True spiritual greatness needs no self-promotion; it is recognized naturally by the sincere.Listen — Srila Prabhupada Uvaca
Prabhupāda: The stricture of nature's law, that is science. Is it not? Scientific effort. They will never be able to do so, but still, they are...
To stop death, birth, death, old age, is very major problem, but even in small things you cannot do anything. Everywhere you are dependent. And still, they are very much proud that they are advancing in scientific knowledge so that they can overcome the stringent laws of nature and so on, so on. Durāśayā.
It is called durāśayā, hope which will never be fulfilled. Is it not? Durāśayā. Śāstra, Bhāgavata, says, durāśayā. This is their foolishness.
They are expecting something which will never be fulfilled. Therefore śāstra says durāśayā. Now what they are doing about the moon planet? Harikeśa: They've forgotten about it. Sudāmā: Now they're trying for Mars. Prabhupāda: Just see. Hele dharate pāre nā keuṭe.
[Bengali proverb] A man was trying to capture snake. So there are snakes, hele. There are many snakes; they have no poison, especially the water snake, the hele. So hele dharate pāre nā keuṭe.
Keuṭe means cobra. So one cannot capture the poisonless snake, and he is attempting to capture cobra. So they could not go to the moon planet, which is only 1,600,000 miles above the sun, and they are going to Venus, which is far, far away, still. How many miles the Venus is situated?
They have committed some mistake. Harikeśa: Yes. Well, they say here it's 600,000 yojanas, which makes 48,000,000 miles—no—480,000,000 miles above the sun. Prabhupāda: So they cannot reach sun... They are trying to go above the sun. [someone enters] [Transl. Come in. Sit down.] Jaya. [Transl. Sit, from where have you come?] Guest: [Transl. I am coming from Chuchuḍā.] [break] Prabhupāda: [break] It is giving quotation from Vedas. How to act on Vedic principle, that is called smṛti. Sometimes the original law is explained by one lawyer in detail. So that detailed explanation is like smṛti, and the original law is śruti.