Let’s talk about something a little controversial today… the forces of evil. 👀
How do different wisdom traditions frame temptation, demons, and the dark forces that often appear right before a spiritual breakthrough?
I’ll explore the story of Eve in the garden, Jesus in the desert, and Buddha under the Bodhi tree, comparing how each figure faces illusion, doubt, and distraction—and what we can learn from them in our own practice.
I’ll also break down how yogic philosophy (and Hinduism more broadly) defines the “enemy” very differently—from the ego as adversary to karmic patterns of desire and delusion. We’ll explore:
🔹 Why the darkest moments often come before awakening
🔹 Jesus vs. Mara: how two traditions handle temptation
🔹 The serpent’s tactic: twist truth, create doubt
🔹 Why contentment (Santosha) is spiritual protection
🔹 Vedanta’s view: ego, craving, and identification as the true ‘enemy’
🔹 How to tell if you’re in a “spiritual setup” moment
This is part one of a two-part conversation exploring temptation, truth, and the psychological and spiritual forces we encounter on the path. Whether you’re deep into the Gita or just navigating your own spiritual uplevel, this one’s for you.
💖 Ready to deepen your practice and live from your true nature? Explore the Uplifted Membership here => https://www.brettlarkin.com/uplifted/
Book mentioned: Deceived No More by Doreen Virtue
FREE Practice: 10 Min Kundalini Kriya For Awakening For Beginners | GUIDED KUNDALINI MEDITATION
Relevant Blog: What Is Santosha? Yoga’s Philosophy of Happiness.
Relevant to Today’s Episode:
🎧 Also Listen to:
#362 – Somatics, Catholicism & Tantra – A Big Picture Inquiry
#395 – The Role of “God” in Yoga + Tantric Shadow Work w/ Katie Silcox
#408 – Aparigraha vs. Hustle Culture: I Quit Maximizing. Here’s What Happened
© 2026 Uplifted Yoga | BrettLarkin.com
Transcript:
Brett Larkin:
It’s time for you to walk through the world with the confidence and serenity of someone who’s deeply tethered to their inner wisdom. If you have this insatiable hunger to uplift your personal life and make a bigger impact in your wellness career, leveraging yoga’s ancient wisdom, welcome. I’ve certified thousands of yoga instructors online, I teach to over half a million subscribers on YouTube, but I still haven’t remotely quenched my thirst for more yogic knowledge.
I’m Brett Larkin, founder of Uplifted Yoga, and this is the Uplifted Yoga Podcast, where yoga enthusiasts and teachers transform their lives for the better. Let’s get started. Temptation, demons, the dark forces.
Today we are talking about the forces of evil. On the podcast, we are going to explore the story of Eve in the garden, Jesus in the desert, and the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, comparing how each of these characters faces illusion, doubt, and distraction, and what we can learn from them as spiritual seekers in our own practice. We’re going to talk about the ego as our adversary, as well as karmic patterns of desire and delusion.
We’re going to explore the serpent’s tactics in the Garden of Eden, and why the darkest moments in all of these stories—yogic philosophy, Buddhism, Jesus’ confrontation with Satan—all of these darkest moments come before the Big Awakening. This is part one of a two-part conversation exploring temptation, truth, and the psychological and spiritual forces we might encounter on the path to awakening. Let’s dive into the first of this two-part conversation of the forces of evil on the spiritual path.
Hello, my friends. I am so freakishly excited for today’s episode where we’re going to be talking about Satan, demons, evil, and how these things show up in many of the ancient wisdom traditions we’ve been exploring on the podcast this year. I’ve been having so much fun doing research for this episode.
I feel like I learned so, so much. So we’re going to be looking at the idea of Satan or a demon or pride across Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Now Hinduism doesn’t have Satan as an external figure of evil the way we see in Christianity and Buddhism.
