No compromise at any cost !!!

Yasodanandana : The next time that I had a chance to meet, Srila Prabhupada was in Calcutta in the summer of 1971. I was in his room with Bhavananda, Jayapataka, Revatinandana, and a few others. This was one of the first times I had a chance to ask Srila Prabhupada a question. I said, 'Prabhupada, there has been considerable controversy over your statement that materialistic scientists never went to the moon. A lot of people don't understand this. We accept your statement. I am your disciple so I accept it. I firmly believe it. But how do you explain this?' Prabhupada put his hand up in the air and said, "As far as I am concerned, they never went." He elaborated on why they hadn't gone, saying that the moon is a luminous, self-effulgent body, and it is contradictory to say that they had recovered some dark dust and stones from a luminous body. He also said that according to the Vedas and the Bhagavatam, you cannot go to another planet without a suitable body. You cannot force entry to another planet. For example, he said, you cannot force your entrance into America. You have to go to the immigration department, get a visa, and then you can come in. He gave another example about the days of the week. In all ancient cultures the week starts with Monday, the planet of the moon, which indicates that the moon is first. He said that they did not go to the moon but to Rahu, a planet between the moon and the earth. "They cannot access the moon," he said, "for the moon is far above the sun." When Prabhupada first announced this, Purushotam, one of Prabhupada's servants, brought a TV set into Prabhupada's room to show Prabhupada the entire moon landing. Prabhupada still said, "They cannot go there." Over that incident Purushotam had left Krishna consciousness and gone on to other pursuits. But Prabhupada did not compromise.