Should we follow the teachings of a Guru "blindly without question and inquiry?" Is it offensive to question a conclusion by a Spiritual Master that does not seem quite right?

How to maturely understood comments in the Srimad Bhagavatam like "Canto 8 Chapter 10 Text 38 Purport" that clearly does not appear to be correct after weighing up all the evidence. 

ISKCON needs to clear up these controversies on Vedic Cosmology with a thorough investigation into some of conclusions by Prabhupada in order to be more factual and, most importantly, attract more people of the world to Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu's GREAT Sankirtan Movement.

In other words, ISKCON authorities should have another look at some problematic teachings (only a few) that have long been proven questionable and even wrong.

For example - 

In the 8th Canto Chapter 10 Text 38 Purport of Srimad Bhagavatam, Srila Prabhupāda claims the Moon is further away from Earth than the Sun is.

The fact is, today in 2021 no schools of modern Cosmology or Astronomy and even many Vedic scholars like the late Sadaputa dasa phd believe the Moon is further away from Earth than the Sun is.

Sadly many intelligent and well educated people have rejected ISKCON because of such teachings.

Furthermore, since Japanese space crafts have taken photos of some of the Apollo landing sites from 1969 to 1972, (in 2008) it is ridiculous to keep denying man never went to the Moon, well, the gross Moon we at least can see.

So how should we understand what is in the 8th Canto Chapter 10 Text 38 Purport of Srimad Bhagavatam?

This what people ask me, what should we say to them then? Should we say just follow blindly (LOL) and NEVER question a Spiritual Master?

This is what Prabhupada says on another issue of being FORCED to follow -

Srila Prabhupada - "Love is reciprocal, voluntary, good exchange of feeling. Then there is love. NOT by force, no, Krishna does not want to become a lover like that, ‘You love me, otherwise I shall kill you!"(Washington DC July 8, 1976)

Real love or Bhakti is reciprocal, as said above, it is NEVER a one way street where surrender to Krishna takes away one's sense of self, individuality, desire to question (free will) and personal contributions.

Many people have read these following comments in Srimad Bhagavatam 8.10.38,

Srila Prabhupada - "The Sun is supposed to be 93,000,000 miles above the surface of the Earth, and from the Srimad Bhagavatam, we understand that the Moon is 1,600,000 miles above the Sun. Therefore the distance between the Earth and the Moon would be about 95,000,000 miles." (Srimad Bhagavatam 8.10.38)

How would YOU explain these comments to an Astronomer or Cosmologist aspiring devotee who would know such massive distances are incorrect and ridiculous?

These are very sincere honest questions and conclusions asked by many aspiring sincere devotees.

So by ignoring them, or calling those who question Prabhupada's conclusions on Cosmology, demons, is silly immaturity that only makes ISKCON a fringe fundamentalist "mindless" cult to many people out there.

Think about it.

And this will not go away by ignoring those comments above. 

Sadly only more devotees will leave ISKCON when they read such teachings that the Moon is 95,000,000 miles away from Earth.

The point being made here is it is a proven fact that the Moon is 238,000 miles from earth and NOT 95 million miles from Earth as Prabhupada claims in the 8th Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam. 

One Astronomer at the Parks Radio Telescope in Australia purchased the Srimad Bhagavatam but when he read that he laughed and then sent the Books back to me.

Such comments by Prabhupada need to be explained more clearly and not ignored.

And what will ISKCON leaders do in 2024 when the United States SpaceX company (owned by Elon Musk) in partnership with NASA, go back to the Moon, followed by China, India and Japan.

Will they still foolishly keep claiming its all a hoax?

Many have left ISKCON but some have come back when the late Sadaputa dasa set the record straight and agreed the Moon is at least 256,000 miles from Earth.

He had found this information in the Surya Siddhanta by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (Prabhupada's Spiritual Master), that Prabhupada had no access to in 1975 when he finished translating the 5th Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam.

Prabhupada admitted he did not know everything about Vedic Cosmology, and that is why he sent Tamal Krishna Maharaj to Southern India in the mid 1970s, in search for a Vedic Brahmin scholar to teach us about Vedic Cosmology.

