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object:Meister Eckhart
class:author
subject class:Christianity
subject:Christianity
subject class:Christian mysticism
subject:Christian mysticism


--- WIKI
Eckhart von Hochheim (c. 1260 c. 1328), commonly known as Meister Eckhart or Eckehart, was a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Gotha, in the Landgraviate of Thuringia (now central Germany) in the Holy Roman Empire. Eckhart came into prominence during the Avignon Papacy, at a time of increased tensions between monastic orders, diocesan clergy, the Franciscan Order, and Eckhart's Dominican Order of Preachers. In later life, he was accused of heresy and brought up before the local Franciscan-led Inquisition, and tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII. He seems to have died before his verdict was received. He was well known for his work with pious lay groups such as the Friends of God and was succeeded by his more circumspect disciples John Tauler and Henry Suso. Since the 19th century, he has received renewed attention. He has acquired a status as a great mystic within contemporary popular spirituality, as well as considerable interest from scholars situating him within the medieval scholastic and philosophical tradition.

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now begins generated list of local instances, definitions, quotes, instances in chapters, wordnet info if available and instances among weblinks


OBJECT INSTANCES [0] - TOPICS - AUTHORS - BOOKS - CHAPTERS - CLASSES - SEE ALSO - SIMILAR TITLES

TOPICS
SEE ALSO


AUTH

BOOKS
Infinite_Library
Sermons
The_Perennial_Philosophy

IN CHAPTERS TITLE

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME

IN CHAPTERS TEXT
1.03_-_The_Desert
1.06_-_The_Sign_of_the_Fishes
1.07_-_The_Farther_Reaches_of_Human_Nature
1.08_-_The_Depths_of_the_Divine
1.13_-_Gnostic_Symbols_of_the_Self
1.14_-_Bibliography
1.mm_-_In_pride_I_so_easily_lost_Thee
1.mm_-_Of_the_voices_of_the_Godhead
1.mm_-_The_devil_also_offers_his_spirit
1.mm_-_Wouldst_thou_know_my_meaning?
1.mm_-_Yea!_I_shall_drink_from_Thee
2.00_-_BIBLIOGRAPHY
2.02_-_THE_SCINTILLA
2.03_-_THE_ENIGMA_OF_BOLOGNA
3.05_-_SAL
4.04_-_THE_REGENERATION_OF_THE_KING
5_-_The_Phenomenology_of_the_Spirit_in_Fairytales
6.0_-_Conscious,_Unconscious,_and_Individuation
6.10_-_THE_SELF_AND_THE_BOUNDS_OF_KNOWLEDGE
Blazing_P3_-_Explore_the_Stages_of_Postconventional_Consciousness

PRIMARY CLASS

author
SIMILAR TITLES
Meister Eckhart

DEFINITIONS


TERMS STARTING WITH


TERMS ANYWHERE

Kyoto school. An influential school of modern and contemporary Japanese philosophy that is closely associated with philosophers from Kyoto University; it combines East Asian and especially MAHĀYĀNA Buddhist thought, such as ZEN and JoDO SHINSHu, with modern Western and especially German philosophy and Christian thought. NISHIDA KITARo (1870-1945), Tanabe Hajime (1885-1962), and NISHITANI KEIJI (1900-1991) are usually considered to be the school's three leading figures. The name "Kyoto school" was coined in 1932 by Tosaka Jun (1900-1945), a student of Nishida and Tanabe, who used it pejoratively to denounce Nishida and Tanabe's "Japanese bourgeois philosophy." Starting in the late 1970s, Western scholars began to research the philosophical insights of the Kyoto school, and especially the cross-cultural influences with Western philosophy. During the 1990s, the political dimensions of the school have also begun to receive scholarly attention. ¶ Although the school's philosophical perspectives have developed through mutual criticism between its leading figures, the foundational philosophical stance of the Kyoto school is considered to be based on a shared notion of "absolute nothingness." "Absolute nothingness" was coined by Nishida Kitaro and derives from a putatively Zen and PURE LAND emphasis on the doctrine of emptiness (suNYATĀ), which Kyoto school philosophers advocated was indicative of a distinctive Eastern approach to philosophical inquiry. This Eastern emphasis on nothingness stood in contrast to the fundamental focus in Western philosophy on the ontological notion of "being." Nishida Kitaro posits absolute nothingness topologically as the "site" or "locale" (basho) of nonduality, which overcomes the polarities of subject and object, or noetic and noematic. Another major concept in Nishida's philosophy is "self-awareness" (jikaku), a state of mind that transcends the subject-object bifurcation, which was initially adopted from William James' (1842-1910) notion of "pure experience" (J. junsui keiken); this intuition reveals a limitless, absolute reality that has been described in the West as God or in the East as emptiness. Tanabe Hajime subsequently criticized Nishida's "site of absolute nothingness" for two reasons: first, it was a suprarational religious intuition that transgresses against philosophical reasoning; and second, despite its claims to the contrary, it ultimately fell into a metaphysics of being. Despite his criticism of what he considered to be Nishida's pseudoreligious speculations, however, Tanabe's Shin Buddhist inclinations later led him to focus not on Nishida's Zen Buddhist-oriented "intuition," but instead on the religious aspect of "faith" as the operative force behind other-power (TARIKI). Inspired by both Nishida and such Western thinkers as Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1327), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) (with whom he studied), Nishitani Keiji developed the existential and phenomenological aspects of Nishida's philosophy of absolute nothingness. Concerned with how to reach the place of absolute nothingness, given the dilemma of, on the one hand, the incessant reification and objectification by a subjective ego and, on the other hand, the nullification of reality, he argued for the necessity of overcoming "nihilism." The Kyoto school thinkers also played a central role in the development of a Japanese political ideology around the time of the Pacific War, which elevated the Japanese race mentally and spiritually above other races and justified Japanese colonial expansion. Their writings helped lay the foundation for what came to be called Nihonjinron, a nationalist discourse that advocated the uniqueness and superiority of the Japanese race; at the same time, however, Nishida also resisted tendencies toward fascism and totalitarianism in Japanese politics. Since the 1990s, Kyoto school writings have come under critical scrutiny in light of their ties to Japanese exceptionalism and pre-war Japanese nationalism. These political dimensions of Kyoto school thought are now considered as important for scholarly examination as are its contributions to cross-cultural, comparative philosophy.

St. Thomas was a teacher and a writer for some twenty years (1254-1273). Among his works are: Scriptum in IV Libros Sententiarum (1254-1256), Summa Contra Gentiles (c. 1260), Summa Theologica (1265-1272); commentaries on Boethius. (De Trinitate, c. 1257-1258), on Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite (De Divinis Nominibus, c. 1261), on the anonymous and important Liber de Causis (1268), and especially on Aristotle's works (1261-1272), Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, On the Soul, Posterior Analytics, On Interpretation, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption; Quaestiones Disputatae, which includes questions on such large subjects as De Veritate (1256-1259); De Potentia (1259-1263); De Malo (1263-1268); De Spiritualibus Creaturis, De Anima (1269-1270); small treatises or Opuscula, among which especially noteworthy are the De Ente et Essentia (1256); De Aeternitate Mundi (1270), De Unitate Intellecus (1270), De Substantiis Separatis (1272). While it is extremely difficult to grasp in its entirety the personality behind this complex theological and philosophical activity, some points are quite clear and beyond dispute. During the first five years of his activity as a thinker and a teacher, St. Thomas seems to have formulated his most fundamental ideas in their definite form, to have clarified his historical conceptions of Greek and Arabian philosophers, and to have made more precise and even corrected his doctrinal positions, (cf., e.g., the change on the question of creation between In II Sent., d.l, q.l, a.3, and the later De Potentia, q. III, a.4). This is natural enough, though we cannot pretend to explain why he should have come to think as he did. The more he grew, and that very rapidly, towards maturity, the more his thought became inextricably involved in the defense of Aristotle (beginning with c. 1260), his texts and his ideas, against the Averroists, who were then beginning to become prominent in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris; against the traditional Augustinianism of a man like St. Bonaventure; as well as against that more subtle Augustinianism which could breathe some of the spirit of Augustine, speak the language of Aristotle, but expound, with increasing faithfulness and therefore more imminent disaster, Christian ideas through the Neoplatonic techniques of Avicenna. This last group includes such different thinkers as St. Albert the Great, Henry of Ghent, the many disciples of St. Bonaventure, including, some think, Duns Scotus himself, and Meister Eckhart of Hochheim.

With reference to the approach to the central reality of religion, God, and man's relation to it, types of the Philosophy of Religion may be distinguished, leaving out of account negative (atheism), skeptical and cynical (Xenophanes, Socrates, Voltaire), and agnostic views, although insertions by them are not to be separated from the history of religious consciousness. Fundamentalism, mainly a theological and often a Church phenomenon of a revivalist nature, philosophizes on the basis of unquestioning faith, seeking to buttress it by logical argument, usually taking the form of proofs of the existence of God (see God). Here belong all historic religions, Christianity in its two principal forms, Catholicism with its Scholastic philosophy and Protestantism with its greatly diversified philosophies, the numerous religions of Hinduism, such as Brahmanism, Shivaism and Vishnuism, the religion of Judaism, and Mohammedanism. Mysticism, tolerated by Church and philosophy, is less concerned with proof than with description and personal experience, revealing much of the psychological factors involved in belief and speculation. Indian philosophy is saturated with mysticism since its inception, Sufism is the outstanding form of Arab mysticism, while the greatest mystics in the West are Plotinus, Meister Eckhart, Tauler, Ruysbroek, Thomas a Kempis, and Jacob Bohme. Metaphysics incorporates religious concepts as thought necessities. Few philosophers have been able to avoid the concept of God in their ontology, or any reference to the relation of God to man in their ethics. So, e.g., Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, Schelling, and especially Hegel who made the investigation of the process of the Absolute the essence of the Philosophy of Religion.