Although in Buddhism, the temptation is more psychological than an externalized character. But in Hinduism, we do see tests around ego and power and desire. And sometimes these actually are personified through what’s called asuras, demons, or even the Hindu gods themselves.
And what’s super interesting that we’re going to see today is often these moments, we’re going to look at a couple of key stories. These moments where you’re really tested by a dark force appear exactly when a seeker is close to awakening their full potential, kind of like it’s always darkest before the dawn type of thing. So in Christianity, evil is often externalized, like Satan as an adversary.
There is a clear enemy. In Buddhism, the temptation is more psychological. So we’ll look at Mara as craving, as fear and doubt in Buddha’s story.
And then in Hinduism, temptation is often egoic and has more to do with pride, identity, and power. So in the Hindu tradition, it’s less about danger being sin, per se. It’s more about getting lost in power or worldly pursuits instead of attaining liberation.
Now what brought all this to the surface for me was a past podcast episode about Santosha that I recorded. We were talking about Aparigraha and Santosha. Now you don’t need to listen to that episode in order to enjoy this one, but in that episode, we were talking about contentment and how contentment is sort of this overlooked piece in the eight limbs.
It often just seems really boring, so we don’t focus on it, but that it’s actually so critical. And so I started really thinking about like, well, what stops us? What prevents us from Santosha? So thinking about Santosha and what blocks us from contentment, is it ourselves, right? Our thoughts, the reductionist method that yoga sort of teaches us. We need to strip away everything that’s not true so we can experience satchitananda, truth, consciousness, bliss, our own true nature, which is very different from there like being an actual enemy.
I got curious to dig in more to this idea of Satan or an externalized enemy, especially after reading Doreen Virtue’s book. If you don’t know, Doreen Virtue wrote probably every oracle card deck that you own. So many books, so many card decks.
She was probably like one of the best-selling authors and card writers and psychics of like the past 30 years. And her story is like really crazy because she had this spiritual awakening and became a born-again Christian and like literally rejected everything, like her entire life’s work. She turned her back on it.
And of course, as someone who’s like fascinated with comparative theology, I wanted to read her book. It’s called Deceived No More. But in it, she talks a lot about Satan and the devil.
So it brought it top of mind to me. She goes, that’s how the enemy works. He seems to give you your wishes, but then he will make you dependent on him.
She says the enemy will give you the high life, but you will always feel hungry and want more. That’s one of the key characteristics of those who are following the enemy. They are never satisfied.
I wasn’t. I wanted more followers on Facebook, more book sales, and more beautiful gowns to wear at my events. I was obsessed with material things.
I was also prideful. I didn’t even realize it. That’s probably because new-agers don’t want to acknowledge anything that they perceive as being harsh or negative.
I know because that’s how I was. I couldn’t handle any conflict or bad news. I kept my head in the sand like an ostrich.
The devil can work undercover in the new age because no one is looking for him. Ooh, la la. So her book is a whole other rabbit hole.
However, she did get me thinking a lot about like dark forces. Because I think the creepiest part of her book when I read it was she was like, how do you know when you’re connecting to your quote unquote intuition, you’re not connecting to Satan or to evil forces? And this is coming from someone who used to write like angel cards and do readings for a living. So between thinking about like what blocks us from feeling Santosha, the contentment we want to be feeling in our lives, and her book kind of like reintroducing this idea of evil, not evil and like, you know, Kali seems evil, but she’s really here to liberate you.
But like, no, just evil, just the enemy. Because this is a really, I think, interesting distinction for us all to noodle on. It’s like, when there’s voices in your head that you don’t like, it’s really fascinating because like in the in the yogic philosophical model, those are vritti, mind chatter that we need to effort to quiet, still, calm, tranquilize, train.
Or in this other model, like, are those evil voices in our head, like actual dark forces, like the enemy, as she would call it, we’re going to look at different frameworks, we’re going to look at Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism, which is like the more yogic Vedantic model. And I want to start with Christianity. And I want to compare Jesus’s epic encounter with Satan or the devil with Buddha’s very similar encounter with Mara, his demon.
