Prana and intellect are predominant in the life of a human being. The reason being, there is nothing but expectations, desires, attachments, covetousness etc., in life. We are aware of these things first, intellect comes second. All these vrutties of Prana are always in front and the intellect stays with Prana. Once in a while intellect uses sense of discretion and decides what is right and what is wrong but even here Prana stays in front.
Prana rules our body. It is strong and expresses our expectations, desires, covetousness, attachment-hate etc., and performs many functions of the body like eating, drinking, bowel movements et-cetera. There is a long list of things that Prana does in the body. Prana is predominant in our bodies and intellect keeps thinking about it. Sometimes intellect shows and evaluates the paths to follow. Sometimes it shows alternatives paths to follow. Even though intellect shows the way it is usually mixed up with Prana. So mainly elements of Prana and intellect work in the body.
Element of Prana is more dominant than intellect in the dealings of worldly affairs. So if we want to follow the path of spirituality, both of them need to be lessened. This will not happen on its own. It is not their nature to lessen on their own. Their nature is to act according to the characteristics of Prakruti. It is impossible for them to change on their own. Then will you try to force them to change? We cannot force them. We are talking about changing them without using force. So there seems to be contradiction! To achieve this you must have great ambition, self-interest and eagerness for some higher element. Once you have this you can start the study and practice. You will experience the help in this as the time period of the practice increases. Elements of Prana and intellect are not only attached to Prakruti, they are also attached to element of Chetan (consciousness). We act in life as if there is no Chetan. We ignore Chetan and do no use for our work. For that reason, we do not feel that Prana and intellect are attached to Chetan. In reality they are connected to Chetan. As we contemplate more about this, both the elements of Prana and intellect become useful to us. Intellect helps our progress in the field of Prakruti and also it stay foremost in the progress at higher levels.
Pujya Shree Mota
Jivan Yog, Part 1,
Edition 1, Pages 332 - 333.
