You have got your own power. That is very speedy. So it is being checked. Therefore one should be very much careful how to get the soul out of this encagement of this material body. That should be our first concern.
[Posted
May 5, 2010]Encaged in the Body
Past, present, future: more of the same birth, death, disease and old age unless we can surmount the bodily restrictions
Stephen Hawking has been crippled with Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) for more than 45 years
STEPHEN HAWKING: How to build a time machine
If we want to travel into the future, we just need to go fast. Really fast. And I think the only way we're ever likely to do that is by going into space. The fastest manned vehicle in history was Apollo 10. It reached 25,000mph. But to travel in time we'll have to go more than 2,000 times faster. And to do that we'd need a much bigger ship, a truly enormous machine. The ship would have to be big enough to carry a huge amount of fuel, enough to accelerate it to nearly the speed of light. Getting to just beneath the cosmic speed limit would require six whole years at full power.
The initial acceleration would be gentle because the ship would be so big and heavy. But gradually it would pick up speed and soon would be covering massive distances. In one week it would have reached the outer planets. After two years it would reach half-light speed and be far outside our solar system. Two years later it would be travelling at 90 per cent of the speed of light. Around 30 trillion miles away from Earth, and four years after launch, the ship would begin to travel in time. For every hour of time on the ship, two would pass on Earth. A similar situation to the spaceship that orbited the massive black hole.
After another two years of full thrust the ship would reach its top speed, 99 per cent of the speed of light. At this speed, a single day on board is a whole year of Earth time. Our ship would be truly flying into the future.
The slowing of time has another benefit. It means we could, in theory, travel extraordinary distances within one lifetime. A trip to the edge of the galaxy would take just 80 years. go to story
The so-called material scientist says that he would need to live forty thousand years to reach the highest planet of the universe, being carried by a sputnik. This is also utopian because no one can be expected to live forty thousand years. Besides, when the space pilot returned from his travel, none of his friends would be present to receive him back as the greatest astronaut, as has become fashionable for modern bewildered scientific men. more
Traveling at the speed of mind
excerpt from purport, Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.15.26
It is said here that the sages reached the transcendental spiritual sky by dint of their mystic power. That is the perfection of the yoga system. The breathing exercises and disciplines to keep health in proper order are not the ultimate goals of yoga perfection. The yoga system as generally understood is ashtanga-yoga, or siddhi, eightfold perfection in yoga. By dint of perfection in yoga one can become lighter than the lightest and heavier than the heaviest; one can go wherever he likes and can achieve opulences as he likes. There are eight such perfections. The rishis, the four Kumaras, reached Vaikuntha by becoming lighter than the lightest and thus passing over the space of the material world. Modern mechanical space vehicles are unsuccessful because they cannot go to the highest region of this material creation, and they certainly cannot enter the spiritual sky. But by perfection of the yoga system one not only can travel through material space, but can surpass material space and enter the spiritual sky. We learn this fact also from an incident concerning Durvasa Muni and Maharaja Ambarish. It is understood that in one year Durvasa Muni traveled everywhere and went into the spiritual sky to meet the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Narayana. By present standards, scientists calculate that if one could travel at the speed of light, it would take forty thousand years to reach the highest planet of this material world. But the yoga system can carry one without limitation or difficulty. The word yoga-maya is used in this verse. Yoga-maya-balena vikuntham. The transcendental happiness exhibited in the spiritual world and all other spiritual manifestations there are made possible by the influence of yoga-maya, the internal potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Freedom of movement
excerpt from lecture on Bhagavad-gita 2.25, London, August 28, 1973
[As] spirit soul, we have been encaged within this body, so our natural aspiration is to get freedom from this encagement. As much as the bird is struggling to get freedom from the cage. Similarly, we are also, we are not happy being encaged. Yesterday we learned from Bhagavad-gita soul's position is sarva-gatah: soul can go anywhere. That is, it has got the freedom. Those who are spiritually advanced by yogic mystic power, they can also move anywhere he likes. Anima, laghima siddhi. There are still yogis in India who early in the morning take bath in four dhamas [places]: Hardwar, Jagannatha Puri, Rameshvaram, and Dvaraka. There are still yogis. Within one hour, they'll take bath in four places. Sarva-gatah, the speed. They'll sit down in one place and by yogic process within few minutes will get up and dip in here, in this water. Suppose in London you dip, take your dip in the Thames River, and when you get up you see in Calcutta Ganges. There is yogic process like that. Sarva-gatah. So the spirit soul has got so much freedom, sarva-gatah, anywhere he likes he can go. But this impediment is this body which is checking our freedom. So if you get rid of this material body and be situated in spiritual body... Just like Narada Muni, he can move anywhere, he's moving, his business is moving. Sometimes he's going to Vaikunthaloka or sometimes coming to this material loka [planet]. He has got spiritual body, he's free to move anywhere, spaceman. They are trying to travel in the space by machine. There is no necessity of machine. Yantrarudhani mayaya [Bg. 18.61]. The machine is made of maya. But you have got your own power. That is very speedy. So it is being checked. Therefore one should be very much careful how to get the soul out of this encagement of this material body. That should be our first concern.