Mara and its relationship to Ultimate Reality

Ultimate Reality?

Life is bigger than just this Universe or even "Universes", Ultimate Reality hasn't even been reached yet. There are many, many levels.

Because there was nothing, there was something.

Beauty is a wonderful thing, especially here on earth. Take a look around you and enjoy the simpler qualities of life, savour it. Watch the Sun rise and Sun set, observe a flower blossom, smoking a couple of doobs with your friends or pounding back a few cold ones on the weekend, look up into the night sky and take in the beauty of the stars.

FEEL life, LOVE life, ENJOY life, and you will see why we live. It's simple why there is something and not nothing.

When you reach a certain stage in your soul development/growth, and have obtained a great deal of knowledge (at this point it'd still be small in comparrison to the vastness of life), words can no longer transmit this knowledge. It is to be experienced individually by every single person.

 

EeEeeeEeeeeeeee ... Bl4ck3n3D ... you sound like the descriptions of one being named Mara ...

Reading your post gave me the shivers ...

HTML:

 

Who is Mara, and is this a good thing or bad thing? Haha

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_(demon)

 

How? I am very spiritual and encourage others to grow/discover????

 

Do you really want to know?

Travis

 

Well, personally, I don't believe, or put much stock in the idea of a demon, demons, devils, or hell beings. But I do understand the metaphor of Mara, similar to the metaphor of Satan tempting Jesus in various ways.

Mara is the idea of trying to divert one's attention from ones goal of freedom from the factors that motivate ones existence in suffering. By tempting them with the pleasure of the senses.

Which is why what you said reminded me of Mara and made me shiver ... literally ...


Things like:

• Beauty is a wonderful thing
• Enjoy the simpler qualities of life, savour it.
• Watch the Sun rise and Sun set,
• Observe a flower blossom,
• Smoking a couple of doobs with your friends or
• Pounding back a few cold ones on the weekend,
• Look up into the night sky and take in the beauty of the stars.
• FEEL life,
• LOVE life,
• ENJOY life.

These are practically the same things related by the stories of Buddha's encounter with Mara and Jesus' contact with Satan only related in other words and symbolisms.

Dang ... there's that shiver again ...

HTML:

 

I would say a good distinction to make is that it is the fixation upon and preoccupation with sensory pleasures, rather than the appreciation of them, that perpetuates suffering and the illusion of separative existence. In actuality, it is our true nature, even if unrealized and influencing an individual as an undercurrent of awareness, that enables one to appreciate aspects of the material world.

I do, however, agree with you that the energy motivating Blackened's post could be considered "demonic" in nature. It not only doesn't seem to recognize that pleasurable phenomena are not an end unto themselves, but also exhibits conviction in ignorance -- it takes a declarative, authoritative stance on an ideology that is founded in misperceptions of reality. When taken to its extreme, this mentality becomes the driving force behind psyches like Hitler's and Charles Manson's.

Not to mention the fact that dependency on psychotropic influences for the experience of higher states of consciousness, as advocated in Blackened's post, is always indicative of an intermediate stage of spiritual growth.

Perhaps the shiver you felt upon reading the post is the recognition of the part of your own being that remains susceptible to the allure of sensory pleasures.

Perhaps.

Travis

 

Darrell

amen to that


occam

 

It's not really all that important how one classifies or brings into existence the idea of Mara, Satan, or whatever metaphor one uses to represent the negative aspects that hinder one on their path of spirituality. Frankly, I'm not all that comfortable with the word spiritual (/spirituality), as to my mind it denotes having to do with Spirit, and I don't believe in a spirit or soul.

Since all beings are susceptible to the "allure of sensory pleasure", even ones on the "Spiritual" path, it would be ill of me of me to butt heads with this fact. In Buddhism, only an Arahat would be able to agrue this if it (the statement) were directed at them, but they wouldn't as arguing this would be unimportant. I would say, however, that it is unfair to make it seem as if I am making it appear as if I were beyond these "allures" by using my own words against me to make this point. It assumes that I am incapable of seeing my own actions outside of the motivations to act. Not sure why you even wanted to do that. But everyone has an intention for all their actions.

