vrtti (“the direct meaning”) is abhidha-vrtti, or the meaning that one can understand immediately from the statements of dictionaries, whereas gauna-vrtti (“the indirect meaning”) is a meaning that one imagines without consulting the dictionary. For example, one politician has said that Kuruksetra refers to the body, but in the dictionary there is no such definition. Therefore this imaginary meaning is gauna-vrtti, whereas the direct meaning found in the dictionary is mukhya-vrtti or abhidha-vrtti. This is the distinction between the two. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu recommends that one understand the Vedic literature in terms of abhidha-vrtti, and the gauna-vrtti He rejects. Sometimes, however, as a matter of necessity, the Vedic literature is described in terms of the laksana-vrtti or gauna-vrtti, but one should not accept such explanations as permanent truths.” (CC Adi 7.110)
This rule applies to the descriptions of the universe given by Sukadeva Goswami in the 5th canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam. Like the Mayavadi scholars, we have been culturally conditioned by the “scientists” of recent centuries to assume that Earth is a ball-shaped sphere which rotates on its axis and simultaneously orbits the Sun. We have taken in this propaganda with our mothers’ milk. Under such influence we cannot actually hear the words of Sukadeva. We superimpose upon the text something that is not there. We import our material conception into shastra and therefore do not actually “hear submissively”, but rather to the contrary, we insert our ‘spherical spinning earth’ notion into the text in order to preserve our ‘learning’ intact. For certainly, Sukadeva could not be wrong about the basic fundamentals we held as a priori axiomatic ‘facts’, namely, the theories of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton. Here is where the deviation occurs.
There is only one Sanskrit word which could possibly be interpreted as stating that bharata-varsha (our known world, commonly called Earth) is spherical like a ball: bhu-gola. Proponents of reading ‘sphere’ into this term are on thin ice. In their reading of this single word, their thesis for a detached globe-Earth lie. But who amongst the Vedic sages has called upon us to defend Copernicus? Actually what they are doing is trucking into the Bhagavatam foreign goods.
[I defer to the in-depth, multi-part analysis of the questions surrounding the term bhu-gola given in this article by Mayesvara dasa of Ireland.]
Srimad Bhagavatam–and indeed all the 18 major puranas–are consistent in what they call Earth: bhu-mandala. A continuous, disc-like land mass which cross-cuts the 4 billion mile diameter of the brahmanda, almost touching the first covering of the universe around its edge. Within this bhu-mandala plane, there are variegated features described: Mt. Meru at the center on the island of Jambudvipa, then in concentric rings, the ocean of salt water, then the circular islands and oceans numbering 7 in total. I won’t go into the full description here because I aim to make a specific point about interpretation of the statements of Sukadeva Goswami, the Mahajana.
The historically-recent ‘ball-earth’ idea became so pervasive that many artists have rendered Lord Varaha lifting a ball, when in fact he lifted the entire of bhu-mandala, as is clear from the Sanskrit word-for-word given in the text of SB 3.14.31: “bhu-mandalena—by the earth planet”. (The image above was also used in an extensive article on this very topic by Mayesvara dasa of Ireland).
Srila Prabhupada writes in the purport to SB 1.4:
“The original purpose of the text must be maintained. No obscure meaning should be screwed out of it, yet it should be presented in an interesting manner for the understanding of the audience. This is called realization.” [Italics in the original]
Since our cultural conditioning runs so deep, we can’t see that we are bringing in an ‘obscure’ meaning. We are superimposing our preconceived notion over the words of Sukadeva, but this simply covers the self-evident truth just as clouds interrupt our vision of the sun.
Only when we clean the wax from our ears, only when we clean the dirty things from our hearts, and only when we reject the evil notions of the cheating scientists; only then can we hear what Sukadeva Goswami is saying and use it as the proper basis for our conception of the universe.
In the words of Sukadeva Goswami, you will not find that bharata-varsha is distinct or disconnected in any way from the great Earth-circle, bhu-mandala. Nor will you hear that bharata-varsha or bhu-mandala ever move, rotate or spin! There is consistency with the descriptions of Sukadava in Srimad Bhagavatam and the entire span of the 18 major puranas. Outside of the rarely used term bhu-gola and bhu-golaka (synonyms for bhu-mandala) you will never hear anything except the brahmanda itself described as spherical. Since the term gola can be taken to mean spherical or round like a circle, there appears to be logic in choosing ‘spherical’, but this is done at the cost of denying the authority of entire body of the 18 major Puranas. Please think on this deeply.
