20240726 Question-and-Answer Session (SMOVP)

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
Harihi oṁ tat sat

Ekanātha Gaura dāsa: Hare Kṛṣṇa everyone! So today we have a small Question-and-Answer session with Guru Mahārāja together with His Grace Akhaṇḍādi Prabhu and we have been working on the Science Museum of the Vedic Planetarium. (SMOVP). For 12 years on the content that will be in the Vedic Planetarium. So we have different consultants coming to meet us to help us make the Museum. One of the consultants we shortlisted, Design Factory from Delhi, Siddharth, and his group. We are going to have a Question–and-Answer session with Guru Mahārāja. We hope all of you will benefit from the discussion and hear more about what we are going to do in the West Wing of the Vedic Planetarium. Akhaṇḍādi Prabhu, you want to say something?

Akhaṇḍādi Prabhu introduced the consultant from Design Factory based in Delhi. Hare Kṛṣṇa! Very grateful to be in the presence of His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja, because he is the spiritual inspiration for the work that we are doing in this Science Museum of the Vedic Planetarium. You know he received direct instructions from Śrīla Prabhupāda, he was present when Śrīla Prabhupāda was instructing the devotee scientists about what is the need for this museum. In order to defeat the misleading, crooked interpretations of life in the universe that have perpetrated and sold in all the schools and universities and misleading the general public. He wanted this museum to be in Māyāpur, a beacon which revealed the truth about our own existence. We are not simply material bodies, we are spiritual beings, the ātmā, we belong to Kṛṣṇa. And to reveal the nature of this material world, this cosmos, although it offers huge variety of opportunities for the ātmā to take one species after another in this planet, and on many other planets, still it is not our hope. Śrīla Prabhupāda wanted this Temple of the Vedic Planetarium to reveal the nature of our true hope in the spiritual realm. Back with Kṛṣṇa in Goloka Vṛndāvana. So we are so grateful for Mahārāja, always eager to engage with all the hard work that is needed to manifest this museum. It is not a small endeavor and Mahārāja is always encouraging us wishing to be present, and involved in all the activities. And today, we have our consultant as you said, they are from Design Factory, based in Delhi. They have spent the last two days discussing with us all sorts of ideas that we hope may be incorporated in the museum. Because they had many ideas we thought it might be very interesting if maybe some of their questions could be put to Mahārāja, so that all of you could hear this conversation.

Ekanātha Gaura dāsa: So some questions may be technical, some may be philosophical. So bear with us. Today we were discussing with you (consultant) about the Virāṭa-rūpa, about the soul’s biology, about the spiritual world and material world. So if you have any questions, the floor is yours!

Question by the consultant, Mr. Siddharth from Design Factory: Thank you for the opportunity of asking us to be here. It is a privilege to be sitting in front of you. We have been thinking this for the last two days and I am asking this from everybody. But my question to you Mahārāja is that – let us imagine the museum is open and it is 2035. After ten years. All the people are coming to visit the museum. What do you want the end eexpression or the takeaway by them from the museum?

Jayapatākā Swami: These questions are not planned – he is spontaneously asking, so I have to think. So what we would like the takeaway to be? Each of the floors would have different takeaways. They should know who they are, they should know what is life, and they should know what is the universe and how the Vedas give us information about the universe. And so they should be very amazed, how the description of the universe in the Vedas is so accurate! On the fourth level we would like them to realize how the spiritual world is actually what we are looking for. What do you think?

Question by consultant: Once we were going through the details of the universe and planetarium. It opted out to be very, very scientific. What do you think, the museum needs to be very scientific or it should also have a lot of emotions?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see that usually we hear how people describe the Vedic knowledge as mythology. So, we want them to feel that this is very substantial. At the same time, how much can they take of the scientific tattva, so there should be a type of thread which will put them into an emotional state.

Comment by Akhaṇḍādi Prabhu: If you are asking about emotions, yes, we want people to enjoy the museum, but if those emotions are distractions or simply sentimental, that may not have so much value. Mahārāja, is that we would like the emotions to be based on something real, discovering our relationship with Kṛṣṇa, which is the highest emotion of all? We want emotions that are related to discovering our relationship with Kṛṣṇa, because nothing could be a greater emotion than discovering Kṛṣṇa.

Jayapatākā Swami: That is why I put the emotions second. Because it should be something like a profound realization, and something that they have been looking for, and then they found it! You were saying in the afternoon to find a friend. So that is also emotional but very profound.

Consultant: That helps a lot. So what you are saying is that we should be very logical and scientific and through that knowledge they will realize and get the emotion of Kṛṣṇa.

