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The Mind as Represented in the Scriptures as a Monkey:
In the Ramayana, when Rama is searching for Sita, he seeks the support of the Monkey Army led by the King of the monkeys Vali. In the Ramayana, Rama kills Vali and installs Sugriva as the new King, and subsequently gets the support of the Monkey Army, with whose help he then is able to get Sita back from Lanka and the demon Ravana. All of this is symbolic and put in the form of a story for the common man. The Scriptures intended for more learned persons to use the stories of the various Epics in the scriptures to teach and instruct the common man to live life in the proper way.

In this case, the Mind is represented as a monkey. Monkeys, like the mind, are ASTHIRA ( unsteady) and also CHANCHALA ( restless)  Within Chanchala or Restless, we are told that the mind has two types of Restlessness, just like a monkey. The first type of restlessness is represented by the monkey jumping from one place to another constantly. The mind jumps from one desire to another constantly. As you are concentrating on a particular task , the mind is already transporting itself to another wish, fantasy or desire. The second type of Restlessness is that within a Thought, the Mind moves back and forth instead of staying firmly fixated on one point. This is represented by the monkey who cannot sit still in one place, if he is not jumping from one part of his cage to the other, he is constantly fidgeting…moving incessantly .

The monkey army that was sought out by Rama represents the Mind. When Rama controls his own Mind, he is able to use his mind to get back Sita which represents us as Individuals. The evil king Vali represents our mind’s fixation on Materiality and Sensuality. As long as ‘Vali’ rules us mentally, we cannot channel our thoughts. When we kill Vali, get rid of our obsession with materiality and sensuality, only then can we control the powerful army that is our mind.

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