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   30 Meister Eckhart
   1 Meister Eckhart  (1260 - c. 1328) German theologian
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  205 Meister Eckhart
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   2 Eckhart Tolle

1:God is greater than God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
2:God is all and all is God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
3:If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough. ~ Meister Eckhart ,
4:The object of the intellect is being.
   ~ Meister Eckhart,
5:God is at home. We are in the far country. ~ Meister Eckhart,
6:It is in the darkness that one finds the light. ~ Meister Eckhart,
7:Be willing to be a beginner every single morning. ~ Meister Eckhart,
8:Only the hand that erases can write the true thing." ~ Meister Eckhart,
9:Do exactly what you would do if you felt most secure.
   ~ Meister Eckhart,
10:Know that, by nature, every creature seeks to become like God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
11:If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.
   ~ Meister Eckhart,
12:The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.
   ~ Meister Eckhart,
13:When we give up all, we become flooded with light, exceedingly bright with God." ~ Meister Eckhart,
14:To be full of things is to be empty of God; to be empty of things is to be full of God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
15:You need seek God neither below or above.He is no farther away than the door of the heart. ~ Meister Eckhart,
16:There never was a struggle or a battle that required greater valor than that in which a man forgets or denies himself. ~ Meister Eckhart,
17:Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language." ~ Meister Eckhart  (1260 - c. 1328) German theologian, philosopher and mystic, Wikipedia.,
18:Love is as strong as death, as hard as Hell. Death separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from the soul. ~ Meister Eckhart,
19:God and God still remains unspoken." ~ Meister Eckhart, (c. 1260 - c. 1328), German theologian, philosopher, acquired status as a great mystic, Wikipedia.,
20:Where there is Isness, there God is. Creation is the giving of isness from God. And that is why God becomes where any creature expresses God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
21:Love at its purest and most detached level is nothing else in itself than God." ~ Meister Eckhart, (c. 1260 - c. 1328), a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, Wikipedia.,
22:I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
23:Someone who knew nothing but creatures never need to attend to any sermons for every creature is full of God and is a book. ~ Meister Eckhart, Sermon 67 (Pf 84, Q 9, QT 10; Walshe, 345),
24:The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.~ Meister Eckhart, Sermons of Meister Eckhart,
25:Nothing brings you nearer to God then the sweet bond of love. Let whoever has found this way seek no other." ~ Meister Eckhart, (c. 1260 - c. 1328), German theologian, philosopher and mystic, Wikipedia.,
26:God dwells in the nothing-at-all that 'was' prior to nothing, in the hidden Godhead of pure gnosis where of no man durst speak." ~ Meister Eckhart, (c. 1260 - c. 1328), German theologian and philosopher, Wikipedia.,
27:The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love." ~ Meister Eckhart, (c. 1260 - c. 1328), German theologian, philosopher and mystic, Wikipedia,
28:What distinguishes a warrior from a soldier is that a warrior is a mystic, a lover, one possessed by beauty, one alive with radical amazement, one seized by the Cataphatic divinity, the God of Light and Creation." Mathew Fox, from "Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Warrior of Our Times" ~ ?,
29:Come now, noble souls, and take a look at the splendor you are carrying within yourselves! But if you do not let go of yourself completely, if you do not drown yourself in this bottomless sea of the Godhead, you cannot get to know this divine light. ~ Meister Eckhart,
30:God dwells in the nothing-at-all that was prior to nothing." ~ Meister Eckhart, (c. 1260 - c. 1328), German theologian, philosopher and mystic, tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII, acquired a status as a great mystic within contemporary popular spirituality, Wikipedia.,
31:You should not imagine that your reason can evolve to the extent of understanding God. Rather, if God is to shine divinely within you, your natural light cannot assist this process but must become a pure nothingness, going out of itself. Only then can God enter with his light, bringing back with him all that you have renounced and a thousand times more, including a new form which contains all things in itself. ~ Meister Eckhart,
32:We ought not to have or let ourselves be satisfied with any thought of God. When the thought goes, our God goes with it. No, what we want is a real (subsistent) God who far transcends the thoughts of men and creatures. This God does not disappear unless we turn our back on him of our own accord. He who has God thus, in reality, has gotten God divinely; to him God is apparent in all things. Everything smacks to him of God; everywhere God's image stares him in the face. God is gleaming in him all the time. In him there is riddance and return; the vision of his God is ever present to his mind. ~ Meister Eckhart,
33:Why God sometimes allows people who are genuinely good to be hindered in the good that they do. God, who is faithful, allows his friends to fall frequently into weakness only in order to remove from them any prop on which they might lean. For a loving person it would be a great joy to be able to achieve many great feats, whether keeping vigils, fasting, performing other ascetical practices or doing major, difficult and unusual works. For them this is a great joy, support and source of hope so that their works become a prop and a support upon which they can lean. But it is precisely this which our Lord wishes to take from them so that he alone will be their help and support. This he does solely on account of his pure goodness and mercy, for God is prompted to act only by his goodness, and in no way do our works serve to make God give us anything or do anything for us. Our Lord wishes his friends to be freed from such an attitude, and thus he removes their support from them so that they must henceforth find their support only in him. For he desires to give them great gifts, solely on account of his goodness, and he shall be their comfort and support while they discover themselves to be and regard themselves as being a pure nothingness in all the great gifts of God. The more essentially and simply the mind rests on God and is sustained by him, the more deeply we are established in God and the more receptive we are to him in all his precious gifts - for human kind should build on God alone. ~ Meister Eckhart,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:God is greater than God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
2:Nobody at any time is cut off from God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
3:All God wants of man is a peaceful heart. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
4:God is at home. We are in the far country. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
5:He knows God rightly who knows Him everywhere. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
6:As long as I am this or that, I am not all things. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
7:Only the hand that erases can write the true thing. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
8:Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
9:God is at home, it's we who have gone out for a walk. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
10:One must learn an inner solitude, wherever one may be. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
11:Only those who have dared to let go can dare to reenter. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
12:Whatever God does, the first outburst is always compassion. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
13:He who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
14:I need to be silent for a while, worlds are forming in my heart. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
15:What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
16:If you look for nothing but God, nothing or no one can disturb you. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
17:When you are thwarted, it is your own attitude that is out of order. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
18:The outward man is the swinging door; the inner man is the still hinge. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
19:Some people prefer solitude. They say their peace of mind depends on this. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
20:We rarely find people who achieve great things without first going astray. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
21:We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
22:God is ready to give great things when we are ready... to give up everything. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
23:Indeed, the more we are our own possession, the less we are God’s possession. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
24:We are all meant to be mothers of God... for God is always needing to be born. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
25:We shall find God in everything alike, and find God always alike in everything. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
26:As God can only be seen by His own light, so He can only be loved by His own love. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
27:The less theorizing you do about God, the more receptive you are to His inpouring. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
28:What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
29:To be full of things is to be empty of God. To be empty of things is to be full of God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
30:And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
31:For the person who has learned to let go and let be, nothing can ever get in the way again. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
32:You should give your all to God, and then worry no more about what he may do with what is his. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
33:I may err but I am not a heretic, for the first has to do with the mind and the second with the will. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
34:When the Soul wants to experience something, she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
35:All true morality, inward and outward, is comprehended in love, for love is the foundation of all the commandments. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
36:I tell you the truth, any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost Truth. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
37:Your surroundings don't matter. God is with you everywhere - in the market place as well as in seclusion or in the church. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
38:Love is as strong as death, as hard as Hell. Death separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from the soul. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
39:There is something in the soul that is so akin to God that it is one with Him... It has nothing in common with anything created. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
40:Where there is Isness, there God is. Creation is the giving of isness from God. And that is why God becomes where any creature expresses God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
41:Only those for whom God is present in all things and who make the very best use of their reason, know what true peace is and truly possess heaven. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
42:Unmovable disinterest brings man into likeness of God. ... To be full of things is to be empty of God; to be empty of things is to be full of God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
43:One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
44:God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being made and let God be God in you. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
45:Man goes far away or near but God never goes far-off; he is always standing close at hand, and even if he cannot stay within he goes no further than the door. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
46:I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
47:One person who has mastered life is better than a thousand persons who have mastered only the contents of books, but no one can get anything out of life without God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
48:The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
49:In this breaking-through, I receive that God and I are one. Then I am what I was, and then I neither diminish nor increase, for I am then an immovable cause that moves all things. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
50:We should know the Godhead which has flowed into the Father and filled Him with joy, and which has flowed into the Son and filled Him with wisdom, and the Two are essentially one. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
51:Through the higher love the whole life of man is to be elevated from temporal selfishness to the spring of all love, to God: man will again be master over nature by abiding in God and lifting her up to God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
52:It is written: ‘They have become rich in all virtues’ (1 Cor. 1:5). Truly, this cannot happen unless they first become poor in all things. Whoever desires to be given everything, must first give everything away. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
53:The surest foundation in which this perfection may rest is humility; whatever here crawls in the deepest abjectness, that the Spirit lifts to the very heights of God, for love brings suffering and suffering brings love. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
54:When we go out of ourselves through obedience and strip ourselves of what is ours, then God must enter into us; for when someone wills nothing for themselves, then God must will on their behalf just as he does for himself. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
55:For however devoted you are to him, you may be sure that he is immeasurably more devoted to you and has incomparably more faith in you. For he is faithfulness itself – of this we can be certain as those who love him are certain. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
56:Now rejoice, all ye powers of my soul, that you are so united with God that no one may separate you from Him. I cannot fully praise nor love Him therefore must I die, and cast myself into the divine void, till I rise from non-existence to existence. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
57:The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love. Meister Eckhart ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
58:Nature's intent is neither food, nor drink, nor clothing, nor comfort, nor anything else in which God is left out. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly nature seeks, hunts, tries to ferret out the track on which God may be found. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
59:All outward morality must be built upon this basis, not on self-interest. As long as man loves something else than God, or outside God, he is not free, because he has not love. Therefore, there is no inner freedom which does not manifest itself in works of love. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
60:Furthermore, we should keep all things only as if they had been merely lent and not given to us, without any sense of possessiveness, whether it be our body or soul, our senses, faculties, worldly goods or honour, friends, relations, house or home or anything whatsoever. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
61:A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
62:Love covers a multitude of sins. For where there is sin, there can be neither complete trust nor love, since love completely covers over sins and knows nothing of them. Not in such a way as if we had not sinned, but rather it wipes them away and drives them out, as if they had never existed. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
