Mara : in Buddhism, the Evil One who tempts men to indulge their passions.
... That evening, Gautama made his way to the Bodhi tree, resolved not to rise until he reached enlightenment. Mara, an evil demon, appeared to him to try to keep him from his goal with threats, provocations, violence, and when these did not succeed, with enticement and alluring temptations. To Mara, the Buddha said: Lust is your first army; the second is dislike for higher life; the third is hunger... false glory; the tenth is exalting self, despising others. Mara, these are your Page 38 Mathura Museum, Gupta art, 5th centure armies. No feeble man can conquer them, yet only by conquering them one wins bliss. I challenge you! Shame on my life if defeated! Better for me to die in battle than live. defeated.... Mara replied: For seven years have I followed the Lord... purification of vision. Follow this Path and Mara will be confounded. By following this Path, you put an end to suffering. This Path I have made known, since I learned to remove the thorns (of life). The effort must come from oneself. The Tathagatas 7 only point out the Path. Those who meditate and tread this Path are delivered from the bondage of Mara. "All conditioned things are impermanent ...
... tree of wisdom. There he remained in meditation through the long hours of the day. Adverse suggestions came to him from Mara. The intimate delights of home and love, the charms of wealth and power, began to glow again with attractive colours. At last, Siddhartha said to Mara: Lust is your first army; the second is dislike for higher life; the third is hunger and thirst; the fourth is craving;... the ninth is gain, praise, honour, false glory; the tenth is exalting self, despising others. Mara, these are your armies. No feeble man can conquer them, yet only by conquering them one wins bliss. I challenge you! Shame on my life if defeated! Better for me to die in battle than live defeated ... Mara replied: For seven years have I followed Thee step by step. I can find no entrance to the... road to realization; thinking he had returned to the world, they left him and went to Varanasi. Siddhartha, the indefatigable seeker, continued to strive. Accounts tell us of his conflicts with Mara, the Tempter, when the greatness of the temptation was shadowed forth by horrible convulsions of the powers of Nature. When a conflict began ... a thousand appalling meteors fell; clouds and darkness ...
... traditional stories of Siddharta the Buddha mention a prolonged battle that the Enlightened One gave to the forces of Evil (Mara) under the Bodhi Tree. Mara tempts Gautama Siddharta in various ways, including the offer of a world-wide Kingdom; failing in these attempts, Mara tries force, and fails again and flees with his hosts in disorder. There is a vivid description in Sir Edwin Arnold's The... against the onslaughts of Mara and Satan respectively. In Savitri, the inner paradise, the realisation of her true Self, is the necessary preliminary to her active pursuit and worsting of Death; and this she does to rescue Satyavan "the soul of the world". In the Aurobindonian version though not in the original legend, Death plays a role not very different from that of Mara or Satan, and tries to ...
... straightens his thoughts, wavering and fickle, difficult to keep straight, difficult to master. Just as a fish cast out of the water, our mind quivers and gasps when it leaves behind the kingdom of Mara. Difficult to master and unstable is the mind, forever in search of pleasure. It is good to govern it. A mind that is controlled brings happiness. The sage should remain master of his thoughts... brings happiness. Wandering afar, solitary, bodiless and hidden in the deep cave of the heart, such is the mind. Whosoever succeeds in bringing it under control liberates himself from the fetters of Mara. The intelligence of one whose mind is unstable, who is ignorant of the true Law, and whose faith is wavering will never be able to develop. If a man's thoughts are not agitated, if his mind... he no longer cares for good and evil, this man, wide awake, knows nothing of fear. Observing that the body is as fragile as a jar, and fortifying the mind like a city at arms, one should attack Mara with the blade of intelligence and should guard carefully whatever has been won. Page 210 Before long this body will be lying on the earth, abandoned, as lifeless as a piece of old wood ...
... it not desire it. Page 640 Commenting on the 7th and 8th verses about Mara and the way to withstand his assaults, the Mother says that Mara is the symbol of all that opposes the spiritual life; he is indeed the engineer of spiritual death. A gale may fell a tree, but not a rock; likewise, Mara may knock down the man of little or no faith, but not the man anchored in the true faith ...
