Mara’s Spirituality

The piggy on our back – spiritual materialism.

Every time we talk or write about spirituality, we have to be aware that Mara isn’t influencing us, in the sense of “Believe me”. Mara, or demonic mind, is especially active in spiritual endeavours of oneupmanship. There are enlightened activities and Mara activities, and it’s easy to persuade a seeker to act in a certain way that deviates from the path.

The Four Enlightened Activities

If there is a law of attraction, there is also a law of repulsion. Every action can either be distorted by the ego, or set free by wisdom. An enlightened person will manifest activities that are beneficial to a particular state of affairs, whereas an egocentric person will project their view on to a situation in order to gain control.

In Buddhism, the enlightened activities are pacifying, enriching, magnetising and destroying ego’s games.

• Pacifying accommodates everything: it reveals that there are no problems, and that aggression from the ego is unnecessary.

• Enriching brings to light the process of growth, and allows the process of knowledge.

• Magnetising bypasses conventional reality, where we continually try to draw desired situations towards ourselves and fend off undesirable ones. A realised person simply remains as they are, attracting naturally without ego’s intervention.

• Destroying is connected to compassion, and is aimed at cutting through ego’s manipulations.

The Four Demonic Activities

Ego activity is selfish activity: as such, it is demonic. In Sanskrit, this demonic aspect is called ‘Mara’. The following four demonic activities are directed at building and fortifying our concept of self, and correlate with the four enlightened activities which illustrate compassionate understanding.

• The Mara of pacifying attempts to make peace by using pleasure and security to eliminate whatever is unpleasant: “It will be all right: trust me”. It is an imitation of genuine pacification, which is beyond any self-serving strategy.

• The Mara of enriching is the Mara of accumulating, when ego takes natural growth and turns it into its own ground. It takes richness and turns it into my wealth; “See how knowledgeable I am”.

• The Mara of magnetising attempts to attract, feeding the ego with whatever is desirable, based on the possessive emotions; “I enjoy praying for others”.

• The Mara of destroying obliterates everything, instead of just destroying what needs to be destroyed; “You’re talking total rubbish!”. It inspires in the wrong way, and uproots the whole tree. That is the karmic quality of destruction gone wild, unnecessarily.

We need to look closely at the world we actually inhabit, and contemplate our most ordinary experiences. If we do so – and if we can let go of whatever we think, and simply let the truth reveal itself – we will discover that it is nothing other than primordial, inspirational wisdom. Reality is nothing other than wisdom.

Remember: demons do not miss a trick to satisfy themselves. Any whiff of another’s ego, and they will feed off it. Be aware that demonic beings use the principles of Mara activity to twist consciousness. Demonic activity feeds off others – don’t we all recognise this?