So we’re going to compare and contrast those. And then once we’re clear on that, we’re going to add the more Vedantic or Hindu perspective into the mix. Before we go there, we need to back up, because I want to talk just a little bit, a little bit about the fall, because this really sets the stage for I think what we see how like how evil shows up and how it works and what this text is trying to teach.
If we take a moment to look at Genesis first, because to me, it’s so fully informs Jesus’s encounter with the devil, which is then going to help us talk about Buddha’s encounter with his demon. So I love early Genesis in the Bible. I think it’s so fascinating.
I’ve read so many different translations and commentaries of it. And I encourage you to do the same. We see it mirror Samkhya philosophy at the beginning.
And then obviously it changes in some big ways, mainly in this way that is this idea of the serpent and the fall of Adam and Eve, where they get separated from God. So what God actually says to Adam, so this is Genesis 2, 16 to 17, and the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. So what’s so interesting about this verse is that we all like myself, every time I’ve read it and you probably just now, like we all focus on the second part, right? The second part, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.
We skip over the first part in which the Lord God says of every tree in the garden, you may freely eat except from this one, right? But here’s the thing. God begins with abundance, permission. He’s literally like, you can eat any tree in these like acres and acres and miles and miles and miles and miles of gardens.
And it’s just such a funny classic example, I think, of like the what’s wrong attention. More info on that in my Do Less series in the Uplifted Membership and Organic Intelligence. But it’s basically this trauma modality that I studied that says what’s wrong is our obsession with the what’s wrong attention, meaning like you get 10 emails and you don’t focus on the 10 positive emails, you focus on the one negative one.
And like that’s like what we do even when we read this phrase in Genesis. We’re not like, wow, God gave them like an abundant garden, a perfect life, no pain, and they could literally eat from anything they wanted, like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of trees, maybe thousands, I’m not sure. But no, our brain just laser focuses in because we’re flawed humans to the fact that there’s one thing that they can’t have and we’re just hyper focused on that.
So we get really focused on the idea that one tree is prohibited and not so much on the abundant beauty and beautiful world and abundant things to eat that God has provided. Anyway, the point is God gives this command to Adam before Eve exists because she gets created in verse 22. So this is really interesting because it’s kind of like a game of telephone.
It’s like, so Adam must have conveyed this command to Eve or was there some misinterpretation there? Because later what Eve says to the serpent is not exactly what God said. So let’s skip ahead and look at that. Let’s start with the first verse, 3.31. So God is always referred to as the Lord God.
That’s always how he’s referred to. So the serpent says, and he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? So first of all, he doesn’t use God’s proper name. So he’s introducing already, like, maybe this guy isn’t as great as you think.
Next, he’s like twisting and questioning God’s word. He’s saying, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Well, it’s like, yeah, he said we could eat all the trees of the garden except just this one. But like the manipulation that the serpent is using, like this, this like language trick is part of like what hooks Eve, right? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but not the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden.
God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die. OK, like where did touch it come from? That was never in the initial instructions, guys. So this is what theological commentators say about this.
Number one, Eve omits the abundance language. Like God said, you may eat freely of every tree. She doesn’t remember any of that.
She already has some of the what’s wrong attention going on. She’s like, yeah, we may eat of the trees. She diminishes God’s warmth, generosity, and forgetting like what he gave them.
OK, like think about how you forget the good things in your life, how quickly you just focus on the one negative thing or even twist things to not be as good as they actually are. Then Eve adds a restriction that God never gave. She says, neither shall you touch the tree, neither shall you touch it.
God never said they couldn’t touch it. So either some theologians say like Adam maybe added this in, like he told her, like don’t ever even touch this tree to reinforce the rule when he like parlayed it to her privately. Or maybe Eve expands on it herself, which shows that she’s sort of exaggerating.