63:God never gives, nor did He ever give a gift, merely that man might have it and be content with it. No, all gifts which He ever gave in heaven or on earth, He gave with one sole purpose - to make one single gift: Himself. With all His gifts He desires only to prepare us for the one gift, which is Himself. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
64:And so, in my view the most important thing of all is that we should give ourselves up entirely to God whenever he allows anything to befall us, whether insult, tribulation or any other kind of suffering, accepting it with joy and gratitude and allowing God to guide us all the more rather than seeking these things out ourselves. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
65:If I had a friend and loved him because of the benefits which this brought me and because of getting my own way, then it would not be my friend that I loved but myself. I should love my friend on account of his own goodness and virtues and account of all that he is in himself. Only if I love my friend in this way do I love him properly. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
66:Know that when you seek anything of your own, you will never find God, because you do not seek God purely. You are seeking something along with God, and you are acting just as if you were to make a candle out of God in order to look for something with it. Once one finds the things one is looking for, one throws the candle away. This is what you are doing. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
67:If you love yourself, you love everybody else as you do yourself. As long as you love another person less than yourself, you will not succeed in loving yourself, but if you love all alike, including yourself, you will love them as one person and that person is both God and man. Thus he is the great righteous person who, loving himself, loves all others equally. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
68:A free mind is one which is untroubled and unfettered by anything, which has not bound its best part to any particular manner of being or worship and which does not seek its own interest in anything but is always immersed in God's most precious will. . . . There is no work which men and women can perform, however small, which does not draw from this its power and strength. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
69:A man may go into the field and say his prayer and be aware of God, or, he may be in Church and be aware of God; but, if he is more aware of Him because he is in a quiet place, that is his own deficiency and not due to God, Who is alike present in all things and places, and is willing to give Himself everywhere so far as lies in Him. He knows God rightly who knows Him everywhere. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
70:This passage from nothingness to real being, this quitting of oneself is a birth accompanied by pain, for by it natural love is excluded. All grief except grief for sin comes from love of the world. In God is neither sorrow, nor grief, nor trouble. Wouldst thou be free from all grief and trouble, abide and walk in God, and to God alone. As long as love of the creature is in us, pain cannot cease. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
71:But what then should they do? First of all, they should renounce themselves, and then they will have renounced all things. Truly, if someone were to renounce a kingdom or the whole world while still holding onto themselves, then they would have renounced nothing at all. And indeed, if someone renounces themselves, then whatever they might keep, whether the kingdom or honour or whatever it may be, they will still have renounced all things. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
72:Now some people are of the opinion that they are altogether holy and perfect, and go around the place with big deeds and big words, and yet they strive for and desire so many things, they wish to possess so much and are so concerned both with themselves and with this thing and that. They assert that they are seeking great piety and devotion, and yet they cannot accept a single word of reproval without answering back. Be certain of this: they are far from God and are not in union with him. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
73:To be sure, this requires effort and love, a careful cultivation of the spiritual life, and a watchful, honest, active oversight of all one's mental attitudes towards things and people. It is not to be learned by world-flight, running away from things, turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, one must learn an inner solitude, where or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
74:Grace is from God, and works in the depth of the soul whose powers it employs. It is a light which issues forth to do service under the guidance of the Spirit. The Divine Light permeates the soul, and lifts it above the turmoil of temporal things to rest in God. The soul cannot progress except with the light which God has given it as a nuptial gift; love works the likeness of God into the soul. The peace, freedom and blessedness of all souls consist in their abiding in God's will. Towards this union with God for which it is created the soul strives perpetually. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
75:But if God endures it for the sake of the benefit for you which he has foreseen in it, and if you are willing to suffer what he suffers and what passes through him to you, then it takes on the colour of God, and shame becomes honour, bitterness is sweetness and the deepest darkness becomes the clearest light. Then everything takes its flavour from God and becomes divine, for everything conforms itself to God, whatever befalls us, if we intend only him and nothing else is pleasing to us. Thus, we shall grasp God in all bitterness as well as in the greatest sweetness. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
76:The man who abides in the will of God wills nothing else than what God is, and what He wills. If he were ill he would not wish to be well. If he really abides in God's will, all pain is to him a joy, all complication, simple: yea, even the pains of hell would be a joy to him. He is free and gone out from himself, and from all that he receives, he must be free. If my eye is to discern colour, it must itself be free from all colour. The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
77:How can we be directly in God, neither striving nor seeking for anything other than him, and how can we be so poor and give up everything? It is hard counsel that we should not desire any reward. Now be certain of this: God never ceases to give us everything. Even if he had sworn not to, he still could not help giving us things. It is far more important to him to give than it is for us to receive, but we should not focus upon this, for the less we strive for it, the more God will give us. God intends thereby only that we should become yet more rich and be all the more capable of receiving things from him. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
78:Obedience need never be anxious, for there is no form of goodness which it does not possess in itself. When we go out of ourselves through obedience and strip ourselves of what is ours, then God must enter into us; for when someone wills nothing for themselves, then God must will on their behalf just as he does for himself. Whenever I have taken leave of my own will, putting it in the hands of my superior, and no longer will anything for myself, then God must will on my behalf, and if he neglects me in this respect, then he neglects himself. And so in all things in which I do not will for myself, God wills on my behalf. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
79:In true obedience, there should be no ‘I want this or that to happen’ or ‘I want this or that thing’ but only a pure going out of what is our own. And therefore, in the very best kind of prayer that we can pray there should be no ‘give me this particular virtue or way of devotion’ or ‘yes, Lord, give me yourself or eternal life’, but rather ‘Lord, give me only what you will and do, Lord, only what you will and in the way that you will’. This kind of prayer is as far above the former as heaven is above earth. And when we have prayed in this way, then we have prayed well, having gone out of ourselves and entered God in true obedience. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
80:How then should I love God?’ You should love God non-mentally, that is to say the soul should become non-mental and stripped of her mental images. For as long as your soul is mental, she will possess images. As long as she has images, she will possess intermediaries, and as long as she has intermediaries, she will not have unity or simplicity. As long as she lacks simplicity, she does not truly love God, for true love depends upon simplicity . . . Indeed, you must love him as he is One, pure, simple and transparent, far from all duality. And we should eternally sink into this One, thus passing from something into nothing. So help us God. Amen. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
81:But where is this true possession of God, whereby we really possess him, to be found? This real possession of God is to be found in the heart, in an inner motion of the spirit towards him and striving for him, and not just in thinking about him always and in the same way. For that would be beyond the capacity of our nature and would be very difficult to achieve and would not even be the best thing to do. We should not content ourselves with the God of thoughts for, when the thoughts come to an end, so too shall God. Rather, we should have a living God who is beyond the thoughts of all people and all creatures. That kind of God will not leave us, unless we ourselves choose to turn away from him. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
82:The freer the mind is, the more powerful and worthy, the more useful, praiseworthy and perfect the prayer and the work become. A free mind can achieve all things. But what is a free mind? A free mind is one which is untroubled and unfettered by anything, which has not bound its best part to any particular manner of being or devotion and which does not seek its own interest in anything but is always immersed in God’s most precious will, having gone out of what is its own. There is no work which men and women can perform, however small, which does not draw from this its power and its strength. We should pray with such intensity that we want all the members of our body and all its faculties, eyes, ears, mouth, heart and all our senses to turn to this end; and we should not cease in this until we feel that we are close to being united with him who is present to us and to whom we are praying: God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove
83:Now pay attention to this. God is nameless for no one can either speak of him or know him. Therefore, a pagan master says that what we can know or say of the First Cause reflects ourselves more than it does the First Cause, for this transcends all speech and all understanding . . . He is being beyond being: he is a nothingness beyond being. Therefore St. Augustine says: ‘The finest thing that we can say of God is to be silent concerning him from the wisdom of inner riches.’ Be silent therefore, and do not chatter about God, for by chattering about him, you tell lies and commit a sin. If you wish to be perfect and without sin, then do not prattle about God. Also you should not wish to understand anything about God, for God is beyond all understanding. A master says: If I had a God that I could understand, I would not regard him as God. If you understand anything about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something of him, you fall into ignorance, and by falling into ignorance, you become like an animal since the animal part in creatures is that which is unknowing. If you do not wish to become like an animal therefore, do not pretend that you understand anything of the ineffable God. ~ meister-eckhart, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Run into peace. ~ Meister Eckhart,
2:God is greater than God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
3:God is greater than God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
4:God is all and all is God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
5:Every creature is a word of God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
6:The more we have the less we own. ~ Meister Eckhart,
7:We are the cause of all our obstacles. ~ Meister Eckhart,
8:It is not outside us: it is all within. ~ Meister Eckhart,
9:Nobody at any time is cut off from God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
10:I am what I wanted and I want what I am. ~ Meister Eckhart,
11:The object of the intellect is being.
   ~ Meister Eckhart,
12:All God wants of man is a peaceful heart. ~ Meister Eckhart,
13:Outside of GodThere isnothingbut nothing. ~ Meister Eckhart,
14:God is at home. We are in the far country. ~ Meister Eckhart,
15:God is at home. We are in the far country. ~ Meister Eckhart,
16:God is not good, or else he could do better. ~ Meister Eckhart,
17:God is voluptuous and delicious. — Meister Eckhart ~ Matthew Fox,
18:Be willing to be a beginner every single morning. ~ Meister Eckhart,
19:As long as I am this or that, I am not all things. ~ Meister Eckhart,
20:Only the hand that erases can write the true thing. ~ Meister Eckhart,
21:Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness. ~ Meister Eckhart,
22:That we may ‘live in eternity’, so help us God. Amen. ~ Meister Eckhart,
23:One must learn an inner solitude, wherever one may be. ~ Meister Eckhart,
24:Only the hand that erases
can write the true thing. ~ Meister Eckhart,
25:Do exactly what you would do if you felt most secure.
   ~ Meister Eckhart,
26:Every creature is a word of God and is a book about God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
27:It is a lie - any talk of God that does not comfort you. ~ Meister Eckhart,
28:Whatever God does, the first outburst is always compassion. ~ Meister Eckhart,
29:There’s a place in the soul where you’ve never been wounded. ~ Meister Eckhart,
30:There is something uncreated, something divine in the soul... ~ Meister Eckhart,
31:Know that, by nature, every creature seeks to become like God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
32:If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough. ~ Meister Eckhart,
33:I need to be silent for a while. Worlds are forming in my heart. ~ Meister Eckhart,
34:I need to be silent for a while, worlds are forming in my heart. ~ Meister Eckhart,
35:The outward work will never be puny if the inward work is great. ~ Meister Eckhart,
36:What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love. ~ Meister Eckhart,
37:Alle Dinge müssen, der Mensch allein ist das Wesen, welches will. ~ Meister Eckhart,
38:It is the nature of the Word to reveal to me what has been hidden. ~ Meister Eckhart,
39:If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.
   ~ Meister Eckhart,
40:God did nothing more than this: he willed it, he spoke it, and it was. ~ Meister Eckhart,
41:If my eye is to discern colour, it must itself be free from all colour. ~ Meister Eckhart,
42:The outward man is the swinging door; the inner man is the still hinge. ~ Meister Eckhart,
43:The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake. ~ Meister Eckhart,
44:for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works. ~ Meister Eckhart,
45:The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.
   ~ Meister Eckhart,
46:We rarely find people who achieve great things without first going astray. ~ Meister Eckhart,
47:„Dacă singura rugăciune pe care ai spune-o ar fi Mulțumesc, ar fi de ajuns. ~ Meister Eckhart,
48:The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me... ~ Meister Eckhart,
49:If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough. MEISTER ECKHART ~ Guy Kawasaki,
50:Indeed, the more we are our own possession, the less we are God’s possession. ~ Meister Eckhart,
51:We are all meant to be mothers of God...for God is always needing to be born. ~ Meister Eckhart,
52:Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language. ~ Meister Eckhart,
53:Thus the soul's pursuit continues, for she holds to this knowing-by-unknowing. ~ Meister Eckhart,
