Dec 15, 2003, 12.00am IST
Since ages, human beings have dreamt of flying; of reaching out to the stars. Most mythologies depict gods who have the power to go any place at will. Patanjali's Yoga Darshan says that a yogi can get, through spiritual practice, the power to fly through space with speeds matching that of the mind.
The Mahabharata and the Ramayana have references to flying machines and in other societies also gods are often portrayed as luminous beings descending to earth from space. Almost all our scriptures talk about liberation from planet earth, and urge us to go to higher worlds or swargalok.
The Wright brothers in the US on December 17, 1903 became the first human beings in recorded history to achieve sustained flight in a manmade machine.
Similarly in 1903 a Russian school teacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had suggested for the first time the use of rockets for space flight. However, it was only in 1926 that Robert Goddard in the US fired the first liquid fuel rocket that set man on the path of space exploration.
In the last 100 years we have been able to go to the moon, as well as jet across the planet. In fact, the 26-year-old Voyager has reached the outskirts of our solar system some 13 billion km from Earth.
The achievements of phy-sical flight have been possible due to technological developments. On the metaphysical plane, we are capable of soaring really high — with no help whatsoever from technology.
There could be a link between the way space travellers feel exhilaration on leaving the gravitational field of earth and the experience recounted by those who have had out-of-body experience (OBE). Both feel free, unfettered.
Similar experiences have been reported by people who practise hang-gliding. They talk about the thrill of flying silently, like a bird. Maybe future technological developments will permit us to feel an OBE without having to actually go through a life-threatening state.
Most astronauts who have flown over the earth talk about the beauty of the blue planet in spiritual terms. For those who went to the moon, the landing itself was a spiritual experience.
The view from the moon, they say, is incredibly beautiful. Similarly, flying over snow-covered mountains, green fields and forests is very pleasing to the eye and shows the beauty of Mother Earth from a different, wider perspective.
Human beings have always reacted with awe when faced with the powerful forces of nature. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atom bomb, described in almost spiri-tual tones the explosion of the first bomb in Trinity in New Mexico.
Similarly, when scientists peer through their telescopes and witness gigantic forces at work, which are billions of times more powerful than atomic bo-mbs, they begin to wonder if all this is God's handiwork.
When Krishna showed Arjuna his virat form, it is possible he was showing him the galaxy formation and black hole. The sight is said to have made Arjuna's hair stand on end.
Thinking about stars and seeing the forces of the universe at play gives us a wide perspective on life. We are like a small speck of dust in the vast universe and yet our petty worldly matters overwhelm us. What we need is to create greater awareness about the wonders of the cosmos so that our vision is not limited to a narrow field.
Future space exploratory missions might be more about enhancing spiritual experience rather than for home-hunting. Space-inspired enlightenment, then, will prompt us to thank the Wright brothers and Goddard for making it possible for us to fly far into space — both the outer and the inner.
Anil K Rajvanshi
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