Page 47 - History of Tirupathi Balaji and comparison of Sri Vaishnava

difference.

Great sages have therefore glorifi ed the Lord by different names. Thus when
the original person Lord Krishna, the source of all incarnations, is sometimes
described as an incarnation, there is no discrepancy.
The kingdom of God, Vaikuntha, is certainly a mystery for a gross
materialist. But to an ignorant man everything is a mystery because of a lack
of knowledge. However, the kingdom of God or the spiritual world is not a
myth. For the less informed, the material planets in this world of which there
are millions are another source of wonder and perplexity. Material scientists are
now attempting to penetrate this mystery, and a day may come when the people
of this earth will be able to travel in outer space and see the variegatedness of
these millions of planets with their own eyes. In every planet there is as much
material variegatedness as we fi nd in our own planet.
His Divine Grace Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada writes, “This planet
earth is but an insignifi cant spot in the cosmic structure. Yet foolish men, puffed up by a
false sense of scientifi c advancement, have concentrated their energy in the pursuit of so-
called economic development on this planet, not knowing of the variegated economic facilities
available on other planets. According to modern astronomy, the gravity of the moon is
different from that of earth. Therefore one who goes to the moon will be able to pick up
large weights and jump vast distances. In the Ramayana, Hanuman is described as being
able to lift huge weights as heavy as hills and jump over the ocean. Modern astronomy has
confi rmed that this is indeed possible.

The disease of the modern civilized man is his disbelief of everything in the revealed
scriptures such as the Vedas. Faithless nonbelievers cannot make progress in spiritual
realization, for they cannot understand the spiritual potency. The small fruit of a banyan
contains hundreds of seeds, and in each seed is the potency to produce another banyan tree
with the potency to produce millions more of such fruits. This law of nature is visible before
us, although how it works is beyond our understanding. This is but an insignifi cant example
of the potency of Godhead; there are many similar phenomena that no scientist can explain.
Everything, in fact, is inconceivable, for the truth is revealed only to the proper persons.
Although there are varieties of personalities, from Brahma down to the insignifi cant ant, all
of whom are living beings, their development of knowledge is different. Therefore we have to
gather knowledge from the right source. Indeed, in reality we can get knowledge only from
the Vedic sources. The four Vedas, with their supplementary Puranas, the Mahabharata,
the Ramayana and their corollaries, which are known as Smrtis, are all authorized sources
of knowledge. If we want to gather knowledge, we must gather it from these sources without
hesitation.
Revealed knowledge may in the beginning be unbelievable because of our paradoxical
desire to verify everything with our tiny brains, but the speculative means of attaining
knowledge is always imperfect. The perfect knowledge propounded in the revealed scriptures
is confi rmed by the great acaryas, who have left ample commentaries upon them; none of
these acaryas (holy teachers) has disbelieved in the Sastras (Vedic scriptures). One who
disbelieves in the Sastras is an atheist, and we should not consult an atheist, however
47