One was brought back to Prabhupada who proved to be useless.

So Prabhupada told Sadaputa to research it all but it seems ISKCON leadership are not pushing his conclusion that the Moon is NOT 95 million miles from Earth but 238,000 miles from Earth.

Actually Sadaputa gave us this answer 34 years ago but devotees do not know how to deal with Prabhupada's comment of 95,000,000 miles which is clearly incorrect according to Sadaputa. 

If you seriously believe the Moon is further away from Earth than the Sun, then how do you justify such a questionable comment scientifically? 

We are NOT meant to blindly follow, we MUST test EVERYTHING a Spiritual Master says instead of being sentimental and foolishly thinking he should never be questioned.

Not even Prabhupada himself believed that you should never question.

We must face the truth in 2021 beyond sentimentality and nonsense conspiracy theories.

The following is about present day Hare Krishna beliefs by devotees and comments the ISKCON founder Srila Prabhupada made about the NASA Moon landings.

I do not fully agree with many devotees regarding the Moon landings being a hoax however, I do understand their sentiment and beliefs in their attemps, out of respect, to show love for Srila Prabhupada.

However, that love should NEVER be blind based on sentimentality because such immaturity will only blind one from seeing the REAL truth and deny others they preach to from seeing that truth too instead of following blind sentimentality.

For example, some devotees, including leading sannyasis, believe the International Space Station and communication Satellites are all a hoax made up by NASA, India, China, Russia, European Union, Japan and Israel.

However, the opinion of these conspiracy theorist devotees ARE not true.

The fact is, through my personal home telescope I can see the International Space Station and many communication satellites as well, very clearly orbiting our globe.

And I can also see craters clearly on the Moon too which are 238,000 miles from Earth and NOT 95 million away as claimed in Srimad Bhagavatam, my telescope is not designed to see such detail on a planet or the Sun that far away.

Therefore it is absurd that some devotees today still claim man cannot visit the Moon in three days, enter outerspace, claim all Moon landings are a hoax, air exists in outerspace but the International Space Station does not exist in outer space.

They also foolishly claim man's space crafts have never been to Mars and recently Pluto, these are foolish beliefs.

These conspiracy theorist devotees say we cannot see what is really going on in outer space because we all have faulty material senses?

However, having faulty material senses does NOT mean you never rely on them in a basic way, like crossing the road or knowing if water is too hot or too cold.

And also knowing the higher you go, the air up there DOES get thinner and thinner until there is no breathable air at all when you reach outer space, we DO experience this fact though our " so called faulty" material senses.

The fact is Prabhupada's use of the faulty senses argument refers the difference between Spiritual and Material life, this is his point.

There are many interpretations of what Bhagavatam means when said that air DOES exist in outerspace and holds up all the planets.

This kind of air may refer to so called solar winds which are light particles, but one thing is 100% certain, there is NO breathable air in outerspace.

In fact there is very little air with oxygen even on the top of Mt Everest (29,000 feet)

And when Prabhupada said they can never go to the Moon, as far as I understand this comment, he really meant the subtle heavenly realm called Chandraloka that is invisible to our material reality and gross material body.

This "subtle heavenly realm of Chandraloka" seemingly exists on the Moon but we cannot see it, nor are qualified to visit such a heavenly realm while in these gross human biological bodily forms (vessels) and the gross machines they build and travel in.

Only with the right subtle material body and qualified piety, can one enter Chandraloka, a higher heavenly dimensional reality existing on the Moon.

However, we CAN see the "gross Moon" in the sky and without any doubt the astronauts DID land on that Moon in six Apollo missions from 1969 to 1972.

Many devotees are wrong by denying these fact because they ignore the overwhelming evidence seemingly out of sentimentality of agreeing with Prabhupada's opinion out of blind love.

Even Prabhupada never clearly explained the Moon landings because so little was known 50 years ago when Prabhupada was with us by both devotees and the public.

He was actually referring to the subtle material realm of Chandraloka on the Moon and was right, the Astronauts could not enter that realm but DID go to the gross Moon we see that he never explained clearly.