... fear it nor desire it. 4 October 1957 Just as the strong wind uproots a feeble tree, so Mara overwhelms the man who lives only in pursuit of pleasure, who does not control his senses, who knows not how to moderate his appetite, who is lazy and wastes his energies. In Buddhist literature, Mara represents the Spirit of Evil, all that is contrary or opposed to the spiritual life; in certain... from the truth of our being and prevents us from realising it. This is the way in which it should be understood. 11 October 1957 Just as the strong wind has no hold upon a mighty rock, so Mara has no hold upon a man who does not live in pursuit of pleasure, who has good control of his senses, who knows how to moderate his appetite, who is endowed with unshakable faith and who wastes not his ...
... arrow. [2] Born of water, the fish strains and struggles when thrown on land from out of its watery dwelling, even so does the mind stuff when freed from the dominion of Mara. [3] Hard to master, unstable, wayward is the mind-stuff. It is good to be able to control it. A controlled mind-stuff brings happiness. [4] Hard to grasp... happiness. [5] It wanders far, it wanders alone, it has no body, it dwells in the cavern of the heart. He who brings it under control, is liberated from the bondages of Mara. [6] One who has an unsteady mind, one who knows not the true Law, whose clarity is overwhelmed can never have this wisdom perfected. [7] One whose... evil, one who is thus wakeful has nothing to fear. [8] Know this body to be a mere earthen pot. Establish this mind like a city. And with knowledge as your weapon fight with Mara; guard preciously what you have conquered. [9] Lo, this body before long will lie prostrate on the ground, even as a valueless, senseless, useless piece of log. [10] ...
... purification of vision. Follow this Path and Mara will be confounded. By following this Path, you put an end to suffering. This Path I have made known, since I learned to remove the thorns (of life). The effort must come from oneself. The Tathagatas only point out the Path. Those who meditate and tread this Path are delivered from the bondage of Mara. "All conditioned things are impermanent ...
... the skilled gardener discovers the rarest of flowers. Knowing his body to be as impermanent as foam and as illusory as a mirage, the disciple on the right path will shatter the flowery arrow of Mara and will rise beyond the reach of the King of Death. Death carries away the man who seeks only the flowers of sensual pleasure just as torrential floods carry away a sleeping village. Death... jasmine, can be compared with the fragrance of intelligence. Weak is the fragrance of incense or sandalwood compared to that of a virtuous man which reaches up to the highest of divinities. Mara cannot discover the way that those beings follow who lead a life of perfect purity and who are liberated by their total knowledge. As the beautiful scented lily rises by the wayside, even so the ...
... difficult to master, his sorrows fall away like water from a lotus leaf. To all who are gathered here, I say for your welfare: pull out the roots of your craving, as you uproot Birana grass. Do not let Mara crush you again and again as a flood crushes a reed. As a tree, though felled, springs up once more if the roots remain intact, even so sorrow will return again and again until all craving is rooted... strong indeed. One who delights in subduing evil thoughts, who is vigilant and can distinguish impurities, he will put an end Page 285 to his cravings, he shall break the bonds of Mara. He who has reached the goal, who is without fear and free from craving and impurity, he has plucked out the thorns of existence; this is his last incarnation. One who is free from craving ...
... immoderate in his food, who is lazy and unmanly, such a man Mara overwhelms even as the gale does a weak tree. [8] One who goes about in the pursuit of that which is not the pleasurable, who is well controlled in his senses, who is moderate in regard to food, who is full of faith and manliness, such a man the Mara does not overwhelm even as the gale does not a rocky mountain ...
... ृजत । अम्भो मरीचीर्मरमापोऽदोऽम्भः परेण दिवं द्यौः प्रतिष्ठान्तरिक्षं मरीचयः पृथिवी मरो या अधस्तात् ता आपः ॥२॥ 2) These were the worlds he made; Ambhah, of the ethereal waters, Marichih of light, Mara, of death and mortal things, Apah, of the lower waters. Beyond the shining firmament are the ethereal waters and the firmament is their base and resting-place; Space is the world of light; the earth ...