Jayapatākā Swami: I was asked this afternoon whether the realization that Kṛṣṇa was the Supreme Personality of Godhead, did that happen right after I met Śrīla Prabhupāda? Actually, when I think about that, by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy somehow I always had belief in God. My understanding of Kṛṣṇa, of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, keeps going. When I was a new devotee in Montreal, I was given a set of beads by Śrīla Prabhupāda’s secretary and asked to go and chant in the park. As I was chanting, I was looking at the tree and tears started coming in my eyes. My hairs were standing on end and it was very intense chanting! Then I went back to the temple. As soon as the secretary, he met me, he said, “Do you have those beads?” I said, “Yes.” “I should not have given them to you, those are Śrīla Prabhupāda’s beads” he said! He took the beads back. It was not quite the same using other beads! So at that time, Śrīla Prabhupāda lost his visa for the USA and he was in Montreal, Canada. I was new and was learning. So, I bought the first canto of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. That is all they had! Then the storekeeper told me to go back and I saw Jayānanda Prabhu was making the ratha (cart). The first thing that Jayānanda Prabhu asked me, “Do you know how to hammer a nail?” The trick of hammering a nail is to move your hand before you smash! Jayānanda prabhu asked me, “Do you know how to hold the nail? And the secret of holding a nail is to move your hand out as soon as it is on the board.” Jayānanda Prabhu said, “Okay, you pass!” Then he was telling me about the Ratha-yātrā. He showed the picture of Jagannātha Purī, like a million people. You won’t get a million people in the West! So he said we are making a cart like this and I said, “So, how long will that take?” He said, “We have two weeks!” It was like that. So, I helped him to make the carts, cart rather. And then I wanted to see Śrīla Prabhupāda, but he was in Montreal. I told the temple president and he told me that Śrīla Prabhupāda spoke with an Indian accent and he cannot understand what we said. And he said offer him a ticket and he bought me one. So sure enough I went to New York and then from New York I went to Montreal. Therefore, I had already experiences even before I met Śrīla Prabhupāda! So what we want to do in the West Wing, is that people should have many experiences. It should be a profound experience for them!

Consultant: Thank you again and what we were discussing how to complement the emotional aspect with the scientific aspect. And we thought that let us not have one typology of space but three typologies of spaces. So one will be the experience which will introduce you to the subject. The second will be absorption which will be scientific. And third will be reflection. So you reflect back on what you have learnt. So the experience

Jayapatākā Swami: What do you all think? They are very good. So you are waiting to see the exhibits (to the audience). Here people are from all over India, Russia, China and different places.

Akhaṇḍādi Prabhu: One final question. For Siddharth to take on the task looking at our whole story line and developing the exhibits’ ideas, what advice would you have personally for him in order for his own mentality and discipline in order to be blessed by Kṛṣṇa to take on that job?

Jayapatākā Swami: I think we are having a competition, who can do the best of all.

Akhaṇḍādi Prabhu: That is true but Siddharth is very eager and I thought if you gave him some encouragement in terms of what he can do in his own mind and in his own daily practice that would help him really tune into this museum?

Jayapatākā Swami: You see, downstairs there is Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa and the Aṣṭa-sakhis and the Pañca-tattva. Lord Caitanya, and His powerful expansions. And then the energies which He manifests. Lord Caitanya, He is most merciful and like Kṛṣṇa, He gives love if someone surrenders to Him. Even you don’t have to surrender to Lord Caitanya. Just if you come to Him, He gives you mercy! So when He was travelling in South India, He would meet many people on the road. He would just go up to them and hug them! So, He went to many houses and villages. In South India they bathe your feet and they are very ritualistic. So, it may be very easy to get the mercy of Lord Caitanya. Even He gives without asking. But if you ask then you can get unlimited mercy! Is that correct? (to the audience)

Ekanātha Gaura dāsa: I hope you all enjoyed the little drops of the Science Museum of the Vedic Planetarium. Do you want to hear more? Not today but we will continue to have many sessions like this in the future. When you will hear about the different exhibits, different content, scientific explanations, Guru Mahārāja’s realizations about His Grace Hariśauri prabhu, you will hear from His Grace Akhaṇḍādi Prabhu, you will hear from the consultants. This is just the beginning of the journey will have online for all of you. So we can all enlighten each other with the Science Museum of the Vedic Planetarium. Śrīla Prabhupāda kī jaya! We want to thank the consultant and his team. Cushman & Weikfield also and His Grace Akhaṇḍādi Prabhu for coming here to Māyāpur and enlighten us with the philosophy and science of the universe.

Akhaṇḍādi Prabhu: Thank you. Very grateful. For giving us this time Mahārāja, and also thank you for your inspiration you are always giving us to press ahead with the Science Museum of the Vedic Planetarium for Śrīla Prabhupāda’s pleasure. Haribol!

Jayapatākā Swami: Did you have a tour around the temple? So this is emotional or scientific? Offering the garland to Siddharth the consultant.

Kṛṣṇe matir astu!