Read Summary of '''[[Calm Summary|Calm]]'''
|}
=What Is Calm?=
Calm— ''sthiratā''.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p4</ref>
<center>~</center>
Calm is a positive tranquillity which can exist in spite of superficial disturbances. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p12</ref>
<center>~</center>
Calm is a strong and positive quietude, firm and solid—ordinary quietude is mere negation, simply the absence of disturbance.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p17</ref>
<center>~</center>
Calm is a still, unmoved condition which no disturbance can affect—it is a less negative condition than quiet.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p8</ref>
<center>~</center>
When I tell someone, "Be calm", I mean: Try not to have restless, excited, agitated thoughts; try to quieten your mind and to stop turning around in all your imaginations and observations and mental constructions.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/17-october-1956#p14</ref>
<center>~</center>
So, if I tell someone "Be calm", I may be telling him all kinds of things, it depends upon each person. But obviously, most often it is, "Make your mind quiet, don't be restless all the time in your head, don't stir up lots of ideas, calm yourself." <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/17-october-1956#p22</ref>
<center>~</center>
Calmness is a more positive condition, not merely an absence of restlessness, over-activity or trouble. When there is a clear sense of great or strong tranquillity which nothing troubles or can trouble, then we say that calm is established.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p16</ref>
==Calm Is Misunderstood as==
One must never mistake inertia or a somnolent passivity for calm.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/17-october-1956#p17</ref>
<center>~</center>
Do not confuse calm with inertia. calm is self-possessed strength, quiet and conscious energy, mastery of the impulses, control over the unconscious reflexes. In work calm is the source of efficiency and an indispensable condition for perfection. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/calm#p18</ref>
<center>~</center>
"Be calm", I don't mean to say "Go and sleep, be inert and passive, and don't do anything", far from it!... True quietude is a very great force, a very great strength. In fact one can say, looking at the problem from the other side, that all those who are really strong, powerful, are always very calm. It is only the weak who are agitated; as soon as one becomes truly strong, one is peaceful, calm, quiet, and one has the power of endurance to face the adverse waves which come rushing from outside in the hope of disturbing one. This true quietude is always a sign of force. calmness belongs to the strong. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/17-october-1956#p18</ref>
<center>~</center>
When this fever of action, of movement, this agitation of creative thought is not there, one feels one is falling into inertia. Most people fear silence, calm, quietude. They no longer feel alive when they are not agitated.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/30-january-1957#p11</ref>
<center>~</center>
In reality, calm is not a negative thing; it is the very nature of the Sat-Purusha and the positive foundation of the divine consciousness. Whatever else is aspired for and gained, this must be kept. Even Knowledge, Power, Ananda, if they come and do not find this foundation, are unable to remain and have to withdraw until the divine purity and peace of the Sat-Purusha are permanently there.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p67</ref>
==Types of Calm==
The first [calmness with disturbances on the surface] is the ordinary fundamental calm of the individual Adhar—the second [perfect stillness in the body and in the surrounding atmosphere] is the fundamental limitless calm of the cosmic consciousness, a calm which abides whether separated from all movements or supporting them. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p72</ref>
==Peace and Calm==
Peace is more positive than calm—there can be a negative calm which is merely an absence of disturbance or trouble, but peace is always something positive bringing not merely a release as calm does but a certain happiness or Ananda of itself. There is also a positive calm, something that stands firm against all things that seek trouble, not thin and neutral like the negative calm, but strong and massive. Very often the two words are used in the same sense, but one can distinguish them in their true sense as above. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/peace#p2</ref>
==In Different Parts of Being==
===Physical===
The calm established in the whole being must remain the same whatever happens, in health and disease, in pleasure and in pain, even in the strongest physical pain, in good fortune and misfortune, our own or that of those we love, in success and failure, honour and insult, praise and blame, justice done to us or injustice, everything that ordinarily affects the mind.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-action-of-equality#p5</ref>
===Vital===
The true vital is different, calm and strong and a powerful instrument submitted to the Divine. But for that to come forward, it is necessary first to get this fixed poise above in the mind—when the consciousness is there and the mind calm, free and wide, then the true vital can come forward.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-nature-of-the-vital#p63</ref>
===Mental===
The mind is said to be calm when thoughts, feelings, etc. may pass through it, but it is not disturbed. It feels that the thoughts are not its own; it observes them perhaps; but it is not perturbed by anything. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p63</ref>
<center>~</center>
You should not confuse a calm mind with a silent mind. You can calm your mind and stop its ordinary activity, but it may still be open to ideas coming from outside and that too disturbs the calm. And for the mind to be completely silent, you must not only stop its own activity but shut out all that comes from other minds. This is not easy. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/14/the-mind#p78</ref>
<center>~</center>
The difference between a vacant mind and a calm mind is this, that when the mind is vacant, there is no thought, no conception, no mental action of any kind, except an essential perception of things without the formed idea; but in the calm mind, it is the substance of the mental being that is still, so still that nothing disturbs it. If thoughts or activities come, they do not rise at all out of the mind, but they come from outside and cross the mind as a flight of birds crosses the sky in a windless air. It passes, disturbs nothing, leaving no trace. Even if a thousand images or the most violent events pass across it, the calm stillness remains as if the very texture of the mind were a substance of eternal and indestructible peace. A mind that has achieved this calmness can begin to act, even incessantly and powerfully, but it will keep its fundamental stillness—originating nothing from itself but receiving from Above and giving it a mental form without adding anything of its own, calmly, dispassionately, though with the joy of the Truth and the happy power and light of its passage. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/quiet-and-calm#p60</ref>
=Why Is Calm Important?=