Today we know space crafts are still going to the Moon from many nations including India, Japan, China, European Union, Russia, United States and Israel taking 10s of thousands of high quality photos, some Japanese photos even show the original Apollo landing sites from 1969 to 1972 as said above.

So how can anyone keep calling the Moon landings a hoax?

Maybe the real answer is simple, they feel insecure disagreeing with Prabhupada's many comments, afraid to entertain the fact that a pure devotee's opinion's need further research and explanation because they are questionable and are afraid to admit they maybe wrong.

This is because Prabhupada's opinions were said at a time when very little was known about the Apollo missions, the science in the 1960s was in its very early pioneering stages and outside of NASA ordinary Americans could not understand this new science.

Steady mature devotees today in 2021 will understand this.

It is therefore silly to keep denying the fact that man DID go to the Moon (but only the gross moon WE see).

In 2021 it is nonsense to think otherwise based on 45 year old converations with Prabhupada at a time when the devotees and Prabhupada knew very little about the Apollo missions.

Back in the 1970s very few fully undertood the Moon landings, it was all so new.

In fact it was so new in the 1960s and early 70s, very few in society understood or could comprehend that man went to the Moon (the gross Moon we see) reaching there in 3 days from our Earth globe.

But Prabhupada says in Bhagavatam it is not possible for NASA to reach the Moon in 3 days which today we know is incorrect.

If Prabhupada had access to the Surya Siddhanta when he was here translating the 5th and 8th Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, he would of also understood the the Moon is NOT further away from Earth than the sun in a straight line from Earth globe to the Moon, and that it IS possible to reach the Moon in 3 days.

The Surya Siddhanta clearly reveals the Moon is 258,000 miles from Earth which is close to the REAL distance of 238,000 miles as Sadaputa prabhu also reveals.

Sadaputa explains the Moons distance from earth in a 1988 Srimad Bhagavatam Class after discovering the Surya-siddhanta in 1978.

As said above, Prabhupada never had a copy of Surya-siddhanta in 1975 when translating the 5th Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam.

Devotee - "Using radar and lasers, scientists have recently obtained very accurate estimates of the earth-moon distance. This distance is about 238,000 miles. How do you reconcile this with Vedic calculations?"

Sadaputa - "According to the Surya-siddhanta, the distance from the earth globe to the moon is about 258,000 miles. This is in reasonable agreement with the modern value". (From Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy by Richard L. Thompson - Sadaputa dasa)

In 1969 I was at the Radio telescope in Parks Australia and we measured the distance then because the Apollo Astronauts left beckons on the Moon, there was no silly conspiracy or nonsense hoax by the scientists there!

Devotees who keep pushing this Moon hoax nonsense are immature sentimentalist fools.

I asked Prabhupada in 1972 about the Moon and the way he explained it to me was that EVEN if they did go to the Moon, they could never enter the heavenly realm of Chandraloka on the Moon.

I always believed they went to the Moon because of my experience at the Parks Radio telescope in 1969.

As explained above, you cannot fully deny the use of your material senses, if you doubted them, you would never choose to walk across a road or judge if the shower is too hot or cold.

You cannot use this stupid excuse that claims we do not know if man has reached outerspace because our material senses are faulty LOL.

Another foolish silly comment devotee conspiracy theorists use.

Sadly sentimental devotees today use this "faulty senses silly excuse" all the time when challenged about the Moon landings.

When proper logic is given they foolishly claim "our material senses are faulty and we cannot see what is really going on!"

What a lot of nonsense! I fully depend on my material senses when I walk across the road or stand near a hot fire place or have a hot cup of milk.

Anyway back then in the 1970s when with Prabhupada, most of us were in our early 20s and very naive, immature and fanatical.

We were also so absorbed in Book distribution, the Moon thing was never really a big deal with us, no one really cared if they went and or not, we were just young immature men and women happy (fired up) to chant Hare Krishna and eat heaps of prasadam, especially Halva and simply wonderfuls LOL.

And Prabhupada also had doubts about whether or not they went to the Moon. He often asked devotees to find out, regardless of his other opinions he said in discussions with devotees on morning walks and in classes.

He had his opinions on some subjects like Cosmology claiming all Moon rocks came from the Arizona desert however, that is all they were, just his opinions and this Arizona comment is simply not true, those Moon rocks DID come from the Moon.

