Many years ago, after spending time with different meditation teachers, I became aware of an interesting phenomenon. Some teachers seemed to have the ability to actually transmit their own state of meditative awareness to their students.
Sometimes I would attend a meditation class and walk away feeling good from the meditation, but I didn’t necessarily feel anything special. But there were other times when I would walk away and things were just…different.
How?
I was filled with peace and joy and lightness of being. I seemed to be experiencing, through no special effort of my own, the same qualities of peace and joy that emanated from the meditation teacher.
What Is Transmission?
That’s when I started to become aware of something called “transmission.” And it appeared that some teachers had the capacity to transmit and some did not.
What is transmission?
To put it simply, transmission is what happens when a meditation teacher has the experience, skill, and depth to share their meditative awareness with students directly.
They transmit their state of consciousness. Just like the sun transmits warmth through waves of light, these teachers broadcast joy, ease, and lightness through the quality of their being.
The idea of transmission isn’t new either.
Teachers use words to transmit ideas. Musicians use their instruments to transmit feelings. In many ways, we humans are transmitters at our core, influencing each other all the time with words, instruments, emotions, expressions, or in this case, states of consciousness.
The Benefits of Transmission Meditation
At About Meditation, we have found, through our own experience in the art and science of meditation, that learning from people who have the capacity to transmit their own state of meditative awareness is important.
Why?
For one thing, it can dramatically accelerate progress along the path by providing access to states of awareness that would be difficult to achieve on one’s own.
And that’s a major benefit of working with teachers who have this capacity for transmission. All of us struggle with meditation at different times, and working with someone who is stabilized at a higher state of awareness can help us cultivate that same awareness in ourselves.
Without the access to higher states of consciousness that comes from teachers who can transmit, it can be hard to develop and nurture that space of stillness and silence within yourself.
This is why we promote guided meditations and courses with teachers who have this capacity. Many meditation teachers can do this, and all we are doing is putting a name to it.
And, we are drawing attention to it so that you can notice this quality for yourself and begin to pay attention to it.
Sounds like Transmission meditation is like vibrational resonance where teacher lifts vibration of the student. Isn’t it ?
Hi Amit, Sure, I think that’s a legitimate way to talk about it. I was trying to use fresh language to describe the experience/phenomenon but we are probably on the same page.
I have already realized that some teachers have this gift of conveying the positive energies of meditation. You get out of class with another energy.
Great article!
Thanks alot Paul! Yes, sounds like you know exactly what I’m talking about.