In the evening, before any visitors arrived, Prabhupada sat in his room with Atreya Rsi, Harikesa, Parivrajakacarya, Jnanagamya and myself. He was again pointing out the defects of the so-called Mars landing, declaring that in the sastras it states very clearly that every planet is full of life. "Jana-kirna, this very word is used, jana-kirna, congested with life. Everything is described there. There is milk ocean, there is this ocean, that ocean, varieties of. So if we have to take these rascals' version, they're simply rogues, then the whole sastra becomes false. And they will advertise that these descriptions in the sastras, they are all mythology. Of course, this kind of bluffing cannot go because suppose this Mars expedition becomes a failure, like that, the same ... It will be failure. So next time, if they propose [to go there], I think people will be hesitant to allow them to. Simply bringing people rocks and sands, without any utility, after spending so much money. How long they can repeat this, 'Yes, we went to this planet, rocks. We went to this-rocks."
He was interested to hear that Jnanagamya prabhu had some information not found in the newspapers.
"Yes, I was working for USIS, U.S. Information Service," Jnanagamya told him. "And I had a commission to paint a large picture of this Mars landing ship, and they had information coming back that they were finding a long blockhouse with a big crater in the center, like a building that had been bombed. Fourteen kilometer crater. They had a picture like that. It appeared to be a building. So they are all cheaters. I used to live in Florida where they send up these [spaceships] ... they are all drunkards. They drink alcohol. Very unserious."
Srila Prabhupada smiled and used what was to me a quaint comparison to show why we should not accept the scientist's propaganda. "They say Howrah station is closed," he said with a grin. "No sane man will believe that, that Howrah station is closed."
And when Jnanagamya suggested that they didn't want to admit there might be life forms higher than themselves, including God, Prabhupada continued to smile. "And all the higher lives are in Europe and America. Especially in America, eh? That is their mania. They like it that there may not be any higher life. That is their preconception."
- From "A Transcendental Diary Vol 4" by HG Hari Sauri Prabhu
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