Prabhupada 0561 - Demigods Means Almost God. They Have Got All Godly Qualities
Press Interview -- December 30, 1968, Los Angeles
Journalist: Let me understand this if I may. Are you saying that there are people on the moon?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Journalist: There are. And they are demigods?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Journalist: How do you know this?
Prabhupāda: From our scripture, from Vedic literature.
Journalist: From what literature?
Prabhupāda: Vedic literature.
Journalist: How do you spell that?
Prabhupāda: V-e-d-i-c.
Journalist: Oh, Vedic. I beg your pardon.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Journalist: You'll forgive me if I...
Prabhupāda: That's all right, that doesn't...
Journalist: I don't mean to offend you.
Prabhupāda: Sometimes I do not follow your accent. That is difference of country. That doesn't matter. Yes.
Journalist: And from that literature, Vedic literature, it is stated in that, that there are people on the moon.
Prabhupāda: Oh yes.
Journalist: But they're demigods.
Prabhupāda: The demigods means they are highly advanced than these human beings. They are also living entities like us, but their duration of life, their standard of life, their civilization, spiritual knowledge, so advanced that they are called demigods. Almost God. They are so advanced. Demigods means almost God. They have got all godly qualities, and they are controller of the atmospheric affairs. Some of them are controlling rainy season, some of them controlling heat. As you have got controller here, some departmental director of this department, director of that department, similarly why don't you think that this cosmic manifestation, there is a great brain behind it and there are different directors and there is management? People do not accept it. Nature. What do you mean by nature? Such nice things, such wonderful things are going on automatically, without any control? You see?
Journalist: Well, I know that's a question that, of course, one asks oneself all the time, I guess. It's part of man's quest to find himself and...
Prabhupāda: But they should have common sense that you are trying to float one sputnik, so many scientific brains are working. And millions of wonderful sputniks which are called planets, they are floating in the air, there is no brain behind it. What is this? Is that very good reasoning?
Journalist: I don't know. I must ponder that.
Prabhupāda: You should know it. How it can be. There must be a very big brain behind this. They are working.
Journalist: Now do you say that the moon is, so to speak...? What should I say? Headquarters, where these demigods live?
Prabhupāda: No, there are many planets on the same level. There are many planets. Moon is one of them.
Journalist: Have any of these demigod creatures visited the earth or...
Prabhupāda: Formerly they used to because at that time people were worth to see them. You see?
Journalist: When you say formerly, you mean thousands of years ago or...
Prabhupāda: No. At least five thousand years ago.
Journalist: At least, five thousand years ago the last time that any, that we would... Are they in human form?
Prabhupāda: Yes. So far we get information, sometimes great sacrifices were performed, and demigods from other planets, they were invited, and they used to come.
Journalist: Where...? Where...? And this is... Your authority for this statement is based in the Vedic literature?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Journalist: I see. I see.
Prabhupāda: It is not manufactured by me.
Journalist: Oh, I know! No! I'm not implying that. But I just want to know where the...