There are Ghostly Gurus too.
More than fifteen years later a highly cultivated elderly Indian visited me, a friend of Gandhi’s, and we talked about Indian education—in particular, about the relationship between guru and chela.
I hesitantly asked him whether he could tell me anything about the person and character of his own guru, where upon he replied in a matter-of-fact tone, “Oh yes, he was Shankaracharya.”
“You don’t mean the commentator on the Vedas who died centuries ago?” I asked.
“Yes, I mean him,” he said, to my amazement.
“Then you are referring to a spirit?” I asked.
“Of course it was his spirit,” he agreed.
At that moment I thought of Philemon.
“There are ghostly gurus too,” he added. “Most people have living gurus. But there are always some who have a spirit for teacher.”
This information was both illuminating and reassuring to me.
Evidently, then, I had not plummeted right out of the human world, but had only experienced the sort of thing that could happen to others who made similar efforts. ~Carl Jung, Memories Dreams and Reflections
Images:
Left: Srimad Guru A
di Shankaracharya
Right: Philemon
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog