Patanjali Yoga Sutras are the origin of yoga. There are speculations that they were written about 2500 years ago. The antecedents of its author Sage Patanjali such as who he was and where he lived, are also not known. However, what we have today are his sutras which have been available to us in written form, for the last 300-400 years. To my mind the Yoga Sutras is the most scientific spiritual book ever written during ancient times and hence has relevance for today. Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras has given a vivid description of the super-natural powers that a Yogi can obtain by doing Sanyam on various subjects and objects. Patanjali defines Sanyam as a combination of Dharan (focus), Dhyana (contemplation) and Samadhi (total meditative absorption). When Sanyam is done on any subject for a long time then its complete knowledge results. Basically, the Sutras talk about how to develop the power for concentrating on a single thought for a very long time. The powers obtained via Sanyam includes levitation, mind reading, getting into another person’s body, making oneself invisible, flying through air, etc., etc. All these powers are described in Section III (Vibhuti Pada) of the Yoga sutras. In the seminal book on extraterrestrial abductions of humans by inhabitants of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), John Mack a professor of psychiatry at Harvard University has shown that all the persons abducted (abductees) and taken inside the spaceships talked about extraterrestrials floating in the air; who could interact telepathically with them; read their minds and modify them; become invisible and exhibited almost all the supernatural powers written in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras. Dr. Mack interviewed more than 300 abductees world over about their experiences and all of them talked about similar supernatural powers of extraterrestrials. Similar reporting was also done by Coral and Jim Lorenzen in their book “Encounters with UFO occupants”. This similarity between powers written in Yoga Sutras and exhibited by extraterrestrials is so uncanny that I sometimes think that Sage Patanjali could have been an extraterrestrial being who came to earth almost 2500 years ago to give us this knowledge! Thus I feel that if we understand the science of Yoga Sutras on how a Yogi can get these supernatural powers then it may also show us a way to understand the mind-matter interaction and probably pave the way for developing galactic travelling machines and technologies. Thus Yoga Sutras are very relevant for present times. UFOs are real. There have been innumerable sightings and visitations by extraterrestrials throughout the history of mankind. In Indian scriptures like Ramayana and Mahabharata there are quite a few descriptions of various gods visiting earth in their flying machines. And recently US government has officially released video clippings of few of these sightings. Similarly, a 6-part docuseries released recently by Netflix has further shown the possibilities of these visitations and mankind’s quest for understanding the technologies of UFO propulsion. Anil Rajvanshi