54:God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction. ~ Meister Eckhart,
55:If his accusers charged Eckhart with heresy, then he charged them with stupidity. ~ Meister Eckhart,
56:The less theorizing you do about God, the more receptive you are to His inpouring. ~ Meister Eckhart,
57:If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. ~ Meister Eckhart,
58:If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice. ~ Meister Eckhart,
59:If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," it will be enough. ~ Meister Eckhart,
60:What happens to another, whether it be a joy or a sorrow, happens to me. — Meister Eckhart ~ Matthew Fox,
61:We must withdraw, then, from all things, for when God works, he works without an image. ~ Meister Eckhart,
62:And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. ~ Meister Eckhart,
63:For the person who has learned to let go and let be, nothing can ever get in the way again. ~ Meister Eckhart,
64:Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time. ~ Meister Eckhart,
65:You should give your all to God, and then worry no more about what he may do with what is his. ~ Meister Eckhart,
66:I have often said that God is creating the entire universe fully and totally in the present now. ~ Meister Eckhart,
67:If the only prayer you said in your whole life was “thank you,” that would be sufficient. —MEISTER ECKHART ~ Sam Keen,
68:Even now one rarely hears of people achieving great things unless they first stumble in some respect. ~ Meister Eckhart,
69:I may err but I am not a heretic, for the first has to do with the mind and the second with the will! ~ Meister Eckhart,
70:My Lord told me a joke. And seeing Him laugh has done more for me than any scripture I will ever read. ~ Meister Eckhart,
71:There is no need to look for God here or there. He is no farther away than the door of your own heart. ~ Meister Eckhart,
72:our Lord said, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ (Matt. 5:3), which is to say those who are poor in will. ~ Meister Eckhart,
73:Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go. ~ Meister Eckhart,
74:they do him wrong who take God just in one particular way. They take the way rather than God’ (Sermon 19). ~ Meister Eckhart,
75:[W]e must come into a transformed knowing, an unknowing which comes not from ignorance but from knowledge. ~ Meister Eckhart,
76:Christ said: ‘Whoever leaves anything for my sake will receive again a hundredfold in return’ (Matt 19:29). ~ Meister Eckhart,
77:When the Soul wants to experience something she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it. ~ Meister Eckhart,
78:Alle 30 Jahre kippt die Sprache vollständig um. Die Kommunikation zwischen den Generationen wird dann unmöglich. ~ Meister Eckhart,
79:Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God & is a book about God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
80:This birth which takes place unceasingly in eternity is the very same birth which has taken place within human nature. ~ Meister Eckhart,
81:Wisdom consists in doing the next thing you have to do, doing it with your whole heart, and finding delight in doing it. ~ Meister Eckhart,
82:Yet the now of time is infinitesimally small. If you remove the now of time, you are in all places and possess all time. ~ Meister Eckhart,
83:I tell you the truth, any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost Truth. ~ Meister Eckhart,
84:Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us. ~ Meister Eckhart,
85:May you find great value in these You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion. ~ Meister Eckhart,
86:When the soul wishes to experience something she throws an image of the experience out before her and enters into her own image ~ Meister Eckhart,
87:There is something in the soul that is so akin to God that it is one with Him... It has nothing in common with anything created. ~ Meister Eckhart,
88:Love is as strong as death, as hard as Hell. Death separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from the soul. ~ Meister Eckhart,
89:We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born. ~ Meister Eckhart, as quoted in Christianity (1995) by Joe Jenkins, p. 27,
90:Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us. MEISTER ECKHART ~ Julia Cameron,
91:The medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart said that if the soul could have known God without the world, God never would have created the world. ~ Anne Lamott,
92:Where there is Isness, there God is. Creation is the giving of isness from God. And that is why God becomes where any creature expresses God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
93:Where there is Isness, there God is. Creation is the giving of isness from God. And that is why God becomes where any creature expresses God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
94:An angel exists and works as an intelligence, and its state is one of beholding God ceaselessly, who is the object of its intellectual essence. ~ Meister Eckhart,
95:The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love. ~ Meister Eckhart,
96:As St Denys says: they speak most beautifully of God who can maintain the deepest silence concerning him in the fullness of their inner wealth.21 ~ Meister Eckhart,
97:Only those for whom God is present in all things and who make the very best use of their reason, know what true peace is and truly possess heaven. ~ Meister Eckhart,
98:Truly, if someone were to renounce a kingdom or the whole world while still holding on to themselves, then they would have renounced nothing at all. ~ Meister Eckhart,
99:One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works. ~ Meister Eckhart,
100:“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.” ~ Meister Eckhart  (1260 – c. 1328) German theologian, philosopher and mystic, Wikipedia,
101:For with God we can miss nothing. We can no more miss anything with God than God can. Accept the one way from God then, and draw all that is good into it. ~ Meister Eckhart,
102:“Love at its purest and most detached level is nothing else in itself than God.” ~ Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1328), a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, Wikipedia,
103:The art of letting things happen, action through non-action, letting go of oneself, as taught by Meister Eckhart, became for me the key opening the door to the way. ~ Carl Jung,
104:A day, whether six or seven years ago or whether six thousand years ago, is just as near to the present as yesterday. Why? Because all time is contained in now. ~ Meister Eckhart,
105:St. Augustine said, "What good is it to me that this birth takes place ceaselessly if does not take place in me? If it is to be done, it is to be done within me. ~ Meister Eckhart,
106:I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
107:I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
108:When earth discovered that its nature was unlike that of heaven and far from it, it fled from heaven to the lowest place it could find and remained there in stillness. ~ Meister Eckhart,
109:Thus the word "I" means the purity of God's essence, as he is in himself, and is free and bare of any additional essences which are foreign to him, for they are created. ~ Meister Eckhart,
110:He came forth rejoicing as a bridegroom and suffered the pangs of love. Then He returned to His secret chamber in the silence and stillness of the everlasting Fatherhood. ~ Meister Eckhart,
111:If God told an angel to go to a tree and pluck caterpillars off it, the angel would be quite
ready to do so, and it would be his happiness, if it were the will of God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
112:The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.~ Meister Eckhart, Sermons of Meister Eckhart,
113:They for whom God is not enough are greedy. The reward for all your works should be that they are known to God and that you seek God in them. Let this always be enough for you. ~ Meister Eckhart,
114:In this breaking-through, I receive that God and I are one. Then I am what I was, and then I neither diminish nor increase, for I am then an immovable cause that moves all things. ~ Meister Eckhart,
115:Meister Eckhart, the thirteenth-century spiritual teacher, summed it all up beautifully: “Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time. ~ Eckhart Tolle,
116:They who can go without all things, not needing them, are far more blessed than they who possess them in their need. That person is the best who can do without what they do not need. ~ Meister Eckhart,
117:There is no better advice on how to find God than to seek him where we left him: do now, when you cannot find God, what you did when last you had him, and then you will find him again. ~ Meister Eckhart,
118:Pay heed to this, how you are turned toward your God, when you are in church or in your cell. Maintain this same state of mind and bear it among the crowd and into unrest and dissimilarity. ~ Meister Eckhart,
119:Whoever possesses God in their being has Him in a divine manner, and He shines out to them in all things; for them all things taste of God and in all things it is God's image that they see. ~ Meister Eckhart,
120:But of God you can never have a sufficiency. The more you have of God, the more you desire. If you could ever have enough of God, so that you were content with him, then God would not be God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
121:Forte come la morte è l'amore, tenace come gli Inferi è la passione."
La morte separa l'anima dal corpo, ma l'amore separa ogni cosa dall'anima.
(Meister Eckhart - Sermone Nascita eterna) ~ Andrew Davidson,
122:We should be able to recognize true and perfect love by whether or not someone has great hope and confidence in God, for there is nothing that testifies more clearly to perfect love than trust. ~ Meister Eckhart,
123:St Augustine says: ‘The true servant of God does not desire to be told or to be given what they would like to hear or see, for their prime and highest wish is to hear what is most pleasing to God.’3 ~ Meister Eckhart,
124:say, ‘I wish to come to you so that your wealth shall fill my poverty, your infinity shall fill my emptiness, and your immeasurable, incomprehensible Godhead shall fill my base and wretched humanity. ~ Meister Eckhart,
125:The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life: your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away, but they're not punishing you, they're freeing your soul. ~ Meister Eckhart,
126:If what is in the blood conquers the flesh, then one is humble, patient, chaste and has every virtue. If the flesh conquers the blood, however, one is proud, angry and shameless, having every kind of vice. ~ Meister Eckhart,
127:God works with neither a medium nor an image, and the more you are without images, the more susceptible you will become to his work, and the more you forget and go within yourself, the closer you will be to him. ~ Meister Eckhart,
128:It is written: ‘They have become rich in all virtues’ (1 Cor. 1:5). Truly, this cannot happen unless they first become poor in all things. Whoever desires to be given everything, must first give everything away. ~ Meister Eckhart,
129:God is equally near to everything and every place and is equally ready to give himself, so far as in him lies, and therefore a person shall know him aright who knows how to see him the same, under all circumstances. ~ Meister Eckhart,
130:Yet if someone comes to know something well, they soon tire of it and seek out something new, and repeat this pattern again and again, continually anxious to know new things, never lingering on what they've learned. ~ Meister Eckhart,
131:There exists only the present instant... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence. ~ Meister Eckhart,
132:God wants to be known, but not in a way that overwhelms us, that takes away the possibility of love freely chosen. “God is like a person who clears his throat while hiding and so gives himself away,” said Meister Eckhart. ~ John Ortberg Jr,
133:When we go out of ourselves through obedience and strip ourselves of what is ours, then God must enter into us; for when someone wills nothing for themselves, then God must will on their behalf just as he does for himself. ~ Meister Eckhart,
134:And so, too, I speak of love: he who is held by it is held by the strongest of bonds, and yet the stress is pleasant. Moreover, he can sweetly bear all that happens to him. When one has found this bond, he looks for no other. ~ Meister Eckhart,
135:For however devoted you are to him, you may be sure that he is immeasurably more devoted to you and has incomparably more faith in you. For he is faithfulness itself – of this we can be certain as those who love him are certain. ~ Meister Eckhart,
136:Que proveito tenho eu se o nascimento eterno do filho divino ocorre sem cessar, mas não ocorre dentro de mim? Que proveito obtenho eu do fato de Deus dar à luz o seu filho, se eu não o trago à luz em minha época, e em minha cultura? ~ Meister Eckhart,
137:the man who sat naked in his tub said to Alexander the Great, who ruled the whole world: ‘I am a greater lord than you are, for I have spurned more than you have seized. What you think it is a great thing to possess, is too trivial for me to scorn. ~ Meister Eckhart,
138:And St. Paul knew this well when he said, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate ~ Meister Eckhart,
139:Come now, noble souls, and take a look at the splendor you are carrying within yourselves! But if you do not let go of yourself completely, if you do not drown yourself in this bottomless sea of the Godhead, you cannot get to know this divine light. ~ Meister Eckhart,
140:Never has anything become so kindred, so alike, so one with another, as the soul becomes with God in this birth . . . In this birth, God flows into the soul with such dazzling light that God and the soul merge into one-one spirit, one essence, one Being. ~ Meister Eckhart,
141:The soul is created so much higher in rank than any other creature that no mortal thing that is to perish at the latter day can communicate with the soul, or affect it, except through mediation or messengers. These are the ways the soul gets out to the world... ~ Meister Eckhart,
142:The thing that seemed to me so important about the psychedelic experience was that it happened to me. I wasn't reading John Chrysostom or Meister Eckhart. And so I assumed that I am a very ordinary person, therefore, if it happened to me it could happen to anyone. ~ Terence McKenna,
143:This is also what was meant when that loving soul said, "I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer." (Song of Solomon 5:6) ~ Meister Eckhart,
144:Furthermore, we should keep all things only as if they had been merely lent and not given to us, without any sense of possessiveness, whether it be our body or soul, our senses, faculties, worldly goods or honour, friends, relations, house or home or anything whatsoever. ~ Meister Eckhart,
145:A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there. ~ Meister Eckhart,
146:Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there. ~ Meister Eckhart,
147:You should be like those who at all times watch and wait for their Lord’ (Luke 12:36). Truly, such vigilant people are alert and on the watch for their Lord for whom they wait; they look to see if he is not by chance concealed in what befalls them, however strange it may be to them. ~ Meister Eckhart,
148:When God laughs at the soul and the soul laughs back at God, the persons of the Trinity are begotten. When the Father laughs at the Son and the Son laughs back at the Father, that laughter gives pleasure, that pleasure gives joy, that joy gives love, and that love is the Holy Spirit. ~ Meister Eckhart,
149:If anyone went on for a thousand years asking of life: 'Why are you living?' life, if it could answer, would only say, 'I live so that I may live.' That is because life lives out of its own ground and springs from its own source, and so it lives without asking why it is itself living. ~ Meister Eckhart,
150:St. John says, ". . . the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (1:5) and "he came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. . ." (1:11-12) ~ Meister Eckhart,
151:In pride I so easily lost Thee -- But now the more deeply I sink The more sweetly I drink Of Thee! [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell

