Life Is Everywhere

Because the soul is not influenced by material condition and because it can grow in fire, water, air or earth, we can conclude that on all other planets there are also living entities because every material planet is made up of at least one of these five gross elements: earth, water, fire, air and ether. Some of the planets are principally composed of water and earth, like our planet, or of fire like the sun, or of air, ether and gases like Jupiter. Due to a poor fund of knowledge about the constitution of the soul, material scientists doubt that life can exist on any other planet in our solar system. They argue that there is no life on Mercury and Venus because Mercury is so close to the sun that the temperature on its sunlit side reaches as high as 700 degrees F, and that Venus, although almost twice as far from the sun as Mercury, has an even higher surface temperature of 800 degrees F, which is distributed uniformly by strong winds. They fail to understand the relativity of heat and the ability of organisms to adjust to any circumstance. Our mean earth temperature of 57 degrees F may be astoundingly hot or cold to other living entities who may argue that life is not possible on earth due to intense heat or cold. Man has landed on the moon, which has a temperature of 215 degrees F on its sunny side and minus 250 degrees on its dark side, and seeing no living entities he concludes that there is no life there. "A magnificent desolation," he calls it upon landing, and from the gross material point of view he is right, but we should not conclude that there are no living entities on the moon because the soul can inhabit various subtle bodies which can endure lack of atmosphere and extreme temperatures. Similarly there is no scientist who would argue on behalf of life existing on the sun. The surface temperature of the sun is 10,000 degrees F, and its average interior temperature is 25,000,000 degrees F, a temperature inconceivable from the material point of view, and yet we have information from Bhagavad-gita that the sun-god Vivasvan is residing there, presiding over his entourage of sun dwellers. It is also stated in Vedic literatures that Vivasvan drives a chariot with horses which obviously must be able to withstand such heat. These bodies, then, are subtle in order not to be consumed, and, being subtle, they're practically imperceptible to mundane vision.