IV. the Guru And Shishya (Or Chela) And Initiations

Very frequently the Bardo Thodol directs the dying or the deceased to concentrate mentally upon, or to visualize, his tutelary deity or else his spiritual gwru, and, at other times, to recollect the teachings conveyed to him by his human guru, more especially at the time of the mystic initiation. Yogzs and Tantrics ordinarily comment upon such ritualistic directions by saying that there exist three lines of gurus to whom reverence and worship are to be paid. The first and highest is purely superhuman, called in Sanskrit divyaugha, meaning ‘heavenly (or “divine”) line’; the second is of the most highly developed human beings, possessed of supernormal