Adi-fita, Chapter 5 389

yogic powers. The playful spaceships of the astronauts are but. childish entertain-
ments and are of no use for this purpose. The astdfiga-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
Nityananda to save man from this type of misleading civilization.

$rimad-Bhagavatam also describes how yogis 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 yogis can block these holes
by complete suspension of air. The yog7 then concentrates the vital force in the
middle position, that is, between the eyebrows. At this position, the yogi 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 Krsna in the transcendental
Vaikunthas, 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 yog7 is at liberty
to do either.

For the perfect yogi 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 free-
dom 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.
