4. Travel by "mind-made body" ("Astral Travel")
"Just as a person may bend his stretched arm or stretch his bent arm," so quickly was Moggallana able to depart bodily from the human world and reappear in a celestial realm. Repeatedly he made use of this capacity for instructing other beings and looking after the affairs of the Order. Thus he taught the Gods of the Thirty-three the Factors of stream-entry, or tested Sakka, King of Gods, whether he had understood the teaching about the extinction of craving (Majjh, 37). Once when the Buddha was preaching for three months in one of the heavenly worlds, Moggallana appeared in that heaven and informed the Master of happenings in the Order, asking him for instructions (Jat, 483E). He visited not only the gods of the Sense-sphere, but also those of the Brahma world. Thus he appeared before a Brahma deity who believed that there were no ascetics capable of entering his realm, and through questioning and supernormal feats Moggallana shook the self-assurance of that deity (Samy. 6,5). Or he appeared in front of a Brahma named Tissa — who formerly had been a monk and had died recently — and gave him instructions about stream-entry and the realization of final deliverance. (Anguttara IV, 34; VII, 53).