However, I don't want to know the intentions as this would not be conducive to discussion of the topic of this thread.

I think if the discussion digressed any further into Mara, I will have to split yet another thread.

HTML:

 

God, Spirit, Tao, Love, Buddha Nature -- these are merely labels, words derived from different conceptual frameworks that exist for the purpose of attempting to express the inexpressible. They are all synonymous when understood correctly.

I was fascinated by the phenomenon of a shiver being produced by knowledge representative of an obstacle to freedom and speculating as to its source -- that was it. It's interesting, however, that you interpreted this as an attempt on my part to make it seem like you are portraying yourself as being beyond the allure of sensory pleasures. To be honest, the thought never even crossed my mind.

Discussions "digress" and develop in different directions all the time. It's part of what makes them compelling, both in person and on internet forums. There's no need to micro-manage threads by creating new ones everytime a tangent develops. It's a waste of your time and ours.

Travis

 

There. That split all of about 20 seconds to perform ... no waste of time there. My time is my time and how I see fit to use it. No waste there either.

I suppose, if I were to attribute a waste of time to anything, mmm, perhaps it would be to write this last sentence.

HTML:

 

I think alot of people misunderstand me, even those who are very, very, close to me.

My point with my post is, it's SIMPLE to see why there is SOMETHING instead of NOTHING. What is wrong with enjoying life? I seek a balance between physical and spiritual, I am in NO WAY saying go 110% physical and fuck the spiritual.

Alot of the complex issues we speak about here, can actually be explained in simpler terms, we have a tendency to overlook and complicate. This is my only point.

 

I fail to see how enjoying life is demonic ...!?!

 

I think they are saying that a fixation upon sensory pleasures is a hinderance to achieving any sort of greater purpose. It's counter productive and appeals to the ego (demon).

 

I think it is important to recognize that all physical existences, even the most mundane, are actual manifestations of the highest spiritual reality.

There is an eternity and an infinity that transcends all one may know. To insist on a definitive separation between the spiritual and the sensory is to diminish one's relationship to reality. A fixation on the senses, at the expense of spiritual, is just as erroneous as a fixation on the spiritual at the expense of the senses.

Peace and Love

 

varuna
"There is an eternity and an infinity that transcends all one may know."
Yes , its called reality

splutter cough,,,I reside in the realm of long sharp iron and
dilation of 3d reality.
its where it is happening
yes sensory and spiritual can be split by small minds.. but who listens to them?

occam

 

What leaves me cold are statements like "Life is bigger than this universe" "something comes from nothing". Everything you see, do, say, feel, etc. comes from this universe as it is understood. You don't know anything about nothing or a life outside of this realm. How can you pretend to know anything about it?

I mean, it may soothe you psychologically to believe in some abstract idea of "nothingness" or a universe outside of this one, but you haven't imagined either of these things. I agree that the "physical" world isn't a bad thing, though I'm not even sure what is meant by "physical" really. But why must we pretend as though we're ever talking about anything else?

 

Depends on what exactly you mean by 'life'. It seems that life can only exist within this universe, and actually within quite narrow parameters at that. A samall global temperature change of a few degrees could wipe out everything living on the earth except perhaps a few bacteria, who know nothing of ultimate reality.

On the other hand if you're saying consciousness can go beyond the universe of form, then I'd agree. 'Life' is only one set of forms. In the past different sets existed here on earth, and in the future, something new may well emerge. Perhaps a higher experession of the consciousness underlying all than the human. A new form of life.

But I'd stress that there is no need to become anti-life in order to experience a higher consciousness. That has been one of the big mistakes of nearly all religions of the past. One can enjoy life and be a spiritual person. There is no contradiction. One doesn't have to reject the good things of life and live a kind of bare exstence.

 

What do you mean by "universe of form"? Are you dividing the universe into different subsets?

The universe encompasses everything, all phenomena. There is no way to say that anything we can be conscious of exists outside of the universe.