Many formerly disconnected things begin to fall into place by embracing the direct meaning, the mukhya-vritti. For example, in describing various benefits derived by worshipers of various deities in SB 2.3.2-7, Sukadeva Gosvami states “One who desires stability in his post should worship the horizon and the earth combined.”
How can that which is worshiped confer a property it does not itself posses?
I propose that this is the starting point for all honest devotees: Accept Srimad Bhagavatam As It Is including the description of our known world as a portion of bhu-mandala, the great Earth-circle. If we want to do further research in an attempt to clear up apparent contradictions between the Puranic descriptions and our ant-like sense-experience, I have no objection, so long as we keep the mukya-vritti of shabda brahman in its proper place at the foundation of our knowledge-acquiring-process, as we were taught by our Founder-Acharya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
Like rivets that hold an iron sheet bolted to a beam, there are many points of mind-control that the asuras employ to keep us “bound” to their world view. Like it or not, the war is being fought at the deepest level; the level of worldview. These implanted misconceptions must be fully rejected in order to gain victory. Here are a few examples: Space exploration, demolition of the patriarchy, evolution of life from chemicals, physicalism as the utmost in knowledge, cow killing and animal slaughter, war on natural medicine, normalization of hyper-sexuality, disregard for scripture, erasure of God from the public vocabulary, worship of bodily youth, destruction of the family, promotion of dependence on the secular state, etc, etc… There are many more examples.
To my mind, the foundational concept that frames our modern life and provides a container for all these bad ideas can be summarized in one word: Space.
Here are the claims: We have explored space. We have landed on the moon. We have sent probes to Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter. We have discovered ZERO life out there. Nada. Zilch. We are the most intelligent creatures in the known universe. God is a quaint, comforting idea, but silly and no longer needed. We have explained the existence of the cosmos by our big bang theory. The red shift proves it. We have satellites “circling the globe” constantly, monitoring and communicating. We have an International Space Station that includes scientists from our enemy nation. We dominate space. We are the supreme living entities per our research and exploration. We are the lords of all we survey.
Space is the single most successful propaganda created by the demons to enslave the majority of the world’s populations even across national boundaries. Demons have captured international organizations and do not respect national borders in the slightest.
Space is the reason why we need to “trust the science” because the white lab coats of truth are never wrong. Doctors also fall under this umbrella, as we have seen during the so-called pandemic. Nothing could be worse than to be called a “science denier”. You are an instant pariah. An outcast. There is no worse social stigma.
This is their victory! They have eliminated the authority of the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the brahmana and vaishnava Sages who teach the Vedas and replaced them with the new State Religion: Science.
“You can believe in a God if you want to” they will generously grant “just like you can believe in Santa Claus”, but the universal creed for acceptance in all social, legal, monetary and political spheres–in other words, those places in the world that really matter–is the creed of atheism.
Hatred of God, also called envy of God is the root symptom of demonic culture. Demons will profess some veneer of a neutered State religion–that allow for all types of sins like cow killing, abortion, illicit sex, intoxication, etc–however, when true sanatana dharma shows itself, the demons immediately make plans to kill it off, to murder the child in the womb, or if He lives, to kill Him before He grows. (See the history of Lord Krishna’s transcendental birth and early childhood). Waving a religious flag of ‘salvation’ without concomitant saintly behavior is simply self-deception. Space is the emblem of systemic hatred of God.
The concocted ’empty’, ‘lifeless’, “outer-space” must be dismantled by understanding it’s nature as a lie. The Vedas describe that uncountable living entities–indeed entire societies!–exist on every planet in the universe. The Moon is a heavenly realm, not an Arizona desert. The Sun is inhabited by beings with bodies of fire. There are hells below Earth and heavens above. The very laws of nature that science purports to study emanate from God the Lawmaker. The words of the Vedas must be taken as absolute facts, otherwise, human society is lost. The destruction of the great chain of being that began during the so-called enlightenment is complete with the common acceptance of these atheistic ideas. Space, and indeed all of creation, is non-different from the body of the Supreme Lord. It has no separate existence. We come from Krishna and Nature comes from Krishna. By denying this we fall under the same curtain of illusion that drives the demons and thus we become enslaved by maya.
My message–especially to devotees–is this: To believe in Krishna as a “religion” while still paying fealty to the “space” of modern science is a problem for developing 100% faith in shastra. Without full and complete faith in shastra, no-one can acheive the ultimate goal of human life: Love of Godhead. By ditching the bogus epistemology of empiricism and clinging tightly to the praman of accepting shabda as a priori truth, we declare our freedom from maya and our dependence on Krishna, our true shelter.