The yoga of space travel

The poor materialist is busy making his political adjustments in a place which is most insignificant in the evaluation of God. Not just to speak of this planet Earth, the whole universe with its innumerable planets has been compared by one saint with a grain of mustard seed amongst all the mustard seeds packed in a bag. But the poor materialist makes his plans to live here comfortably, and thus he wastes his most valuable human energy on a cause which is never to be realized. Instead of wasting time in that plan-making business, a plain and simple life with high thinking after spiritual matter would save the misguided human being from perpetual unrest, the only gift of matter.

Even if a materialist wants to enjoy developed material facilities, he can transfer himself to the many, many other material planets where he can experience more and more advanced material pleasures. The best plan of life is to prepare oneself for going back to the spiritual sky after leaving this body; but yet if anyone wants to enjoy the largest amount of material facilities, one can transfer himself to other planets-not by means of playful sputniks, which are simply childish entertainments-but by psychological effects and by learning the art of transferring the soul through mystic powers.

The Yoga system is also materialistic inasmuch as it teaches one to control the movements of air within the body. The spiritual spark or soul is floating on air within the body, and inhalation and exhalation are the waves of that air containing the soul. Therefore the Yoga system is the materialistic art of controlling that air. By practice of such Yoga, the soul with all its energy and consciousness can be transferred from the stomach to the navel, from the navel to the chest, from the chest to collarbones, from the collarbones to the eyeballs, and from there to the cerebellum. From the cerebellum the expert yogi can convey his own soul to any planet he desires.

The velocity of light must be taken into consideration by the material scientist as the highest speed theoretically attainable by any object in travel, but the scientist has no information of the velocity of such forms of matter as the mind and intelligence. We have some experience of the velocity of the mind, because, in a moment, we can transfer the mind to places hundreds and thousands of miles away. Intelligence is a still finer form of matter. And finer than even intelligence is the soul, which is not matter at all but is spirit or anti-material, and which is many, many times finer and more powerful than intelligence. We can thus barely imagine the velocity of the soul and how quickly it can travel from one planet to another by its own strength, without any help from any sort of material vehicle.

Our animal's civilization of eating, sleeping, fearing and sense-gratifying has misled contemporary man and he has forgotten how powerful the soul is. The soul is in fact a spiritual spark which is many, many times more illuminating, dazzling and powerful than the Sun, the Moon or electricity. Human life is spoiled by not realizing this as one's own true identity.

How the yogis can travel to all the planets of the universe is described in the Srimad Bhagwatam as follows: When the vital force is lifted to the cerebellum there is every chance of this force bursting out from one of the bodily holes like the eyes, nose or ears. These places are known as the seventh orbit of the vital force. The yogis can, however, block these holes by complete suspension of the passing air, and then the yogi carefully concentrates the vital force in the middle position, in between the eyebrows. At this point the yogi can think of which of the planets he wants to go to after leaving this body. He can decide either to go to the abode of Krishna in the Vaikunthas, which are transcendental places and from which no one is required to come back to the material world, or if he wants to travel to the higher planets in this universe, he is at liberty to do so.

For a perfect yogi, one who has attained success in the practice of leaving this material body in perfect consciousness, the process is as easy as it is for an ordinary man to go from one place to another. As we have already indicated, the material body is just a covering of the spiritual soul. Mind and intelligence compose the inner covering, and the gross body of earth, water, air, etc. is the outer covering of the soul. Any advanced soul who has realized himself by the yogic process (which means, literally, the linking up of matter with spirit) can leave these shirts and coats of the soul in perfect order as he desires. Such a one has complete freedom by the grace of God.

The Lord is so kind upon us that we can live anywhere, either in the spiritual sky or in the material sky, and in any planet thereof. The misuse of this freedom makes one fall down in the material world and live a conditioned life, subject to the threefold miseries (those imposed by Nature, by other living beings and by the bodily condition itself.) To live a miserable life in the material world is a choice of the soul, as is nicely illustrated in Milton's "Paradise Lost," and is not a matter of chance. And from the material world, also by his own choice, one can go back to home, back to Godhead.