But either way, God’s original command is now stricter and less accurate. And this is going to create like a fertile ground for what manipulation. And by the way, God said, you shall surely die if you eat from the tree.
And Eve says that they can’t touch it, which was like never in the original thing. And she says, lest you die. So she’s kind of like she softens it.
She’s like, well, you might die. So she softens, she adds rules, she minimizes the good. And all of this is like a classic setup for Satan, manipulation, evil to take over, get its hooks on her.
But like think about how often in your own life you like overlook the good, maybe make things more extreme. Like, oh, he always does that, right? It’s like, that’s not even true. That’s not even what he said, like just about like your husband loading the dishwasher or whatever.
You add like rules and qualifiers that aren’t actually, that weren’t actually there. And this helps you slide into like a kind of victim consciousness. And so what this whole just few verses is like, I think, really brilliantly saying is like when you’re uncertain, when you exaggerate, when you’re not clear, when you’re not accurate, when you overlook the good and minimize the abundance and blessing you have in your life, well, you’re in ripe position for evil to take over.
OK, so then we have the serpent whose brilliant opening question, which was like, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree of the garden, which is a totally distorting question, because God said they could eat from every tree except one. So the serpents reframing God is restrictive and not generous. He’s introducing doubt, OK? That’s what evil in this story, at least, is really good at doing.
It’s turning God’s generosity into stinginess. It’s provoking defensiveness, and it’s and the serpent is getting Eve to like engage with him, which is giving him power, like, oh, I’m getting chills as I think about this. The serpent turned God’s generosity into stinginess.
Can you just, like, let that hit you for a second? When we talk about, like, cultivating gratitude in yoga or doing gratitude journals or focusing on the blessings in your life or taking in the good, like the taking in the good meditation we did around the New Year time, it’s like doing all that is really important because otherwise we can essentially be manipulated into thinking that we’re not blessed, that the world isn’t beautiful, that we’re not so fortunate. OK, so then the serpent, it goes from bad to worse, you guys. So then the serpent, in verse 5, before he was just distorting God’s word, kind of getting Eve to sort of question everything, in verse 3.5, he says, So the serpent is actually kind of like our first theologian in a way, because he’s like, let’s reinterpret the fact that God gave you everything and put you in a perfect place and I’m going to tell you, actually, that that’s not what’s happening.
God isn’t protecting you by telling you not to eat from this tree. He’s not like a loving father that’s given you, like, an orchard upon orchard upon orchard of trees to eat. He’s not protecting you.
He’s actually holding out this one tree on you. Like, when we think about this rationally, we’re like, this is this is ridiculous. Like, how did you fall for this? But it’s like we all fall for this all the time.
You’re not appreciative of, like, your beautiful house and your beautiful car and your beautiful children and, you know, everything you have, you’re like totally focused on that one thing you don’t have that you want. And you’re like, why is the universe holding out on me? OK, so essentially, the serpent is saying to Eve, like, God doesn’t want you to flourish. He wants to limit you.
And then this is this is like the deepest lie of the fall. Like God is not good. God cannot be trusted, which if you don’t connect with this story, that’s fine.
But you could interpret to like, I have no faith. The universe doesn’t love me. I’m totally on my own.
The world is not good. So I need to be hypervigilant, controlling, nervous system arousal, people pleaser, perfectionist, control freak to keep it all from falling apart because I don’t trust in a benevolent universe. We work with that phrase in Yoga for Self Mastery, right? That’s one of our key phrases is this idea of a belief in a benevolent universe, which you can use regardless of what wisdom tradition you connect with.
So the serpent is essentially promising Eve that if she eats from this tree, she’ll be like God and that God’s been holding back on her instead of being like a loving father who’s like, you know, this tree will electrocute you, so just stay away from it because I’ve given you so, so, so many other trees to eat from. And the serpent promises Eve that she will be like God if she eats from this tree. But this is what’s so sad is that humanity, according to Genesis in this particular story, was made in the image of God already.