~ Mechthild of Magdeburg, In pride I so easily lost Thee
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152:We should not content ourselves with a God of thoughts for, when the thoughts come to an end, so too shall God. Rather, we should have a living God who is beyond the thoughts of all people and all creatures. That kind of God will not leave us, unless we ourselves choose to turn away from him. ~ Meister Eckhart,
153:And so I tell you that we should learn to see God in all gifts and works, neither resting content with anything nor becoming attached to anything. For us there can be no attachment to a particular manner of behaviour in this life, nor has this ever been right, however successful we may have been. ~ Meister Eckhart,
154:God never gives, nor did He ever give a gift, merely that man might have it and be content with it. No, all gifts which He ever gave in heaven or on earth, He gave with one sole purpose - to make one single gift: Himself. With all His gifts He desires only to prepare us for the one gift, which is Himself. ~ Meister Eckhart,
155:Love covers a multitude of sins’ (1 Peter 4:8). For where there is sin, there can be neither complete trust nor love, since love completely covers over sins and knows nothing of them. Not in such a way as if we had not sinned, but rather it wipes them away and drives them out, as if they had never existed. ~ Meister Eckhart,
156:Where the human being in obedience goes out from his “I” and dismisses what is his own, God must necessarily enter in precisely there; for when someone does not will anything for himself, God must will for that person in the same ay as He wills for himself. ~ Meister Eckhart, Sermons, in J. Hackett, A Companion to Meister Eckhart,
157:Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love a cow - for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage. ~ Meister Eckhart,
158:Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love a cow - for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage. ~ Meister Eckhart,
159:The most powerful form of prayer, and the one which can virtually gain all things and which is the worthiest work of all, is that which flows from a free mind. The freer the mind is, the more powerful and worthy, the more useful, praiseworthy and perfect the prayer and the work become. A free mind can achieve all things. ~ Meister Eckhart,
160:And St. Paul knew this well when he said, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39) ~ Meister Eckhart,
161:And so in my view the most important thing of all is that we should give ourselves up entirely to God whenever he allows anything to befall us, whether insult, tribulation or any other kind of suffering, accepting it with joy and gratitude and allowing God to guide us all the more rather than seeking these things out ourselves. ~ Meister Eckhart,
162:Whoever wants to receive the body of our Lord does not need to scrutinize what they are feeling at the time or how great their piety or devotion is, but rather they should note the state of their will and attitude of mind. You should not place too much weight on your feelings but emphasize rather the object of your love and striving. ~ Meister Eckhart,
163:If I had a friend and loved him because of the benefits which this brought me and because of getting my own way, then it would not be my friend that I loved but myself. I should love my friend on account of his own goodness and virtues and account of all that he is in himself. Only if I love my friend in this way do I love him properly. ~ Meister Eckhart,
164:As Meister Eckhart once said: When one can do the works of virtue without preparing, by willing to do them, and bring to completion some great and righteous matter without giving it a thought – when the deed of virtue seems to happen by itself, simply because one loved goodness and for no other reason, then one is perfectly virtuous and not before. ~ Peter Rollins,
165:But many people want to look upon God with the eyes with which they look upon a cow; they want to love God the way they love a cow that you love because it gives you milk and cheese. This is how people behave who want to love God because of external wealth or inner comfort; but they do not love God properly: rather, they love their self interest. ~ Meister Eckhart,
166:People should not worry so much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctified our works. ~ Meister Eckhart,
167:The light is satisfied only in the innermost place, where no one dwells. It is within you even deeper than you are in yourself. It is the ground of simple silence that is motionless in itself. Yet from its stillness, all things move and all things receive their life, that they may live in accordance with this reason (vernunftecliche) and be conformed to it within themselves. ~ Meister Eckhart,
168:Wouldst thou know my meaning? Lie down in the Fire See and taste the Flowing Godhead through thy being; Feel the Holy Spirit Moving and compelling Thee within the Flowing Fire and Light of God. [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell

