Samaṅga

Samaṅga

Samaṅga is a ṛshi of deep calm. He appears in the Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 286, as the teacher in the Samaṅga–Nārada Saṃvāda (the dialogue of Samaṅga and Nārada).

Nārada meets him and is struck by his perfect peace. Gain and loss do not disturb it, and neither do the past, the present or the future. Nārada asks him where this freedom comes from. Samaṅga’s answer is a teaching on how all things pass away, and on amṛtopama-jñāna, the knowledge that is like amṛta (the nectar of immortality). This knowledge frees a person from all fear.

Who he is

The Mokshadharma Parva gives no lineage or earlier history for Samaṅga. He appears as a renunciate ṛshi whose whole life shows the teaching he is about to give. He found complete peace not by leaving the world but by knowing the nature of the world fully. The Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 286, tells this.

Nārada’s meeting and question

Nārada was wandering through the three worlds, as is his way, and met Samaṅga. He was at once struck by something rare in his bearing. It was the peace of one who has settled his relation to past, present and future at the root. Nārada asked, “From what does this great peace arise? What is its source? How does a human being come to this freedom?” The Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 286, tells this.

Teaching on how all things pass

Samaṅga’s first teaching is on time and on all that appears in it. He says that the past, the present and the future are all equally asat (not real) in the highest sense. What was, was, and is no more. What is, is now, and will not be. What will be will come for a short while and then pass. The same forces of karma that bring a thing into being carry it to its end. Nothing in the movement of time has any claim to last.

When this is truly known, as one knows one’s own name and not only as an idea, the pull of attraction to pleasant things and the push of dislike for unpleasant things both loosen. A person no longer longs for what was good, because it is gone. He no longer fears what was bad, because that too is gone. The Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 286, tells this.

Teaching on karma-jñāna without attachment

The second part of Samaṅga’s teaching is karma-jñāna. This means being fully aware of the chain of cause in one’s life without any personal clinging to the results. He describes a person who is wide awake to the field of karma. Such a person knows that what comes in his life is the result of earlier causes and will in turn bring later results. He knows that his task is to act in keeping with dharma without taking the fruits as his own.

This is not indifference. Samaṅga is not describing a person who sits and watches his life go by. He describes one who acts fully and wisely, but without the inner storm of hope and fear that comes when the one who acts ties himself to the result. The Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 286, tells this.

Amṛtopama-jñāna

The last teaching of the Samaṅga–Nārada Saṃvāda is on amṛtopama-jñāna, the knowledge that is like amṛta. Samaṅga describes it as the direct knowing that the ātman (the self) within oneself is the same as the ground of all being. One’s deepest nature is sat-cit-ānanda (being, consciousness, bliss). It is not the shifting mixture of body, senses, mind and ego.

This knowing does not give only a mental satisfaction. It gives freedom from all fear (nirbhayatā). All fear rests on the belief that the self, the “I”, can be harmed, threatened, made smaller or destroyed. When a person knows directly that the ātman cannot be harmed, threatened, made smaller or destroyed, because it is not the body, the mind or the ego, the root of fear is gone. The Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 286, tells this.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Śānti Parva, Mokshadharma Parva, Chapter 286 (Samaṅga–Nārada Saṃvāda)