Symbolism 9 – The Monkey
The Animal Part in Us
An unstable mind is compared to a monkey. Just like the monkey jumps around on trees, our mind too is normally unstable and jumps from one thing to another. The monkey mind is always very busy, but does not do any thorough work. It is very fast and finds it hard to relax. Like the monkey's movements, an unstable mind has no direction or continuity. When we are doing one thing, the mind is already onto another thing. Some people talk incessantly, changing from one subject to another. Not for a moment does the mind let us be where we are, but abducts us out of the present. We are neither here nor there. Today we eat, talk and watch TV and look at the cell phone at the same time.
The symbol of the monkey teaches us a lot about our lower nature, the animal part in us, the personality. In the animal we have developed the body, the emotions and the lower mind. In the Eastern scriptures they are described as a bundle of bodies. The lower nature is unstable and changes continuously according to time, place, and situation. However, it is a vital part of us and is called the younger brother. The elder brother is the soul. When the personality develops, the two brothers become allied. The elder brother can then help the younger brother. Thus, the animal part gradually transforms, and man attains an organized personality.
As long as the personality is not well organized and should we want to meditate, it is as if we are trying to climb on a monkey. The monkey of our mind jumps everywhere, although it belongs to us and should stay with us. To regulate the mind is a great process of taming, which can be accomplished only with a great deal of patience. The seers of old found a way to do this: When the mind is directed towards the breathing, it is as if the monkey jumping around is tied to a machine; it now moves inward and again outward with the breathing. Via the observation of pulsation, the mind slowly returns to its origin; mind and breathing merge.
Prayers, worship, and meditation are means to connect us with the one consciousness. Through them, we are led from monkey consciousness to “I AM” consciousness, and when we finally live in the awareness of the one energy, we see the light even in the inner monkey. To realize this, we need practice and patience.
Monkeys - Symbols and Similes
In the East, there is a monkey simile given for people who read a lot about wisdom concepts but do not practise what they have read in their daily lives. They are compared to a monkey holding a coconut in its hands. The monkey knows it is a fruit, but it does not know how to open to eat it. Any other fruit the monkey can eat directly, but with the coconut, the skin and fibres have to be removed and then the fruit has to be broken open to get to the water and the flesh. For a person who knows from books that there is a soul and that it has love, light, and power, but who does not have the experience, the doors to wisdom remain closed. We must apply the keys of spiritual practice to ourselves; otherwise wisdom cannot help us in our daily lives.
It is seldom realised that when we busy ourselves with non-essentials, the desire body puts a grey layer over the light body of our etheric form, just as dust accumulates on a glass pane. It is important that we do not indiscriminately let things into us through the five senses. It is important that we eat, drink and act properly, and that we also do not do things for no reason or visit, talk or gossip with people unnecessarily. As a hint, the profound symbol of the three monkeys was given. While the three monkeys today in the West usually stand for “not wanting to see, hear or say anything” in order to ignore unpleasant things, in the East they symbolise three wise monkeys: One monkey has his eyes covered, thus showing “I do not see the unimportant”. Another monkey covers his ears: “I do not listen to the unessential”. The third monkey covers his mouth: “I do not speak or eat unnecessarily”. These are instructions to be applied by a disciple of the Master's precepts. In this way we prevent undesirable things and diseases from entering us.
Right conduct also includes carrying out the tasks assigned to us, but not involving ourselves in the affairs of others. There is a story about carpenters who were trying to split a tree trunk with a wedge. While they were taking a break, a monkey came and took out the wedge, trapping his leg. When the carpenters later freed his leg from the wood, it was damaged for life.
Monkey and Man
Science tells us that the monkey is the ancestor of man. But if you compare the brain of an ape and the brain of a very primitive human being, you invariably discover that the brain of the human being is far more evolved than that of the ape. There is a gap in between that could not be explained. In nature, all evolution is very gradual, and the gap between the brain of the ape and that of the most primitive man could not be filled by any theory. Even the best evolved animal is no comparison to a human being.
There is the evolution of the body - from mineral to plant and to animal - but in man a part has descended from higher circles and a part evolved up from the animal kingdom. That is why the scriptures call man a “double being”. The ascended part is called “the vehicle which is no different from the animal”. That which descended is the real man described in the scriptures: “Adam taking to the coats of skin”. In man the invisible and the visible meet, spirit and matter meet. Creation is complete in man.
In other kingdoms or in other planes, the creation is not so complete as it is in man. The Devas, the angels do not have the physical plane of existence; they need the physical vehicles to carry out the divine plan on earth. The Manasa Devas joined the material formations and gave man the mind in primeval times. Thus, the animal man is the vehicle of the divine man. The meeting point is between the Buddhic and the mental plane. The soul descends to the Buddhic plane, the body ascends to the mental plane, and the fusion takes place between these two planes of existence. These are the two allied brothers.
In the beginning, when humans started thinking, they did not know how to think. So, there was intercourse with living beings who were beautiful to look at but had no mind. Semi-divine beings imprisoned themselves in bodies, which was not according to the divine plan. Thus, through free will and from the perversions of the powers given to man, all the apes and anthropoids and other strange forms came to be, appearing as such in the Atlantean period. The apes are really only human beings, and it is our karma to ensure that these beings are also evolved. They would evolve along with this humanity. The other animals do not have the same opportunity in this round to evolve into the Buddhic or the Atmic plane with the human beings.
Being of Light in Monkey Form
In order to counteract the situation that arose at that time, where the entire law was disturbed, celestial beings entered our system according to the divine plan. High beings descended and they brought forth beings with divine potentials and divine powers. They came down, like Rama the Avatar, partly in human form. They also chose to give rise to various monkey forms and similar beings, and they descended into these forms. We find such stories in all mythologies. They sound like fairy tales, but they are all stories that relate to the Buddhic plane.
The monkeys in the great epic Ramayana are not animals. They are called Vanaras in the scriptures, special people. They are also called Kama Rupas, i.e. supernatural beings of light who, with the help of yoga, can assume any form that is needed at the time. Normally they lived in the form of a monkey. The most famous of them is Hanuman. He has a radiant white causal body, a golden-coloured etheric body and on the outside usually the physical body of a monkey. In the Ramayana, it is reported that when he first met Lord Rama, he appeared as a very pure, radiant Vedic Brahmin. Hanuman is not a monkey god as he is often called. He chose the monkey form for his task at that time in order to veil himself with that form.
Hanuman is a cosmic intelligence, symbolically described as the “son of the air god”. The air element transmits prana, and prana works through pulsation and respiration. In the story of the Ramayana, Hanuman ensures the release of Sita from imprisonment on an island and enabled her to re-join Rama, the Lord. The story is about Sita, the soul, being separated from the universal soul, Rama, through desire. She feels the agony of separation and seeks communion with the Divine again. Hanuman, the principle of air in a monkey form, can pave the way for the reunion of soul and personality. Conscious breathing is a yogic activity with prana by which we slowly release ourselves from the slavery of matter, and the individual consciousness re-joins the universal consciousness.
Sources used: K.P. Kumar: Hanuman; Uranus; div. seminar notes. The World Teacher Trust - Dhanishta, Visakhapatnam, India