~ Mechthild of Magdeburg, Wouldst thou know my meaning?
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169:Yea! I shall drink from Thee And Thou shalt drink from me All the good God has preserved in us. Blessed is he who is so firmly established here That he may never spill out What God has poured into him. [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell

~ Mechthild of Magdeburg, Yea! I shall drink from Thee
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170:If the deepest ground of my being is love, then
in that very love and nowhere else will I find
myself, the world, and my brother and sister
in Christ. It is not a question of either-or but
of all-in-one. It is not a matter of exclusivity
and “purity” but of wholeness, wholeheartedness,
unity, and of Meister Eckhart’s gleichheit
(equality) which finds the same ground of love ~ Thomas Merton,
171:Unlike the modern ideal of systematization in definition, these people celebrated the fact that, as Meister Eckhart once claimed, the unnameable is omni-nameable. Evidently such conflicts were not judged to be problematic but were accepted. Indeed, such fissures help to prevent us from forming an idolatrous image of God, ensuring that none of us can legitimately claim to understand God as God really is. ~ Peter Rollins,
172:Listening leads us more inside ourselves whereas seeing leads us more outside—the work of seeing itself, that is. And, therefore, we will be far more blessed with eternal life by the power of listening than by the power of sight. The act of listening allows me to hear the eternal Word spoken with me, whereas sight leads me astray, to what is outside myself. In listening, I suffer (or allow); in seeing, I work. ~ Meister Eckhart,
173:You should not imagine that your reason can evolve to the extent of understanding God. Rather, if God is to shine divinely within you, your natural light cannot assist this process but must become a pure nothingness, going out of itself. Only then can God enter with his light, bringing back with him all that you have renounced and a thousand times more, including a new form which contains all things in itself. ~ Meister Eckhart,
174:Meister Eckhart on this topic: “If you love yourself, you love everybody else as you do yourself. As long as you love another person less than you love yourself, you will not really succeed in loving yourself, but if you love all alike, including yourself, you will love them as one person and that person is both God and man. Thus he is a great and righteous person who, loving himself, loves all others equally.”[14] ~ Erich Fromm,
175:You should not imagine that your reason can evolve to the extent of understanding God. Rather, if God is to shine divinely within you, your natural light cannot assist this process but must become a pure nothingness, going out of itself. Only then can God enter with his light, bringing back with him all that you have renounced and a thousand times more, including a new form which contains all things in itself. ~ Meister Eckhart,
176:Now, you might say: how can this be? I cannot feel his presence in any way. Listen to this. Sensing his presence is not in your power but in his. He will show himself when it suits him to do so, and he can also remain hidden if that is his wish. This is what Christ meant when he said to Nicodemus: ‘The spirit breathes where it will: you hear its voice but do not know where it comes from, or where it is going’ (John 3:8). ~ Meister Eckhart,
177:You should love, respect and regard all others as yourself; and you should feel that whatever happens to someone else, whether good things or bad, is happening to you ... If you love blessedness in yourself more than in another, this is wrong, for if you love blessedness in yourself more than in another, than you love yourself [instead of others], and where you love yourself, God is not your sole love, and that is wrong. ~ Meister Eckhart,
178:Eckhart tells us that God ‘must’ give birth to himself in us fully and at all times. He has no choice in the matter; this is simply his nature. If we do not receive the spiritual benefits of this birth, then that is because we are not content to allow God to act in us. Rather, we obstruct him with our false notions of self and the determination to cling to the nothingness which is the true reality of our own creaturely being. ~ Meister Eckhart,
179:His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama feels quite at home in the world of Meister Eckhart, and His Holiness Pope John Paul II quotes the same Meister Eckhart on occasion in a sermon. Now, there’s a bridge builder between traditions! Should this come as a surprise? No, it shouldn’t surprise us, for Meister Eckhart is a mystic. The mystics of all traditions speak one and the same language, the language of religious experience. When ~ Meister Eckhart,
180:The Now is also central to the teaching of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. Sufis have a saying: “The Sufi is the son of time present.” And Rumi, the great poet and teacher of Sufism, declares: “Past and future veil God from our sight; burn up both of them with fire.” Meister Eckhart, the thirteenth-century spiritual teacher, summed it all up beautifully: “Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time. ~ Eckhart Tolle,
181:The most powerful prayer, one well-nigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is. To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own. ~ Meister Eckhart,
182:Some people prefer solitude. They say their peace of mind depends on this.
Others say they would be better off in church.
If you do well, you do well wherever you are. If you fail, you fail wherever you are.
Your surroundings don't matter. God is with you everywhere -- in the market place as well as in seclusion or in the church.
If you look for nothing but God, nothing or no one can disturb you.
God is not distracted by a multitude of things.
Nor can we be. ~ Meister Eckhart,
183:Now some people are of the opinion that they are altogether holy and perfect, and go around the place with big deeds and big words, and yet they strive for and desire so many things, they wish to possess so much and are so concerned both with themselves and with this thing and that. They assert that they are seeking great piety and devotion, and yet they cannot accept a single word of reproval without answering back. Be certain of this: they are far from God and are not in union with him. ~ Meister Eckhart,
184:If we fail to recognize that the term ‘God’ always falls short of that towards which the word is supposed to point, we will end up bowing down before our own conceptual creations forged from the raw materials of our self-image, rather than bowing before the one who stands over and above that creation. Hence Meister Eckhart famously prays, ‘God rid me of God’,32 a prayer that acknowledges how the God we are in relationship with is bigger, better and different than our understanding of that God. ~ Peter Rollins,
185:The Theatre of the Absurd has renounced arguing about the absurdity of the human condition; it merely presents it in being - that is, in terms of concrete stage images. This is the difference between the approach of the philosopher and that of the poet; the difference, to take an example from another sphere, between the idea of God in the works of Thomas Aquinas or Spinoza and the intuition of God in those of St. John of the Cross or Meister Eckhart - the difference between theory and experience. ~ Martin Esslin,
186:In true obedience there should be no ‘I want this or that to happen’ or ‘I want this or that thing’ but only a pure going out of what is our own. And therefore in the very best kind of prayer that we can pray there should be no ‘give me this particular virtue or way of devotion’ or ‘yes, Lord, give me yourself or eternal life’, or rather ‘Lord, give me only what you will and do, Lord, only what you will and in the way that you will’. This kind of prayer is as far above the former as heaven is above earth. ~ Meister Eckhart,
187:We find “Nirvana” rendered by “annihilation” (no one stops to ask of what?), though the word means “despiration”, as Meister Eckhart uses the term. I accuse the majority of Christian writers of a certain irresponsibility, or even levity, in their references to other religions. I should never dream of making use of a Gospel text without referring to the Greek, and considering also the earlier history of the Greek words employed, and I demand as much of Christian writers.
To THE NEW ENGLISH WEEKLY, LONDON - January 8, 1946 ~ Ananda K Coomaraswamy,
188:I mean those who cling to their own egos in their penances and external devotions, which such people regard as being of great importance. God have mercy on them, for they know little of the divine truth! Please people are called holy because of what they are seen to do, but inside they are asses, for they do not know the real meaning of divine truth . . . They are greatly esteemed by people who know no better . . . May they attain heaven because of their good intent, but that poverty, of which we now wish to speak, they know nothing. ~ Meister Eckhart,
189:What Creator god worth its salt would give even the slightest shit about a sacrificed goat or how often you masturbate? Besides, there is an element of self-respect here. He’s just not that into you. It is the neuroses-inducing idiocy of a personally approachable universal creator that is the savage belief. (Had Meister Eckhart been a Victorian explorer, Christianity would have put a better foot forward than it did with the retired vicars of the nineteenth century or the happy-clappy, flyover morons wandering about Africa and the Amazon today.) ~ Gordon White,
190:The more you are able to completely withdraw all your powers and forget all things―along with whatever images they have left in you―the farther you will travel away from created things and their images, and the closer and more receptive you will be to this birth. Were you to forget everything completely and be unaware of them, you would lose even the awareness of your own body, just as it occurred with St. Paul when he said, ". . . whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth. . ." (2 Corinthians 12:2) ~ Meister Eckhart,
191:But if God endures it for the sake of the benefit for you which he has foreseen in it, and if you are willing to suffer what he suffers and what passes through him to you, then it takes on the colour of God, and shame becomes honour, bitterness is sweetness and the deepest darkness becomes the clearest light. Then everything takes its flavour from God and becomes divine, for everything conforms itself to God, whatever befalls us, if we intend only him and nothing else is pleasing to us. Thus we shall grasp God in all bitterness as well as in the greatest sweetness. ~ Meister Eckhart,
192:We ought not to have or let ourselves be satisfied with any thought of God. When the thought goes, our God goes with it. No, what we want is a real (subsistent) God who far transcends the thoughts of men and creatures. This God does not disappear unless we turn our back on him of our own accord. He who has God thus, in reality, has gotten God divinely; to him God is apparent in all things. Everything smacks to him of God; everywhere God’s image stares him in the face. God is gleaming in him all the time. In him there is riddance and return; the vision of his God is ever present to his mind. ~ Meister Eckhart,
193:The freer the mind is, the more powerful and worthy, the more useful, praiseworthy and perfect the prayer and the work become. A free mind can achieve all things. But what is a free mind? A free mind is one which is untroubled and unfettered by anything, which has not bound its best part to any particular manner of being or devotion and which does not seek its own interest in anything but is always immersed in God’s most precious will, having gone out of what is its own. There is no work which men and women can perform, however small, which does not draw from this its power and its strength. ~ Meister Eckhart,
194:We ought not to have or let ourselves be satisfied with any thought of God. When the thought goes, our God goes with it. No, what we want is a real (subsistent) God who far transcends the thoughts of men and creatures. This God does not disappear unless we turn our back on him of our own accord. He who has God thus, in reality, has gotten God divinely; to him God is apparent in all things. Everything smacks to him of God; everywhere God's image stares him in the face. God is gleaming in him all the time. In him there is riddance and return; the vision of his God is ever present to his mind. ~ Meister Eckhart,
195:For whoever does not truly have God within themselves, but must constantly receive him in one external thing after another, seeking God in diverse ways, whether by particular works, people or places, such a person does not possess God. The least thing can impede them, for they do not have God and do not seek, love and intend him alone. It is not only bad company but also good company that can obstruct them, not only the street but also the church, not only evil words and deeds but also good words and deeds, for the obstruction lies within themselves, since in them God has not become all things. ~ Meister Eckhart,
196:For we should be as our Lord told us: “You should be like those who at all times watch and wait for their Lord (Luke 12:36). Truly, such vigilant people are alert and on the watch for the Lord for whom they wait; they look to see if he is not by chance concealed in what befalls them, however strange it may be to them. So we too should consciously look out for our Lord in all things. This demands much effort, and must cost us all that our senses and faculties are capable of. But this is the right thing for us to do, so that we grasp God in the same way in all things and find him equally everywhere. ~ Meister Eckhart,
197:How can we be directly in God, neither striving nor seeking for anything other than him, and how can we be so poor and give up everything? It is hard counsel that we should not desire any reward. Now be certain of this: God never ceases to give us everything. Even if he had sworn not to, he still could not help giving us things. It is far more important to him to give than it is for us to receive, but we should not focus upon this, for the less we strive for it, the more God will give us. God intends thereby only that we should become yet more rich and be all the more capable of receiving things from him. ~ Meister Eckhart,
198:Obedience need never be anxious, for there is no form of goodness which it does not possess in itself. When we go out of ourselves through obedience and strip ourselves of what is ours, then God must enter into us; for when someone wills nothing for themselves, then God must will on their behalf just as he does for himself. Whenever I have taken leave of my own will, putting it in the hands of my superior , and no longer will anything for myself, then God must will on my behalf, and if he neglects me in this respect, then he neglects himself. And so in all things in which I do not will for myself, God wills on my behalf. ~ Meister Eckhart,
199:In true obedience there should be no ‘I want this or that to happen’ or ‘I want this or that thing’ but only a pure going out of what is our own. And therefore in the very best kind of prayer that we can pray there should be no ‘give me this particular virtue or way of devotion’2 or ‘yes, Lord, give me yourself or eternal life’, but rather ‘Lord, give me only what you will and do, Lord, only what you will and in the way that you will’. This kind of prayer is as far above the former as heaven is above earth. And when we have prayed in this way, then we have prayed well, having gone out of ourselves and entered God in true obedience. ~ Meister Eckhart,
200:in this way, seek wrongly, and the further they range, the less they find what they are looking for. They proceed like someone who has lost their way: the further they go, the more lost they become.