In 1976 Prabhupada asked Tamal Krishna Maharaj to go to Southern India and find a Vedic Brahmin who is knowledgeable in Vedic Cosmology because Prabhupada said he did not know EVERYTHING about Vedic Cosmology.

Only one Vedic Scholar was found as said above but knew nothing and was useless Prabhupada said. That converation is on our decoding Vedic Cosmology site.

Prabhupada then told the late Sadaputa Dasa, our ISKCON scientist to research this area and establish the Bhaktivedanta Institute.

Final word by Srila Prabhupada.

Srila Prabhupāda - "It appears that you are again constantly disturbed by the same nonsense doubts.

These things are not very important, we may not waste our time with these insignificant questions.

If we are seeking to find out some fault, maya will give us all facility to find any small thing and make it very big, that is maya.

But to ask these questions,  why there is so-called discrepancy between the views of Bhagavat and modern scientists regarding the moon and other planets, and whether Hitler is good or bad man, these are most insignificant matters, and for anyone who is sincerely convinced that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, for him these questions do not arise.

Our information comes from Vedas, and if we believe Krishna, that

vedaham samatitani
vartamanani carjuna
bhavisyani ca bhutani
mam tu veda na kascana
(BG 7.26)

that He knows everything, and "vedais ca sarvair aham eva vedyo vedanta-krd veda-vid eva caham (BG 15.15)," that Krishna is non-different from Vedas, then these questions do not arise.

But because you have asked me, I am your spiritual master, I must try to answer to your satisfaction. Yes, sometimes in Vedas such things like the asura's decapitated head chasing after Candraloka, sometimes it is explained allegorically.

Just like now we are explaining in 4th Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam the story of King Puranjana. Just like the living entity is living within this body, and the body is described there as city with nine gates, the intelligence as the Queen.

So there are sometimes allegorical explanations. So there are many things which do not corroborate with the so-called modern science, because they are explained in that way.

But where is the guarantee that modern science is also correct?

So we are concerned with Krishna Consciousness, and even though there is some difference of opinion between modern science and allegorical explanation in the Bhagavat, we have to take the essence of Srimad-Bhagavatam and utilize it for our higher benefit, without bothering about the correctness of the modern science or the allegorical explanation sometimes made in Srimad-Bhagavatam.

But this is a fact that in each and every planet there is a predominant deity, as we have got experience in this planet there is a president, so it is not wonderful when the predominating deity fights with another predominating deity of another planet.

The modern science takes everything as dead stone. We take it for granted that everything is being manipulated by a person in each and every affair of the cosmology.

The modern scientists however could not make any progress in the understanding of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, therefore we do not accept modern science as very perfect. We take Krishna's version:

gam avisya ca bhutani
dharayamy aham ojasa
pusnami causadhih sarvah
somo bhutvah rasatmakah
(BG 15.13)

"I become the moon," and "yac chandramasi yac cagnau," (ibid, 12) "I am the splendor of the moon," and "jyotisam api taj jyotis," (BG 13.18) "I am the source of light in all luminous objects," so no one is able to give us the correct information than Krishna, that you should know.

Regarding Hitler, so Hitler may be good man or bad man, so what does he help to our Krishna Consciousness movement?

But it is a fact that much propaganda was made against him, that much I know, and the Britishers are first-class propagandists.

And I have heard that his officers did everything without informing him, just like in our ISKCON there are so many false things:

 "Prabhupada said this, Prabhupada said that." But we have nothing to do with Hitler in our Krishna Consciousness.

Do not be deviated by such ideas "Jnanam jneyam jnana-gamyam," (ibid), Krishna is knowledge, He is the object of knowledge, He is the goal of knowledge,

you mam evam asammudho
janati purusottamam
sa sarva-vid bhajati mam
(Bg. XV, 19).

"Whoever knows Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without doubting, is to be understood as the knower of everything, and he engages himself therefore in devotional service".

This is the understanding of advanced devotee, so my best advice to you is to agree to come to this understanding. (Letter to Krsnadasa -- Vrindaban 7 November, 1972)^^^