This is the first stage in mithraic initiation, known as the raven degree. The initiate comes under planet Mercury.
The above meditation aims to introduce the magician into first degree of initiation.
Find a place that you will not be distrubed in door or out door, the best time would be just before the sun rise. The day could be Sunday or 16th of each month which is dedicated to mithra. Use any paraphelina like candels, music and inscence if this helps ususally in your meditation. Once your are ready start visulising.
Let your self go and enjoy the sensations of flight and looking at world below from a birds eye. Countinue your flight toward the mountain, if you find your self getting tired or unable to carry on the meditation returne to your body slowly and concentrate on your breathing.
The work on this stage should be continued until you can easily transform your self to a Raven. Start exploring both the astral and physical world in this body.
Yasht 10 is very long script and memorising it is not easy, you could try reading from it, however this breaks the concentration to some degree. One way around this is to record the whole thing on tape and play it when you reach the Welcoming of Mithra. After each paragraph leave enough time for you to repeat after it. If this is done as part of a group then leader or high priest would be reading the Yasht as well as starting the chant and aiding the meditation with his narratation. More of the physical condition that resemble the meditation the better. A real bonfire just before sunrise on top of hill would enhaaaance the experinece. Stay up the whole night and telling each other stories about Mithra; his fight with the bull, his birth and other adventures etc. . You could even try making a paper mask of raven and wearing it.
The first step symbolises the death of initiate and his rebirth into the spritual world. It was custom in zorosternism that when a person dies his body would be placed on a funeral pyree and left for the birds to eat. There for by entering the first stage you leaving the matrial world and entering a spritual life. This not to say becoming a hermit and giving all your possesion to some guru. On contary Mithraic system is a very practical system a reason why it was popular among soliders and merchants. The world is not evil and nor is money. It is the love of the martial world and attachment to it which is distructive to spritual path. One of the several points which is described in the following story:
A wondering mystic named Christopher who had spend many years on the road travelling far and wide in search of the truth, one day he hears of a great teacher who had moved into christophers hometown only a week after christopher had left his town in search of the truth. Christopher spends the next seven weeks getting back to his home town to meet this great teacher. Before starting his travells he sold his house and donated all his money to a church. And over the years he had spend travelling he only carried a sack which had his blanket and few items of clothing in it, exept that he had no worldy possesions, a fact that he was very proud of.
On arriving at his town he asked about the where about of this great teacher, people direct him to the street that chrisopher use to live all those years before. Once he reached the address he could not recognise his old neighberhood any more as the whole street was falten and a huge mansion had been bulid where a dozen houses use to stand. On seeing this he became angery and went to the door of the mansion which was locked, then he climb the wall into the mansion, he was angry toward this teacher "who was living at such confort, how could this teacher be so great unless suffering the hardships of the wilderness" He wondered through the garden for sometime, his walk through the garden had calmed him down and eventullay he came across a gardener who was removing some weeds from the bottom of a Nacerssuis statute which stood by small pool. Christopher greated the garderner and commented about how beautifull the garden was. The gardener and christopher talked for a while about the plants in the garden, the gardender never asked what christopher was doing in the garden. He asked the gardener where his house use to stand in relation to the garden, to which the gardener replied where the pool and the statute where situated.
The coversation went on for a while and eventually the garderner asked christopher to join him for tea. During tea christopher asked about the this great teacher who was leaving in the this big mansion. The gardener replied that he had never seen him.
Christopher stayed with the gardener in his room for few days in hope of seeing the great teacher. He told the gardener of his wonderng and adventures over the years and what he thought he had learned. After a week christopher decides to leave and countinue on his journey as this great teacher obviuosly was a fake, a person whom was preoccupied with wealth and even didn't even come home. On the morning he was leaving he told the gardener that he is going to be on his way and thank him for his hospitality. The gardener was sad to see him go and said he had enjoy his company a great deal and that from what he had learned about the great world beyond the garden walls. The gardener also said he like to accompany him in his next journy. Christopher became rather pleased that he would have some company in his search and that he thought this simple gardener something of the spritual world. Toghter they leave very early in the morning and head north. At lunch time they sit by a river to have something to eat. Christopher notices that he had left his blanket behind and becomes irritated, so he tells the gardener that he need to go back and pick it up.
Late in the afternoon they arrive back to town, the streets are busy now and as they get near the mansion they notice a gathering bye the door. The gathering on seeing the christopher aand the gardener rush toward them, with a look of relife. one of the man who seem to be the most mature faced toward the gardener and said: "master we heard you had left town this morning and we were worried about where had gone". The gardener replied: "I left town in search of the truth with my friend here and it seems we have arrived back where we started".
Christopher spend next few weeks thinking about his attachment to a blanket and the masters lack of any attachment to anything material and how the teacher had left all his mansion behind with out any problem, while he was all this years still attached to the matrial world.
See how many teaching points you can find in the story.