That’s line 1.26. Humanity was already made in the image of God. So again, this is going to tie to like, I promise this is going to tie to everything we’re going to talk about later, because I think this is similar to what a lot of Vedanta is teaching, which is like, you are the divine, you’ve just forgotten. If you’ve been loving all the yoga philosophy we’ve been exploring on this podcast, but sometimes feel like you’re missing the bigger picture, my History of Yoga course is basically your best friend.
It gives you a clear visual timeline of how yoga actually evolved from the Vedas to the Upanishads to the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras, Hatha Yoga, all the way through to modern postural yoga. I’m talking slides, printable timelines, a gorgeous manual, everything finally clicks into place. If you want context, not just concepts, you can explore it at brettlarkin.com/history or grab the course at the link in the show notes.
So here the serpent is offering like a shortcut temptation to something that Eve actually already has. She’s already made in the image of God, and yet he’s telling her like, no, God is holding out on you. You know, you should eat this fruit to be like him, which is like us.
Like if we connect in the Vedanta framework to like the still lake right within us, when we quiet the vritti, when we see that our true nature is bliss, we remember that we are made up of the same stuff as the divine. The divine is ocean. We are a drop.
We just forget. And in this story, in this model, the serpent is like the one making Eve forget. And then in 3.6, we see Eve’s internal logic.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took, you know, she ate it. We know the rest of what happened. But this verse is actually outlining like three clear temptations, like good for food.
Okay. Meaning bodily desires. We’re going to see this with Buddha and Jesus later.
Okay. I promise. Bodily desires.
Number one, she saw it was good for food. She’s like, oh, it looks delish. Okay.
I’m going to have some. And number two, it was a delight to the eyes. So it was emotionally pleasing, aesthetically pleasing.
And number three, it was desirable to make one wise. So she had, she had ambition to be, to be more, more than she was just now, rather than recognizing that she’s actually literally living in heaven with God, in God’s image and likeness. Whoops.
She forgot. Just like we forget that our true nature is bliss. These correspond to the New Testament’s trinity of temptation in John, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.
And so this fall story is fundamentally a crisis of trust. Before Eve even takes the fruit, she’s already reinterpreted God’s word. She got the words wrong.
She believed a new narrative about God’s motives. She stopped seeing God as generous. She totally overlooked all the good stuff.
She placed human judgment above her relationship with the divine. So the sin is not actually eating the fruit. The sin is doubting God’s goodness or doubting that in Vedanta, like we are not made up of the same stuff as the divine.
They just call it ignorance in Vedanta, not sin. And notice this story isn’t like the serpent tackled Eve and jumped out at her and stuffed some of this fruit down her throat. Like no, what can we learn from this? The serpent, evil in this story, doesn’t force anything.
All he does is reframe, question, suggest, sow doubt, offer alternative meaning to what God originally said. So the serpent exaggerates God’s restrictions, making it seem like worse, like that God is strict instead of like this loving father, minimizes God’s blessing, undermines God’s trustworthiness, questions his motives, offers like a counterfeit path to getting wise, like eat this fruit, and appeals to pride, basically telling Eve you will be like God. OK, so moving forward to Jesus and Buddha, each of them have a similar encounter, just like Eve did with the serpent, with the evil force, the devil.
And for both of them, this moment comes like right before their full faith formation. It happens for Buddha right before he becomes enlightened. For Jesus, his whole thing in the desert happens right before he begins his public ministry.
So we have very similar parallel stories with Jesus and Buddha. However, their strategies for dealing with evil, Satan, demons, the darkness, dark forces, their strategies are different. So I think this is key.
So Jesus in the desert, his main strategy when Satan tempts him is to quote scripture. Every time the devil tries to tempt Jesus, same as like the snake did with Eve, like kind of twisting God’s words and we’ll look at each thing he tries to do, because again, it is in threes. But every time Jesus responds with a line from the Hebrew Bible, which basically like reaffirms his faith and sets the record straight, which would be the equivalent of Eve being like no serpent.
