Patanjali Yoga Sutra — प्रवृत्यालोकन्यासात् सूक्ष्म-व्यवहित विप्रकृष्टज्ञानम् ॥3.26॥

Pravṛttyālokanyāsāt sūkṣma vyavahita viprakṛṣṭajñānam॥

Through saṁyama on the pious inner light, the distant, obscured or subtlest of the things would be revealed to the yogi.

This chapter 3 deals with the unlimited potentials a yogi can realize through sādhana. Swāmi Vivekānanda gives a marvelous story. A lioness in search of prey came upon a flock of sheep. As she jumped at one of the sheep, the lioness gave birth to a cub and died on the spot. The lion-cub was brought up by the flock of sheep. The lion-cub never knew that it was a lion, ate grass, and learned bleating like a sheep! One day a lion saw this flock of sheep and was astonished to see a huge lion grazing along with sheep. At the sight of this new lion, the flock of sheep and lion-sheep started running away. But the stranger lion chased the lion-sheep, caught hold of it and said, ‘You are a lion’. The sheep-lion did not believe it and kept bleating like a sheep. The stranger lion dragged the sheep-lion to a lake and showed him his image in the water and asked ‘aren’t you like me? Look at the image’. The sheep-lion realized its true nature. The stranger lion roared and asked him to roar. Though initially, the voice choked, it soon roared as majestically as that of the stranger-lion.

Coming to the present aphorism, so long as we are bound by material objects, we feel the distance (space dimension), we feel past, present, future, etc (the time dimension). The ‘Pure Existence’ is there in space also (ākāśa is one of the pañcabhūtas — five elements of prakr̥ti). Hence ‘Existence’ is an invariable concomitant of all the elements such as space and air according to Pañcadasi authored by śrī Vidyāraṇya. Thus, it is no wonder, a yogi who has transcended and no longer bound by time and space (an evolute of prakr̥ti) gets such mystical powers by meditating on the inner light situated in the heart lotus.

जपश्च परमो गुह्यः श्रूयतां मे नृपात्मज।

यं सप्तरात्रं प्रपथन् पुमान्पश्यति खेचरन्। भागवतम् ॥४.८.५३॥

japaśca paramo guhyaḥ śrūyatāṃ me nṛpātmaja|

yaṃ saptarātraṃ prapathan pumānpaśyati khecarān॥Bhāgavatam 4.8.53॥

Nārada Maharṣi advises Prahlāda, when the latter was on his way to the forest to perform austerity, ‘Prince, along with dhyāna you should be able to practice japa also. I will initiate such an undisclosed Mantra to you. By chanting this for seven nights, sādhakas would be able to see Siddhas travelling in the sky.’ (That is: ॐ Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya — My humble homages to Śrīkr̥ṣṇa, son of Vāsudeva).