In plain words
Why has this Buddhi come to have so much authority? Only because it is so close to the Ātma has Buddhi gained so much authority. Through Buddhi it brings this principle of the Ātma into the mind, and through the mind makes it shine forth in the senses. This ordered working is what is called śama. This same thing can also be called ‘saṃyama’. Saṃyama means restraint. Without this very power of restraint, man cannot receive grace. A man who tries to live as a beast has no need of saṃyama. For a man who lives as a full human being, saṃyama is essential. This is precisely the difference between man and beast. The tiger is a savage beast. This is the savagery that came to the beast with its birth. It does not change in the least, right up to its death. Born with a savage nature, this beast dies with that savage nature itself. The cat, now: we raise it lovingly and well in our homes. However lovingly we feed it with milk, curds and rice, the moment it sees a mouse it leaps up and pounces. This is an old habit. This is a bad trait it is born with. Feed it food of every kind, and still its mind runs off towards that filth alone. But man is not like that. Even a man born wicked, evil-minded and base has the chance to change into a good man, a man of good conduct, an embodiment of Dharma. Through good company, through reading good books, through hearing of good deeds, he has the chance to change his life, foster his divinity and experience Godliness. So for man saṃyama, which is restraint, is essential. Animals too keep some restraints for a while.
Children, you have seen this for yourselves. In the circus they bring in the lion, a savage beast, bring in its enemy the elephant too, and show that the two share a loving bond. Not only that. The name we give to the very home of fickleness is the monkey. They teach even a monkey, so full of fickleness, to ride a bicycle. In the circus it rides a bicycle. The lion makes friends with the elephant, its foe. You may think that all this has come from practice. No. No. It has not come from practice. It has come about through fear. That is, afraid of the pain of the electric current in the ring master's hand, they behave accordingly. But they have not given up their savagery. They have not let go of their fickleness. No close feeling of love has come to them. In the same way, for us too to live … like circus animals is a wasted life.