Prana and Intellect

Prana and Intellect

Prana by @ S@ndrine
Prana by @ S@ndrine

In the Kosha model, the emotional body is called the prana or life-force body. This is where prana is fully embodied. However, we shouldn’t take this to mean it’s the sole realm of prana.

Like the chakras, prana operates from the celestial or causal body right up through the emotional body.

The fine vibrations or pranava begin the arising of life force or prana, driven by kriya shakti, the power of action. That arises through the subtle quality of liveliness in consciousness, steered by the devata of nature.

The intellect is an expression of gyan shakti, the power of intelligence. This arises through the inherent intelligence of Divinity. However, like Shiva, the intellect is silent without prana. Prana gives the intellect direction and leads the senses out into the field of experiences.

Our quality of intellect is based on the quality of prana. And that, by the dominant quality of the body-mind: tamas, rajas, or sattva. I described the territory of prana above. It’s influenced by food, but also by our thoughts and emotions, where we direct our attention, and the collective we all live in.

When we turn our attention within using spiritual practices, we shift the balance and clear the layers, upgrading the guna and the prana and everything that follows.

As I noted on Knowledge and Ignorance, this process also clears pragyaparadh or the mistake of the intellect. We come to recognize our true nature and the nature of the world.

This is not a small thing. As I’ve described, intellect gives structure (geometry) to the forms that follow. I recently watched a recording of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi where he commented that all manifestations are nothing but bodies [geometry] of the intellect. Expressions are a shell covering that.

If the intellect is mistaken, all forms that arise from that will be without foundation. They’ll support separation and division rather than our unity.

Yet when we correct the error of the intellect and cleanse the prana, it all comes back into balance and perspective. When life force moves smoothly and fully, we experience life accordingly.
Davidya

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10 Comments

  1. Judith Ann

    Davidya, this lesson is truly wonder-full ! Clear and concise ! And your indicated links are a map to fuller understanding of the existential metaphysics supporting your exquisite mystic in-sight. Bless you.

  2. Guru

    For me, you are living all that atman, Brahman… CC,GC,UC.happen in time? Brahman is beyond space and time. Divinity is beyond Brahman! If Divinity is there, all previous are not there? Kindly respond. These are questions which only you can answer.

    1. Hi Guru
      Moments of grace happen here and there in life. With regular spiritual practice, we can prepare the ground so that when grace happens, we can support it.

      So yes, the stages happen in time but it depends on our preparation and the need of the time and of wholeness as to when. It’s not a personal thing.

      Pure consciousness is beyond space and time. Brahman beyond that. Pure Divinity beyond that. And yet all of them are ever present here. Beyond doesn’t been elsewhere in space, it means boundless and universal.

      The higher stages happen when we infuse these values in our life – initially within, then right on the surface, in the world. For example, CC is Atman waking within. Unity is Atman waking in the world. Brahman is infusing nonduality. Divinity is bring Divinity right into the body.

      And actually no, these are questions the sages of yor have also answered and anyone in those stages can too. It’s only that I’m putting it out there in writing whereas most living these stages are doing other things. 🙂

    1. Sort of. Atman is universal or cosmic Self. This is pure consciousness, consciousness alone.

      However, we can also have tastes of pure consciousness in samadhi where we settle out of sense perception and mind content and just experience some value of simple awareness without content. Thus, pure consciousness.

      Yet often that’s just a gap in content. We don’t yet recognize what is experiencing, the observer. We’ve only learned to experience content. We don’t recognize our innate being. We don’t recognize that consciousness is universal yet. We don’t know it as atman. But that comes in time with regular experience and purification.

  3. Guru

    Thanks for this clarity. I have observed people taking samadhi as Atman. You are leaving legacy of truth through these blogs. You are living it. I feel blessed in having access to you.

    1. We could say samadhi early on is atman in a fog. It usually takes many exposures over time to cleanse the vessel and integrate it so we’re getting a clear taste.

      If you’re able to sit in samadhi for an extended period, recognize you are, and notice the breath has stopped, then you have clear samadhi and the potential for Samyama (from Yoga).

  4. Tim Owens

    “just a gap in content.”
    This is pretty much what my meditations have become – continual gaps in content. These gaps get longer and longer, more persistent, and much more intense. By intense I mean they seem to fill with what we would have called “rushes” back in the ’60s, periods of strong feelings of being overwhelmed by the intensity and fulness of the empty awareness. Your essay is very useful in helping me locate where I am in my practice. And, perhaps, what’s coming next.

    1. Hey TO
      Yeah, just continual samadhi. 🙂 It’s not you that’s in your practice anymore. (laughs)

      Intensity is when there is some ‘stretching’, some opening or expansion happening. The flavours (feelings) of the intensity can indicate the type of purification. That may come with laughter or tears.

      Of course what’s next is strongly influenced by the cycles of time too.

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