This is what God actually said. Right. But she didn’t do that.
But Jesus does. So Jesus’s approach is very much about using the word of God as a shield and as a guide. Now, in contrast, in Buddha’s story, we have Buddha under the Bodhi tree.
And when Mara, this demon, comes to him as he’s trying to deeply meditate, his strategy isn’t about words or like quoting back. Instead, his strategy is to stay completely mindful and present, not getting hooked into any of the illusions Mara, the demon, is throwing at him. And he touches the earth.
He calls the earth to witness, which is like a symbolic grounding of himself in reality and truth. So there’s not a verbal response. There’s this deep inner stillness and awareness of what is that defeats the demon or Satan in that story.
So Jesus uses scripture to defeat evil. Buddha uses mindfulness. Both are staying true to their path, but they have really different approaches to dealing with temptation.
And we can learn from both. So in Buddha’s story, he’s under the Bodhi tree. He’s going to enter this deep meditation.
This is in the Dhammapada. Mara enters the scene. Mara is this tempter, a tempter figure, and is showing up in Buddha’s meditation with all of these illusions and distractions.
So basically Mara’s mission is to like knock Siddhartha off his path to enlightenment. So we have these two archetypal figures, Jesus and Siddhartha, soon to be Buddha, facing their inner demons and trying to stay the course, to find their peace. So first in Buddha’s story, Mara sends his daughters, okay? And these daughters represent desire and sensual pleasure.
So they’re there to tempt Buddha. But Buddha remains completely unmoved by these distractions because he’s already gone beyond that craving through his meditation. Let’s look at Jesus’s first trial.
The first temptation he has is turning stones into bread. So Matthew has the most detailed version of the story. However, I’m more familiar with Luke.
So I think I’m going to look at the Luke verses. So in Luke, this is four, verse three. Well, I’ll read the backstory for context.
So just to start at the top, 4.1, then Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for 40 days by the devil. And in those days, he ate nothing. And afterwards, when they had ended, he was hungry.
And the devil said to him, if you are the son of God, command this stone to become bread. So interesting. Satan is attacking Jesus’s identity.
He says, if you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread. And keep in mind, Jesus is fasting. So he’s playing on the idea that Jesus would be very, very hungry.
And Jesus quotes scripture saying, man shall not live on bread alone. And Buddha remains similarly unmoved by desire. So the first temptation in both these stories really revolve around bodily, earthly desires, right? For Jesus, it’s about he’s hungry.
And this annoying Satan is questioning his identity, being like, well, if you’re really God, like, turn these stones to bread. And aren’t you so hungry? And for Buddha, it’s sensual temptation through Mara’s daughters. But both of these are really about the theme of, like, overcoming basic physical cravings.
Now, the second temptation for both of them, there’s definitely a theme of power and fear. So Satan essentially offers to Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. Satan’s like, just worship me, and I will give you all the kingdoms of the world.
Mara with Buddha tries to scare Buddha with an army of demons and all of these kind of, like, frightening distractions. But Buddha stays calm and focused. He does not let fear shake him.
And Jesus once again quotes scripture about worshiping only God. Jesus says to Satan, get behind me, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord, your God, and him only you shall serve. So he’s like, no, thanks.
I do not want to serve you, even if you promise me all the kingdoms. The third temptation for Buddha, Mara challenges Buddha’s right to even be sitting there. So he’s trying to plant seeds of doubt.
It’s so similar to the serpent with Eve. So Mara says, like, who are you to sit here? Where are your witnesses? And these three, you know, accounts of Mara attacking Buddha, they’re in this text called the Samyutta Nikaya. And what Buddha does is so beautiful.
He touches the earth in what’s called the earth-touching gesture. And it’s like he’s calling the earth itself to witness that he has a right to seek enlightenment. And that’s the thing that like, boom, kills, vanquishes, defeats Mara.
