In the Company of Sages by Greg Bogart

Author:Greg Bogart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spirituality/Self-Transformation
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2014-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

MEDITATION ON THE TEACHER’S FORM

Several mystical traditions recommend meditations involving visualization of the teacher and a feeling of inner union. According to the Yoga Sutras (I.37), a yogi can attain steadiness of mind by fixing his or her attention on a being of purity who is free of attachment.14

Because of his realization, the guru is considered to be an embodiment of the divine itself. This “deification” of the God-realized master must not be misunderstood. He is not God in any exclusive sense. He is, rather, thought to be coessential with the transcendental Reality. That is to say, he has abrogated the ordinary person’s misidentification with a particular body-mind. He abides purely as the transcendental Identity of all beings and things.15

In his book Play of Consciousness, Swami Muktananda writes a detailed account of this practice.16 He described how he focused all of his attention on his guru, Nityananda, mentally installing the guru inside his own body until he began to identify with him fully. Practicing this meditation on the guru’s form and inner state, he began to act, feel, and perceive as his guru did. Through meditation on the teacher’s expanded, joyful state, the disciple is uplifted into the same state of consciousness. The practitioner of guru yoga gazes at the teacher’s physical form, meditates on a picture of the beloved spiritual master, or inwardly invokes mental images of the teacher, imagines seeing the world through the teacher’s eyes, and meditates, as the teacher does, on the bliss of pure consciousness.

Some skeptics might view meditation on the guru as a dangerous exercise in disassociation, or regressive dependency on an idealized figure. Yet such practices are explicitly described in many spiritual traditions and prescribed as a means of awakening. For example, in Sufism students are transformed by learning to observe enlightened qualities like mercy, radiant joy, and patience in the teacher, and consciously absorbing these qualities into themselves. Sufi teacher Atum Kane writes:

This stage is centered upon incorporating archetypes and qualities into one’s personality. . . . [W]hile contemplating the power that moves the universe, you awaken that same power in yourself. The use of mantras or wazifa promotes the embodiment of a quality in the personality by repeating the sounds which correspond with its vibrational frequency. Perhaps the most valuable meditation in this vein is that of entering into the consciousness of a great human being who manifests a particular quality to a high degree of perfection. The quality ceases to be an abstraction and one discovers how it can function in a person. The blending of two opposite qualities is very difficult, but can be experienced by meditating upon the sovereignty and humility found in Christ or the combination of detachment and compassion present in Buddha. Reflecting [on] the lives of such beings shows how these qualities functioned in very concrete situations, and can be related to the problems one faces. . . . The key meditation [at this stage] is that of the Ideal Being. Creative imagination inspired by

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