Ādi-līlā, Chapter 5
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yogic powers. The playful spaceships of the astronauts are but childish entertainments and are of no use for this purpose. The  aṣṭāṅga-yoga  system is a materialistic art of controlling air by transferring it from the stomach to the navel, from the navel to the heart, from the heart to the collarbone and from there to the eyeballs, from there to the cerebellum and from there to any desired planet. The velocities of air and light are taken into consideration by the material scientist, but he has no information of the velocity of the mind and intelligence. We have some limited experience of the velocity of the mind because in a moment we can transfer our minds to places hundreds of thousands of miles away. Intelligence is even finer. Finer than intelligence is the soul, which is not matter like mind and intelligence but is spirit or anti-matter. The soul is hundreds of thousands of times finer and more powerful than intelligence. We can thus only imagine the velocity of the soul in its traveling from one planet to another. Needless to say, the soul travels by its own strength and not with the help of any kind of material vehicle.
The bestial civilization of eating, sleeping, fearing and sense-gratifying has misled modern man into forgetting how powerful a soul he has. As we have already described, the soul is a spiritual spark many, many times more illuminating, dazzling and powerful than the sun, moon, or electricity. Human life is spoiled when man does not realize his real identity with his soul. Lord Caitanya appeared with Lord Nityānanda to save man from this type of misleading civilization.
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam  also describes how  yogīs  can travel to all the planets in the universe. When the vital force is lifted to the cerebellum, there is every chance that this force will burst out from the eyes, nose, ears, etc., as these are places that are known as the seventh orbit of the vital force. But the  yogīs  can block these holes by complete suspension of air. The  yogī  then concentrates the vital force in the middle position, that is, between the eyebrows. At this position, the  yogī  can think of the planet into which he wants to enter after leaving the body. He can then decide whether he wants to go to the abode of Kṛṣṇa in the transcendental Vaikuṇṭhas, from which he will not be required to descend into the material world, or to travel to higher planets in the material universe. The perfect  yogī  is at liberty to do either.
For the perfect  yogī  who has attained success in the method of leaving his body in perfect consciousness, transferring from one planet to another is as easy as an ordinary man's walking to the grocery store. As already discussed, the material body is just a covering of the spiritual soul. Mind and intelligence are the undercoverings, and the gross body of earth, water, air and so on is the overcoating of the soul. As such, any advanced soul who has realized himself by the yogic process, who knows the relationship between matter and spirit, can leave the gross dress of the soul in perfect order and as he desires. By the grace of God, we have complete freedom. Because the Lord is kind to us, we can live anywhere—either in the spiritual sky or in the material sky, upon whichever planet we desire. However, misuse of this freedom causes one to fall down into the material world and suffer the threefold miseries of conditioned life. The living of a miserable life in the material world by dint of the soul's choice is nicely illustrated by Milton in  Paradise Lost . Similarly, by choice the soul can regain paradise and return home, back to Godhead.