The Dhammapada actually says, and this is verse 276, those who enter the path and meditate are freed from the bonds of Mara. So again, in this story, Mara, the demon’s bond is identification. I’m calling Mara a demon, but it’s like she’s a perceptual distortion.
And I mean, I think we could say Jesus’ Satan is probably a perceptual distortion, too. But this is where these texts definitely differ, because in the Christian tradition, the evil is more externalized. And in Buddha’s story, it’s definitely more like an inner psychological battle.
But I’d argue that Jesus’ is like a psychological battle, too. So for Jesus’ third test, the devil brings him to the pinnacle of the temple and says, if you are the son of God, once again questioning his identity, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you. And in their hands, they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone.
So again, that tricky, tricky Satan, just like he was doing with Eve, he’s trying to get Jesus to question God’s words. He’s quoting scripture. It’s kind of crazy, like here in this story, Satan quotes scripture, but he takes it out of context and twists the words.
He’s basically like, throw yourself down. And scripture says that angels will lift you up and protect you. So why not prove to me you’re the son of God by throwing yourself, like jumping off the temple? And Jesus answers with scripture.
He says, it has been said, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. He was like, yep, nice try trying to get me to like twist scripture and play into your little game, Satan. But yeah, no, I know who God really is.
And I know the scripture. And again, he fights back with words. You shall not tempt the Lord your God.
Now, when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time, says verse 13. All of these three quotes that Jesus responded with here are from Deuteronomy, I believe, and were given to God by the Israelites who wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. So that’s a parallel to Jesus’ 40 days in the desert or the wilderness.
With each temptation, the devil challenges Jesus’ identity of the son of God. And he’s also like offering shortcuts and detours from his mission. So in Buddha’s story, Mara is saying, essentially, in the temptation, she’s saying like, you are this body, you are this story.
You are not authorized to go beyond this body and this story. And Buddha says, I’m not going to identify with you. So Mara isn’t so much a character, the way Satan is in the Bible story, but she’s more of like a force of illusion.
She’s attachment. She’s ego identification. She’s all these things that tighten, tighten, tighten, tighten right before Siddhartha, Buddha’s liberation.
Now, I want to compare all of this to some powerful Hindu myths that parallel Jesus and Buddha and then contrast what we saw in the Buddha and Jesus story with Hindu myths and Vedantic teaching. Because in yogic philosophy, the adversary is named as, is really like the ego, the ego itself. Although we also see kama, desire, moha, delusion.
But we will explore these in a part two episode because we are out of time. I’d like you to think about like what’s resonating with you from this episode. Is it that you overlook the abundance in your life? Is it that you often notice that you feel tested the most right before a big breakthrough or a big awakening or up leveling? What are your set of values? What do you have to fall back on when doubt and sneaky suspicion and all the things we saw the serpent doing comes in to your heart, to your soul, forcing you to question the goodness of your situation, forcing you to question yourself like we saw with Buddha, your own worth, his right to be there, to be meditating, to disidentify with his ego.
I hope there’s something interesting and personal that you’re able to pull from this exploration and we will definitely continue it in a part two. Until next time, spend some time in any of these texts or a text of your choosing, preferably something that’s several thousand years old. Don’t forget to take care of your body, your nervous system.
Until next week, take care of you. Loving what you’re learning on the podcast? Apply the ancient science of yoga to your daily life surrounded by incredible peers in my uplifted 200-hour online yoga teacher training or grow into your role as a leader of others in my 300-hour professional program for yoga teachers, which is also a high-level business mastermind. At any time, I would love to welcome you into my Yoga for Self Mastery course to help you uncover your personal blueprint to serenity or join my Uplifted Yoga membership for an all-access pass to my most popular yoga courses, thematic class plans, and practice calendars.
Don’t forget to prioritize your well-being and get on your mat today. From my heart to yours, namaste.
