The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):

guru meditation
 n.

    Amiga equivalent of panic in Unix (sometimes just called a guru or guru
    event). When the system crashes, a cryptic message of the form ?GURU
    MEDITATION #XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY? may appear, indicating what the problem was.
    An Amiga guru can figure things out from the numbers. Sometimes a guru
    event must be followed by a Vulcan nerve pinch.

    This term is (no surprise) an in-joke from the earliest days of the Amiga.
    An earlier product of the Amiga corporation was a device called a
    ?Joyboard? which was basically a plastic board built onto a joystick-like
    device; it was sold with a skiing game cartridge for the Atari game
    machine. It is said that whenever the prototype OS crashed, the system
    programmer responsible would calm down by concentrating on a solution while
    sitting cross-legged on a Joyboard trying to keep the board in balance.
    This position resembled that of a meditating guru. Sadly, the joke was
    removed fairly early on (but there's a well-known patch to restore it in
    more recent versions).


The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

guru meditation

    The Amiga equivalent of Unix's panic
   (sometimes just called a "guru" or "guru event").  When the system
   crashes, a cryptic message of the form "GURU MEDITATION
   #XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY" may appear, indicating what the problem was.
   An Amiga guru can figure things out from the numbers.

   In the earliest days of the Amiga, there was a device called a
   "Joyboard" which was basically a plastic board built onto a
   joystick-like device; it was sold with a skiing game cartridge
   for the Atari game machine.  It is said that whenever the
   prototype OS crashed, the system programmer responsible would
   concentrate on a solution while sitting cross-legged, balanced
   on a Joyboard, resembling a meditating guru.  Sadly, the joke
   was removed in AmigaOS 2.04.

   The Jargon File claimed that a guru event had to be
   followed by a Vulcan nerve pinch but, according to a
   correspondent, a mouse click was enough to start a reboot.

   (2002-06-25)