SHAMA (SHAMAHa)
Swami Dayananda Saraswati
Sama is typically defined as mano nigrah, commonly translated as mind control.And wherever mano nigrah is mentioned, we will often see it paired with manonasa, destruction of the mind. This is very revealing. Anyone who wants todestroy the mind is already is destroyed, is he not? Otherwise why does he needto have his mind destroyed? Such a desire reveals that his thinking is destroyed,and he wants to get rid of the mind to solve that problem. Today, mind-controlhas become big business. Anybody who says that you should control the mindwill have subscribers to that idea—and to his program. Everybody knows thatyou can’t control the mind, and therefore, people will nod their heads.“The mind is turbulent”“Ah! you said it.”“Nobody can easily control the mind.”“That is true.”“You have to work hard to control the mind.”“That is true I have to work hard.”“Even if you have worked hard, you think that you have controlled the mind,that control just goes away.”Everything looks true, and thus, mind control is a million dollar business. Thepoor mind. Bhagavan thought, “Let us give this human a mind and watch whathappens.” Lakshmi told him, “Don’t do these experiments.” But Narayana said,“No, no I am going to try,” and gave this human being a mind. Now Lakshmigoes on saying, “Didn’t I tell you, didn’t I tell you?”The mind is just the most beautiful instrument that a human being has.Everything else that we have, every animal has. In fact, they are better equipped.A police man takes the help of a dog, and is called a sleuth but the real sleuth isthe dog. It is the dog who sniffs out the criminal. All other animals are betterequipped than human beings in one way or another. Look at a bat; it can fly inthe dark. People think it is because it is able to see in the dark, but it is not. A bat just goes on squeaking and sending out sounds, and when the sounds rebound, it is able to interpret them. It has inbuilt sonar. A bat can can detect an obstruction while flying and navigate its way around it. It can also send out specific sounds to gather information, and when the sounds come back, it can know what the object is. It can distinguish a leaf from a fruit, and it can determine that this fruit is ripe and this is not. What a marvel is this bat! There is so much research going on about bats. There is one person in a University near Louisville doing research on bats, who people call ‘bat nagger’. He is an Indian, whose name is Bhatnagar, and in America they pronounce it ‘bat nagger’ I had long discussions with him to learn all about bats. He has so much to tell about these bats, which are better equipped than we are for certain things.The only thing that makes you special is this great mind you have. It is not anordinary thing. There is nothing wrong with the mind as long as you don’t saythat there is something wrong with it. Or if you don’t say it, but you have thefeeling that there is something wrong with it, that is even worse. The mind is anangel. It is the greatest endowment of a human being, and it has to be used; it ismeant to be used.People manipulate people only through the mind. Therefore we have to analysethis properly.One has to pay one’s attention to one’s mind. It cannot be taken for granted, norshould it be looked upon as something that causes real problems. Mainly, themind is meant for knowing, remembering, and also, to entertain emotions. Theseat of emotion as well as the seat of knowledge is the mind, so there is anemotional mind, a cognitive mind, and a recollecting mind. Because it isinstrumental in knowing, it is called the inner, antah, instrument, karana,antahkarana. Without the mind, an individual cannot know. It is the instrument,karana through which we know, like the eyes are the karana, through which wesee, and the ears, the instrument through which we hear. But the eyes, ears andother senses cannot function themselves, without being backed by the mind.Therefore, so you come to recognize something only with the help of the mind,and therefore, it is a karana.Now, what is it that really bothers a person? When a person is bothered, it is theperson that is bothered, really speaking. Being just an instrument, it is not themind that really bothers. Yet, in this, the mind seems to play a role. How? Increating certain emotions, like fear. Fear is for the person, not for the mind,please understand. The poor mind is unnecessarily blamed, but it is the personwho is afraid, and therefore, there is an emotion called fear. It is the same foranxiety, hatred, and so on. And also, there are emotions like love, compassion,and empathy, which the mind manifests. Now compassion only reveals thecompassionate person. In understanding emotions, we always have to includethe person, otherwise, the mind will become the whipping boy for all ourproblems. An emotion is me, viewed from the standpoint of the mind.Whenever a book deals with the mind, it actually deals with the person withreference to the mind. This `me’, the individual, with reference to an emotioncalled compassion, is compassionate—I am compassionate. Because I amcompassionate, there is compassion; because I am loving, there is love. It is notthe other way around. It is not that because there is love I become loving, butrather, because I am loving there is love. So too, because I am frightened, there isfear; because I am agitated, there is agitation; I am anxious, therefore there isanxiety; I am hateful, therefore there is hatred.Why do we separate this mind and then whip it unnecessarily? Neither do I haveto whip myself; I am what I am due to certain laws. So whenever we talk aboutthe mind we have to be highly responsible, or we may create problems forothers. It is very easy for a person to conclude, “My mind is no good at all.” Butthere is no such thing as a ‘bad mind’. The mind is always good; it does its job. Ifyou are anxious, it presents anxiety for you, but it does not cause you anxiety.The mind is not a threat; it’s just you. You are the