... seems to have meant in the Veda, strong, like नृ which also came to mean man; मर्यः even later means a lover, a horse, stallion etc. We have the Hindi मरद in the sense of man, masculine; the Tamil mara , strong, maravar , Kshatriyas, the strong men or fighters. मरुत् & मरुतः in the sense of god, and the respectful address मारिष appear to have the same origin. We have too मरुत्वत् for Indra orHanuman ...
... or baffled by the phenomena of evil, ignorance and pain in the cosmos, that seeks to deliver the Brahman from responsibility for Itself and its workings by erecting some opposite principle, Maya or Mara, conscious Devil or self-existent principle of evil. There is one Lord and Self and the many are only His representations and becomings. If then the world is a dream or an illusion or a mistake, ...
... stress an experience of mine which grew from day to day till I could not deny its vivid, concrete reality. I refer to what Gurudev called the "hostile forces". I had, indeed, read about the Buddha's Mara, heard about the Christian Devil and speculated in my fanciful way about ghosts and spirits and monsters which figured in the Tantric writings of certain schools. But having always been exceedingly ...
... loose, of his acts on earth or are symbol- representations of what Krishna was and is for men, of the Divinity expressing itself in the figure of Krishna. Buddha's renunciation, his temptation by Mara, his enlightenment under the Bo-tree are such symbols, so too the virgin birth, the temptation in the desert, the crucifixion of Christ are such Page 45 symbols, true by what they ...
... through the lives of past Yogis and mystics of various ages and countries and read the accounts of their periods of sadhana, we come across similar statements and narrations. Have we not heard that Mara the Evil Being came to tempt Buddha, and Satan the Force of Darkness tendered in the desert diabolical advice to Jesus the Son of God? It is not well known that the saintly writer John Bunyan ...
... 6] Better to have conquered one's own self than to have conquered all these peoples. And if one has conquered the self and moves always self-controlled, neither gods nor angels nor Mara nor even Brahma can change that victory of his into defeat. [7] If month after month one offers sacrifices by thousands for one hundred years and if one worships an accomplished ...
... Rishi, 129 LADY MACBETH, 38 London , 82n. Luy(pada) 255,277,279 MADRAS , 40 Mahinda, 268 Maitra, Debiprasad, 177 Maitreyee, 54 Mara, 200, 203-4, 206, 212, 233, 271 Matarishwan, 138 Maya, 24, 28, 45, 265, 268, 271 Mira, 149-50, 184-5 Mitra, 132, 138-9, 144 Mitra, Premendra, 171-2 Mother, The ...
... Is there anything essentially wrong, evil in its very being and nature? Some religious traditions say, there is: Satan is such a thing, Ahriman is such a thing, and what else is maya or mara ? However that may be, the sense of something essentially wrong is the fount and origin of the moral sense. The moral sense stems from and lives on the sense of sin and guilt. The sense ...
... peoples from other lands, like the Parsi, the Jew, or Syrian Christians, sought refuge on Indian shores. The world knew that Hindus had a taste for cultural diversity. Raja-raja Chola, encouraged Sri Mara Vijayottungavarman, the ruler of Sri Vijaya (Sumatra) to build a Buddhist vihara at Naga-pattinam. The monastery was called Chudamani vihara after the father of the ruler of Sri Vijaya. Wrote N. Sastri ...
... or baffled by the phenomenon of evil, ignorance and pain in the cosmos, that seeks to deliver the Brahman from responsibility for Itself and its workings by erecting some opposite principle, Maya or Mara, conscious Devil or self-existent principle of evil. There is one Lord and Self and the many are only His representations and becomings.” 2 Delight of Existence One of the main tenets of ...
... (Correspondence with Dyuman) Dyuman's Correspondence with The Mother 28 May 1934 O Lord Buddha, the forces of Mara attacked You, but You were unshaken, concentrated, calm, quiet, peaceful; then the Light descended, the hostile forces disappeared and there was peace on earth. O Mother, let us all remain consecrated to the Truth, always peaceful, calm ...
... however loose, of his acts on earth or are symbol-representations of what Krishna was and is for men, of the Divinity expressing itself in the figure of Krishna. Buddha's renunciation, his temptation by Mara, his enlightenment under the Bo-Tree are such symbols, so too the virgin birth, the temptation in the desert, the crucifixion of Christ are such symbols true by what they signify, even if they are not ...
