> <snip my description of Buddhist deity meditation practice>
>
>
Neat! I'm sort of aware of this practice. There are things like in Tantric
> Hinduism, the most common being elaborate deity visualizations, mostly in
> the form of ritualized mantric chants, done during meditation.
>
It's a more theistic approach, understandably - the meditator doesn't try to
> "become"
> the deva or devi in question, but attempts to commune with or venerate it.
> Also related are various mantras in which the meditator "invites" the deity
> (usually using many names) to take up residence in their body. Spiritual
> armor and weaponry!
>
It sounds very similar. The difference likely being what happens after the meditational deity is visualized as entering the initiate's body. The deity merges with the initiate, who imagines that he has become the deity itself while chanting that deity's mantra and visualizing sending out positive energy to help all beings everywhere in whatever way that the particular deity is known to manifest. This merging can only be done by those who have been initiated by a master. The uninitiated can simply visualize the deity hovering above their head sending out the helpful energy.
Now, in Glorantha I could imagine an initiate getting up off the cushion while maintaining the visualization and performing magical acts consistent with the deity. Like heroforming/feats the initiate could drop out of that state by failing an identity challenge.
If I were writing up rules (for One Rule maybe?) to depict a Gloranthan sect based on this practice, I might just say that it is *like* theism in that you sacrifice to a deity (even if only a light offering in the form of candles or lamps) and can perform rituals that allow you to do something that *looks* like heroforming to the uninitiated. The difference being that the deity isn't a god and doesn't live on the god plane - or anywhere else. Or maybe I would do the opposite and say that the transcendent being could be contacted in any of the three otherworlds as a god, spirit, or essence depending on the style of worship just to emphasize the mystical weirdness of the (non-)being.
This would fit how I understand it to be in Tibetan Buddhism. The deity is fully enlightened and thus no longer exists in the conventional sense. When you pray to the deity, chant it's mantras, etc, it is *your* karma that manifests the resulting benefits (if any). The deity has no karma. One good metaphor is the moon reflecting in many pools of water. The moon isn't *trying* to manifest, it just does when the conditions are right.
-Kevin McD
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