person, the affected person,and the mind gives an indication that you have to pay a certain attention in someareas. Paying attention is called sama.All these situations like anxiety, depression, unwarranted anger, reveal theperson. If a situation doesn’t warrant intense anger, yet the anger is there, I mustunderstand that there is already an angry person who manifests in the formanger. But it is the mind that really tells us exactly what is going on. Thus, themind is pointed out in mano nigrahah, not the person, because through the mindalone we understand the person. There are varieties of emotions not liked byourselves, or by anyone. I don’t like myself being given to anger, I don’t likemyself being anxious, frightened etc. But then I am. So how we are going togain a resolution of this?There are so many methods. One thing they all have in common is that we haveto accept the emotion. If I am frightened, I am frightened. Thinking that I shouldnot be frightened is not going to help me. Or worse, the idea that I should nothave been frightened doesn’t help me either. The notion that I should not befrightened or should not have been frightened only confuses the whole situation.And these kind of confusions are rampant, and are promoted by the so-calledspiritual teachers. At the same time, the mind being an indicator of me, theperson, I do require a mind which is more or less abiding, so that it is availablefor my understanding, my pursuits, my contemplation. This `availability’ isexactly what is meant here by sama, otherwise, there is no need to mention it.When you apply for admission in a school, they don’t ask, “Do you have sama,do you have dama?” If you are applying for an MSc, all ask is whether you havedone your BSc., If you have graduated, then you can do post-graduate work.This is very simple; they don’t ask for samah, dama, uparati, titiksha, sraddha.But here, the subject matter is me. Please understand the difference. The subjectmatter of Vedanta, is me, and because it is me, this me, the individual, has to dealwith himself or herself. And the emotional person is a very important person.You can’t bypass emotion. In this pursuit, you can’t bypass anything, not theworld, not your body, much less your mind. Even if you bypass a road in orderto avoid the congestion due to the shops on both sides, what happens? On thebypass road itself shops come up and you have the same problem. So too here;wherever there is a bypass, there exactly will be a problem, so you are not goingto bypass anything.We don’t want to bypass any reality, whether it is subjectively real or objectivelyreal. In every single area there is no bypassing, because when you deal withyourself, you cannot successfully bypass anything. In bypassing a problem, youare not bypassing the problem, really, you are bypassing solving the problem.Therefore here, we don’t bypass anything.What are the things that will give you sama? That we have to discover in ourstudy of the Geeta etc.,Let us first understand what is sama. One thing I can say here is that sama is aresolution of the mind. It is not that the mind becomes blank, but rather, it is amind that is available for you. Nothing more. Don’t add anything more to this; itis just a mind that is available for you. When you sit in contemplation, it isavailable for you, when you study it is available for you, when you are sittingand listening to me, it is available for you. When it is available for you, why doyou bother about the mind? The mind is serving you. You may say thatsometimes it is cognitively available for you, and sometimes it disturbs you. Itlooks like it disturbs you, but, in fact, it is already a disturbed mind, and it wantsto get rid of the disturbance. An old disturbance comes in the form of fear, forinstance, because there was a fear locked up underneath. That fear gets released.We have to understand this kind of situation very clearly. The more weunderstand, the more sama we will command. That fear, for instance, you cannow look at as a fear released, rather than a fear gained. You can look at anxietyas an anxiety released rather than an anxiety gained. You can look at it eitherway. If you look at anxiety as a new gain, then you are going to conclude thatyou are anxious and nothing is happening in terms of your understanding. Infact, nothing needs to happen. Let the old anxiety go, let the old pain go, let theold the hatred, jealousy, whatever is there underneath, all go. They are goingmore than coming, especially when you are addressing the problem. When youare not addressing the problem, you don’t know what is happening. When youare depressed, you are depressed; that’s all.Here, you are addressing the problem, because you are the subject matter in thestudy of Vedanta. You are looking at yourself, so naturally, whatever is there willcome out. The more I am able to look at it all, with a sense of surrender, the moresama will be there. Surrender to what? Surrender to the order, which includesthe psychological order. That order is Iswara. Through our prayers, through ourmeditations, through our japa, through our duties and anything that is necessaryto nourish ourself, we take care of the mind.Sama, then, is the availability of the mind for you to perceive. And also, there ismental time available. Physical time may be available, but mental time may not.If mental time is available, then physical time will accommodate, always. Mentaltime is not available for people because the mind is too busy. Thus, the resolutionof the mind is taken here as a qualification, sama.Originally, when life was structured, and one lived a religious life, it was easierto command sama. One who has a religious life has found a certain bonding withIswara, and that person can relax and thereby, find a certain resolution. It ispurely by devotion, by bonding with Iswara. This is a topic that has to be dealtwith very sensitively and responsibly, so that it is understood properly. Here, Ijust want you to understand that sama is not mind control.