... thousands of men in battle, but he who is victorious over himself. The victory that one wins over oneself is of more value than victory over all the peoples. No god, no Gandharva, 1 nor Mara nor Brahma 2 can change that victory to defeat. If, month after month, for a hundred years one offers sacrifices by the thousand, and if for a single instant one offers homage to a being full ...
... who, like a bird escaping from a net, soar up towards heaven. The swans take the path of the sun. Those who possess occult powers fly through the air. The sages leave this world after defeating Mara and his army of evil. Page 243 No evil is impossible to him who transgresses one law of the Doctrine, who utters falsehood and who disdains the higher world. In truth, misers do not ...
... the Buddha over M ṛ tyu māra 1 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 822 fn. (Italics ours) 2 Bulletin of Physical Education, Vol. IX, No. 3, p. 123. Page 367 'Mara, who is death'. " 1 This question of a possible maximum limit to the postponement of death is very significant and highly germane to the problem we have been discussing. For, although there ...
... progress even when there is the occasion, because of this besetting obstacle. It has many names and many forms. It is Page 279 Sin or Satan in Christianity; Buddhism calls it Mara. In India it is generally known as Maya. Grief and sorrow, weakness and want, disease and death are its external and ubiquitous forms. It is a force of gravitation, as graphically named by a modern ...
... 188,217,222 Mahalakshmi, 275 Mahasaraswati,271 Mahashakti, 327 Maheshwari, 275 Maitreyi, 160 Manchester Guardian, the, 163n Mao-tse-Tung,242 Mara,280 Mars, 323 Maruts, 222 Marx, 128 -Dos Kapital, 118 Marxism, 326 Mathura, 91 Maupassant, 145 Maxwell, 308 Maya, 50, 55, 67 ...
... severed the life-line that held it – as though the umbilical cord – by a stroke of the concentrated luminous energy that her consciousness was. So the wrong manifestation, the false world (of Maya and Mara) dissolved. and disappeared. And in its stead the true, the world of truth – that is the void – was firmly established, never to move or change. The process is a difficult path and only a heroic soul ...
... detachment and of all men the best is one who has eyes. [2] This indeed is the Path, none other exists for the purification of vision. Take to this Path. This alone confounds Mara. [3] Take to this Path and you shall end your suffering. I have known where the thorn hurts and I am explaining the Path. [4] You must yourself make ...
... calvary through pain and suffering on earth. The seeker of true enlightenment has got to make a distinction, learn to separate the true and the right from the false and the wrong, unmask the luring Mara, say clearly and unfalteringly to the dark light of Lucifer— apage Satana, if he is to come out into the true light and command the right forces. The search for knowledge alone, knowledge for the ...
... A little thing it is, this fragrance that is in incense and sandal; but the fragrance that emanates from the righteous is the fairest that blows towards the gods. [14] Mara cannot find out the way of those who have realised the virtues, who live and move without error and delusion, who have gained perfect knowledge and so attained liberation. [15 & 16] ...
... feats performed in the realm of philosophy. An explanation of the origin of the Ignorance on the basis Page 267 of religious belief is very easy. Accept a Satan, an Ahriman, or a Mara as against a God, an Ahurmazda or a Buddha and you have the explanation of the problem, especially if you don't inquire as to who created the Satan and his equals. You can say there is an eternal duality ...
... metaphysical solution, though it resorts to the method of metaphysics. Attempts have been made to explain the origin of Ignorance on the basis of religious belief; accept a Satan, an Ahriman, or a Mara, as against God, Ahurmuzd, or Buddha, and you have an explanation of the origin of Ignorance, especially if you do not inquire as to who created Satan and his Compeers. Then, there is an eternal duality ...
... it for the last six years. It is untrue that any Balkrishna Lele or any Lieutenant of Mr. Tilak is at Pondicherry; nor do I know, I doubt if anybody in India except the Madras Times knows, of any Mara-tha politician of that name and description. The statement about Madras Anarchists is unsupported by facts or names and therefore avoids any possibility of reply. It is untrue that any seditious journal ...
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.