But what then should they do? First of all, they should renounce themselves, and then they will have renounced all things. Truly, if someone were to renounce a kingdom or the whole world while still holding onto themselves, then they would have renounced nothing at all. And indeed, if someone renounces themselves, then whatever they might keep, whether the kingdom or honour or whatever it may be, they will still have renounced all things. ~ Meister Eckhart,
201:How then should I love God?’ You should love God non-mentally, that is to say the soul should become non-mental and stripped of her mental images. For as long as your soul is mental, she will possess images. As long as she has images, she will possess intermediaries, and as long as she has intermediaries, she will not have unity or simplicity. As long as she lacks simplicity, she does not truly love God, for true love depends upon simplicity . . . Indeed, you must love him as he is One, pure, simple and transparent, far from all duality. And we should eternally sink into this One, thus passing from something into nothing. So help us God. Amen. ~ Meister Eckhart,
202:It is not enough for us to perform the works of virtue, exercising obedience, excepting poverty or disgrace or practicing humility or detachment in some other way; rather we should strive ceaselessly until we attain the essence and ground of virtue. And we can tell if we have attained this or not by asking whether we find ourselves inclined to virtue above all else and perform the works of virtue without prior preparation of the will, practicing virtue without the ulterior motive even of a great and good cause, so that the virtuous act in fact happen spontaneously on account of love of virtue and without asking ‘what for?’ Then and only then do we have the perfect possession of virtue. ~ Meister Eckhart,
203:But where is this true possession of God, whereby we really possess him, to be found? This real possession of God is to be found in the heart, in an inner motion of the spirit towards him and striving for him, and not just in thinking about him always and in the same way. For that would be beyond the capacity of our nature and would be very difficult to achieve and would not even be the best thing to do. We should not content ourselves with the God of thoughts for, when the thoughts come to an end, so too shall God. Rather, we should have a living God who is beyond the thoughts of all people and all creatures. That kind of God will not leave us, unless we ourselves choose to turn away from him. ~ Meister Eckhart,
204:A free mind is one which is untroubled and unfettered by anything, which has not bound its best part to any particular manner of being or devotion and which does not seek its own interest in anything but is always immersed in God’s most precious will, having gone out of what is its own. There is no work which men and women can perform, however small, which does not draw from this its power and its strength. We should pray with such intensity that we want all the members of our body and all its faculties, eyes, ears, mouth, heart and all our senses to turn to this end; and we should not cease in this until we feel that we are close to being united with him who is present to us and to whom we are praying: God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
205:For God has not linked our salvation with any particular kind of devotion. Any one devotional practice has things which others lack, but the effectiveness of all good practices comes from God alone and is denied to none of them, for one form of goodness cannot conflict with another. Therefore people should remember that if they see or hear of a good person who is following a way which is different from theirs, then they are wrong to think that such a person’s efforts are all in vain. If someone else’s way of devotion does not please them, then they are ignoring the goodness in it as well as that person’s good intention. This is wrong. We should see the true feeling in people’s devotional practices and should not scorn the particular way that anyone follows. ~ Meister Eckhart,
206:On true confidence and on hope. We should be able to recognize true and perfect love by whether or not someone has great hope and confidence in God, for there is nothing that testifies more clearly to perfect love than trust. Wholehearted love for another creates trust in them, and we will truly find in God everything that we dare hope for in him, and a thousand times more. Just as we can never love God too much, neither can we have too much trust in him. Nothing we may do can ever be so appropriate as fully trusting in God. He has never ceased to work great things through those who have great trust in him, and he has clearly shown in all such people that their trust is born of love, for love possesses not only trust but also true knowledge and unshakeable certainty. ~ Meister Eckhart,
207:For God does not give us anything in order that we should enjoy its possession and rest content with it, nor has he ever done so. All the gifts which he has ever granted us in heaven or on earth were made solely in order to be able to give us the one gift, which is himself. With all other gifts he simply wants to prepare us for that gift which is himself. And all the works which God has ever performed in heaven or on earth served solely to perform the one work, that is to sanctify himself so that he can sanctify us. And so I tell you that we should learn to see God in all gifts and works, neither resting content with anything nor becoming attached to anything. For us there can be no attachment to a particular manner of behaviour in this life, nor has this ever been right, however successful we may have been. ~ Meister Eckhart,
208:God, who is faithful, allows his friends to fall frequently into weakness only in order to remove from them any prop on which they might lean. For a loving person it would be a great joy to be able to achieve many great feats, whether keeping vigils, fasting, performing other ascetical practices or doing major, difficult and unusual works. For them this is a great joy, support and source of hope so that their works become a product and a support upon which they can lean. But it is precisely this which our Lord wishes to take from them so that he alone will be their help and support . . . in no way do our works serve to make God give us anything or do anything for us. Our Lord wishes his friends to be freed from such an attitude, and thus he removes their support from them so that they must henceforth find their support only in him. ~ Meister Eckhart,
209:And here, Meister Eckhart distinguishes between the One and the Divine Mind, using the terms “Godhead” and “God”: God and the Godhead are as different from each other as heaven and earth… Creatures speak of God—but why do they not mention the Godhead? Because there is only unity in the Godhead and there is nothing to talk about. God acts. The Godhead does not. …The difference between God and the Godhead is the difference between action and non-action. …The Godhead is poor, naked and empty as though it were not; it has not, wills not, wants not, works not, gets not. It is God who has the treasure and the bride in Him; the Godhead is as void as though it were not.75 Eckhart’s “God” is the manifestory Power of the One, which has been referred to as Prakrti, Maya, Nous, Shakti, Logos, and many other names; we are calling It ‘the Divine Mind’. The Divine Mind is not a ~ Swami Abhayananda,
210:We should rest content with nothing, however good it may seem or be, so that, when we find ourselves under pressure or constraint, it will be apparent that we are more worked than working, and so that we may learn to enter into a relationship of cooperation with our God. It is not that we should abandon, neglect or deny our inner self, but we should learn to work precisely in it, with it and from it in such a way that interiority turns into effective action and effective action leads back to interiority and we become used to acting without any compulsion. For we should concentrate on this inner prompting, and act from it, whether through reading or praying or – if it is fitting – some form of external activity. Though if the external activity destroys the internal one, we should give priority to the latter. But if both are united as one, then that is best for cooperating with God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
211:In Islam, and especially among the Sufi Orders, siyahat or 'errance' - the action or rhythm of walking - was used as a technique for dissolving the attachments of the world and allowing men to lose themselves in God. The aim of a dervish was to become a 'dead man walking': one whose body stays alive on the earth yet whose soul is already in Heaven. A Sufi manual, the Kashf-al-Mahjub, says that, toward the end of his tourney, the dervish becomes the Way not the wayfarer, i.e. a place over which something is passing, not a traveller following his own free will...it was quite similar to an Aboriginal concept, 'Many men afterwards become country, in that place, Ancestors.' By spending his whole life walking and singing his Ancestor's Songline, a man eventually became the track, the Ancestor and the song. The Wayless Way, where the Sons of God lose themselves and, at the same time, find themselves. ~ Meister Eckhart,
212:Bede states that “the essential truth of Hinduism is the doctrine of the Brahman. The Brahman is the Mystery of Being, the ultimate Truth, the one Reality. Yet it also can only be described by negatives.…It is unseen, unrelated, inconceivable, uninferable, unimaginable, indescribable.” Yet it can be experienced “in the depth of the soul as the very ground of its being. It is the Atman, the Self, the real being of man as of the universe. ‘I am Brahman,’ ‘Thou are that,’ ‘All this [world] is Brahman.’ These are the mahavakyas, the ‘great sayings,’ of the Upanishads, in which the Mystery of being is revealed.” How similar these great sayings are to Meister Eckhart — who says we too learn, in the experience of “breakthrough,” that “God and I are one,” that “every creature is a word of God and a book about God,” that “God’s ground and my ground are one ground,” and that the Godhead “has no name and will never be given a name. ~ Matthew Fox,
213:The mentality of today seeks in fact to reduce everything to temporal categories: a work of art, a thought, a truth have no value in themselves and independently of any historical classification, but only as a result of the time in which they are rightly or wrongly placed; everything is considered the expression of a “period”, not of a timeless and intrinsic value, and this is entirely in conformity with modern relativism and with a psychologism or biologism that destroys essential values . This philosophy derives a maximum of originality from what in effect is nothing but a hatred of God; but since it is impossible to abuse directly a God in whom one does not believe, one abuses Him indirectly through the laws of nature , and one goes so far as to disparage the very form of man and his intelligence, the intelligence with which one thinks and abuses. But there is no escaping immanent Truth: “The more he blasphemes,” says Meister Eckhart, “the more he praises God. ~ Frithjof Schuon,
214:For Eckhart, the ‘detached person’ lives in the world but is not of it (cf. John 17:16). The ‘birth of God’ has taken place within them, and their ‘knowing essence’ is now engaged with God and not with the world. Since the metaphysical keynote of the spiritual and divine realities in which the human person now participates is oneness, the moral manifestation of this state is the practice of altruism, that is treating other people as if they were oneself (cf. Lev. 19:18). Thus we should be as concerned with the welfare of others as we are with our own, and all that we do will be conceived in the spirit of humility. Indeed, of all the virtues most associated with detachment humility is the most foundational. In one passage of great rhetorical brilliance Eckhart urges us to enter our own ‘ground of humility’, which is our lowest part, but it is also our highest part, since God is present there and raises us up, and it is no less our innermost part, for it is our own essence (Sermon W 46). ~ Meister Eckhart,
215:There are people who savour God in one way but not in another, and they want to possess God according to one manner of devotion and not another. I can tolerate this, but it is quite wrong. If we are to take God correctly, then we must take him equally in all things: in tribulation as in prosperity, in tears as in joy. He should always be the same for you. If you believe, without having committed a mortal sin, that you lack both devotion and serious intent and that, not having devotion or serious intent, you do not have God, and if you then grieve over this, this itself becomes your devotion and serious intent. Therefore you should not confine yourself to just one manner of devotion, since God is to be found in no particular way, neither this one nor that. That is why they do him wrong who take God just in one particular way. They take the way rather than God. Remember this then: intend God alone and seek him only. Then whatever kinds of devotional practice come to you, be content with those. For your intention should be directed at God alone and at nothing else. ~ Meister Eckhart,
216:Take note of what makes our essence and our ground good. The reason why a person’s essence and ground, which lends goodness to their works, is wholly good is that their mind is wholly turned to God. Make every effort then to let God be great and to ensure that all your good intentions and endeavours are directed to him in all that you do and in all that you refrain from doing. Truly, the more you do this, the better your works will be, whatever they are. If you hold to God, then he will give you goodness. If you seek God, then you will find both God and all goodness. Indeed, if you trod on a stone while in this state of mind, it would be a more godly act than if you were to receive the body of our Lord while being concerned only for yourself and having a less detached attitude of mind. Whoever holds to God, holds to both God and all virtue. And what was previously the object of your seeking, now seeks you; what you hunted, now hunts you, what you fled, now flees you. This is so because the things of God cling to those people who cling to God, and all those things flee them, which are unlike God and are alien to him. ~ Meister Eckhart,
217:For this innermost reason you should perform all of your deeds without whys and wherefores. I say in truth, as long as you perform your deeds for the sake of the kingdom of heaven or God or your eternal salvation, in other words for an external reason, things are not truly well with you. You may he well accepted, but it is certainly not the best way. For verily, if someone imagines that they will receive more in warmth, devotion, sweet rapture, and in the special grace of God than by the hearth or in a stable, all you are doing is taking God, placing a coat around his head, and pushing him under a bench. Because the person who seeks for God in a particular way, takes that way and misses God. But the person who seeks for God without a way will find Him, as He is, in Himself; and such a son lives with the Son and He is life itself. The person who for a thousand years asks the question of life, "Why do you live?" could provide the answer, the only answer, "I live because I am alive." The reason for this is that life is lived for its own sake and emanates from its Own sources; hence it is lived entirely without whys or wherefores, because it lives for itself. ~ Meister Eckhart,
218:Now pay attention to this. God is nameless for no one can either speak of him or know him. Therefore a pagan master says that what we can know or say of the First Cause reflects ourselves more than it does the First Cause, for this transcends all speech and all understanding . . . He is being beyond being: he is a nothingness beyond being. Therefore St. Augustine says: ‘The finest thing that we can say of God is to be silent concerning him from the wisdom of inner riches.’ Be silent therefore, and do not chatter about God, for by chattering about him, you tell lies and commit a sin. If you wish to be perfect and without sin, then do not prattle about God. Also you should not wish to understand anything about God, for God is beyond all understanding. A master says: If I had a God that I could understand, I would not regard him as God. If you understand anything about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something of him, you fall into ignorance, and by falling into ignorance, you become like an animal since the animal part in creatures is that which is unknowing. If you do not wish to become like an animal therefore, do not pretend that you understand anything of the ineffable God. ~ Meister Eckhart,
219:The devil also offers his spirit To those who in hatred and proud desire Are ready for the worst. Such know not that love leads to all good, They become poor from hatred And the fury of the devil, So that it becomes impossible They should ever again find or follow The love of God. True love praises God constantly; Longing love gives the pure heart sweet sorrow; Seeking love belongs to itself alone; Understanding love loves all in common; Enlightening love is mingled and sadness; Selfless love bears fruit without effort; It functions so quietly That the body knows nothing of it. Clear love is still, in God alone, Seeing that both have one will And there is no creature so noble That it can hinder them. This is written by Knowledge Out of the everlasting book. Gold is often heavily flecked by copper, Just as falseness and vain honor Blot out virtue from the human soul. The ignoble soul to whom passing things are so dear That it never trembled before Love Never heard God speak lovingly in it -- Alas! to such this life is darkness! [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell

~ Mechthild of Magdeburg, The devil also offers his spirit
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220:You should observe, and have observed, in which direction God urges you most of all to go, for, as St. Paul says, not all people are called to follow the same path to God. If you find then that the shortest way for you does not lie in many outward works, great endurance and privation (which things are in any case of little importance unless we are particularly called to them by God or unless we have sufficient strength to perform them without disrupting our inner life), if you do not find these things right for you, then be at peace and have little to do with them.


But then you might say: if they are not important, why did our forebears, including many saints, do these things? Consider this: if our Lord gave them this particular kind of devotional practice, then he also gave them the strength to carry it through, and it was this which pleased him and which was their greatest achievement. For God has not linked our salvation with any particular kind of devotion . . . Not everyone can follow the same way, nor can all people follow only one way, nor can we follow all the different ways or everyone else's way . . . It is the same with following the severe life-style of such saints. You should love their way and find it appealing, even though you do not have to follow their example. ~ Meister Eckhart,
221:Even when Meister Eckhart writes as a Christian about suffering—the topic where we should least expect common ground with Buddhism—he finds this common ground with sleepwalking sureness, as long as it is the mystic in him who speaks. Take this, for instance: “Our Lord says in the Psalms of a good man that he is with him in his suffering.” With him! This is not the God above the clouds, enthroned in immovable detachment. This is a lover who suffers when we suffer. I ponder this mystery, and a word of the Dalai Lama comes to my mind; it shall stand at the end of this foreword, since his name stands at its beginning. “Your Holiness,” someone asked, “your Buddhist tradition has so wonderful a way of overcoming suffering. What do you have to say to the Christian tradition that seems to be preoccupied with pain?” With his compassionate smile the Dalai Lama gave an answer that went straight to the common ground of the two traditions. “Suffering,” he said, “is not overcome by leaving pain behind. Suffering is overcome by bearing pain for the sake of others.” (Christ and Bodhisattva embraced at that moment. Across seven hundred years of history I could hear Meister Eckhart laughing with joy. Or was it God’s eternal laughter?) BROTHER DAVID STEINDL-RAST, O.S.B. Big Sur, California Summer Solstice 1995 ~ Meister Eckhart,
222:deceptive and can easily be an illusion. Indeed, the second type is experienced in all the faculties of our soul and cannot deceive those who truly love God; indeed they no more doubt it than they doubt God himself, for love drives out all fear. ‘Love knows no fear’ as St John12 (1 John 4:18) says, and it is also written: ‘Love covers a multitude of sins’ (1 Peter 4:8). For where there is sin, there can be neither complete trust nor love, since love completely covers over sins and knows nothing of them. Not in such a way as if we had not sinned, but rather it wipes them away and drives them out, as if they had never existed. For all God’s works are so utterly perfect and overflowing that whoever he forgives, he forgives totally and absolutely, preferring to forgive big sins rather than little ones, all of which creates perfect trust. I hold this kind of knowledge to be incomparably better, more rewarding and more authentic than the other, since neither sin nor anything else can obstruct it. For when God finds people in the same degree of love, then he judges them in the same way, regardless of whether they have sinned greatly or not at all. But those to whom more is forgiven, should have a greater love, as our Lord Jesus Christ said: ‘They to whom more is forgiven must love more’ (Luke 7:47). ~ Meister Eckhart,
223:Why God sometimes allows people who are genuinely good to be hindered in the good that they do. God, who is faithful, allows his friends to fall frequently into weakness only in order to remove from them any prop on which they might lean. For a loving person it would be a great joy to be able to achieve many great feats, whether keeping vigils, fasting, performing other ascetical practices or doing major, difficult and unusual works. For them this is a great joy, support and source of hope so that their works become a prop and a support upon which they can lean. But it is precisely this which our Lord wishes to take from them so that he alone will be their help and support. This he does solely on account of his pure goodness and mercy, for God is prompted to act only by his goodness, and in no way do our works serve to make God give us anything or do anything for us. Our Lord wishes his friends to be freed from such an attitude, and thus he removes their support from them so that they must henceforth find their support only in him. For he desires to give them great gifts, solely on account of his goodness, and he shall be their comfort and support while they discover themselves to be and regard themselves as being a pure nothingness in all the great gifts of God. The more essentially and simply the mind rests on God and is sustained by him, the more deeply we are established in God and the more receptive we are to him in all his precious gifts – for human kind should build on God alone. ~ Meister Eckhart,
224:Why God sometimes allows people who are genuinely good to be hindered in the good that they do. God, who is faithful, allows his friends to fall frequently into weakness only in order to remove from them any prop on which they might lean. For a loving person it would be a great joy to be able to achieve many great feats, whether keeping vigils, fasting, performing other ascetical practices or doing major, difficult and unusual works. For them this is a great joy, support and source of hope so that their works become a prop and a support upon which they can lean. But it is precisely this which our Lord wishes to take from them so that he alone will be their help and support. This he does solely on account of his pure goodness and mercy, for God is prompted to act only by his goodness, and in no way do our works serve to make God give us anything or do anything for us. Our Lord wishes his friends to be freed from such an attitude, and thus he removes their support from them so that they must henceforth find their support only in him. For he desires to give them great gifts, solely on account of his goodness, and he shall be their comfort and support while they discover themselves to be and regard themselves as being a pure nothingness in all the great gifts of God. The more essentially and simply the mind rests on God and is sustained by him, the more deeply we are established in God and the more receptive we are to him in all his precious gifts - for human kind should build on God alone. ~ Meister Eckhart,
225:On the value of the renunciation that we should practise inwardly and outwardly. You should know that no one has ever renounced themselves so much in this life that there was nothing left of themselves to renounce. But there are few people who are properly aware of this and who remain constant in their efforts. It is a fair trade and an equal exchange: to the extent that you depart from things, thus far, no more and no less, God enters into you with all that is his, as far as you have stripped yourself of yourself in all things. It is here that you should begin, whatever the cost, for it is here that you will find true peace, and nowhere else. People should not worry so much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works. However holy our works may be, they do not in any way make us holy in so far as they are works, but it is we, in so far as we are holy and possess fulness of being, who sanctify all our works, whether these be eating, sleeping, waking, or anything at all. Little comes from the works of those whose being is slight. This teaches us then that we should make every effort to be good, and should worry not so much about what we do or the character of our actions, but we should be concerned rather about their ground. ~ Meister Eckhart,
226:Concerning this desert, Jeremiah writes: ‘I will lead my beloved into the wilderness and will speak to her in her heart’ (Hosea 2:14) . . . The prophet hungered for this desolate self-abandonment when he said: ‘Who will give me the wings of a dove that I may fly away and be at rest?’ (Psalm 55:6). Where do we find peace and rest? Only in abandonment, in the desert and in isolation from all creatures . . .

Now you could say . . . if all this must be removed, then it is grievous if God allows us to remain without any support. ‘Woe to me that my exile is prolonged’ (Psalm 120:5), as the prophet says, if God prolongs my dereliction without casting his light upon me, speaking to me or working in me, as you are suggesting here. If we thus enter a state of pure nothingness, is it not better that we should do something in order to drive away the darkness and dereliction? Should we not pray or read or listen to a sermon or do something else that is virtuous in order to help ourselves?

No, certainly not! The very best thing you can do is to remain still for as long as possible . . . You cannot think about or desire this preparation more swiftly than God can carry it out . . . You should know that God must pour himself into you and act upon you where he finds you prepared . . . just as the sun must pour itself forth and cannot hold itself back when the air is pure and clean. Certainly, it would be a major failing if God did not perform great works in you, pouring great goodness into you, in so far as he finds you empty and there. ~ Meister Eckhart,
227:the two kinds of repentance. There are two kinds of repentance, one which belongs to time and the senses and another which is supernatural and of God. The temporal kind always draws us downwards into yet greater suffering, plunging us into such distress that it is as if we were already in a state of despair. And so repentance can find no way out of suffering. Nothing comes of this. But the repentance which is of God is very different. As soon as we become ill at ease, we immediately reach up to God and vow with an unshakeable will to turn away from all sin for ever. Thus we raise ourselves up to a great trust in God and gain a great sense of certainty. This brings a spiritual joy that lifts the soul out of her suffering and distress and binds her to God. For the more inadequate and guilty we perceive ourselves to be, the more reason we have to bind ourselves to God with an undivided love, who knows neither sin nor inadequacy. And so if we wish to approach God in complete devotion, the best path that we can follow is to be without sin in the power of that kind of repentance which comes from God. And the greater we feel our sin to be, the more prepared God is to forgive our sin, to enter into the soul and drive sin away. Everyone is keenest to rid themselves of what is most hateful to them, and so the greater and graver our sins, the more God is immeasurably willing and quick to forgive them, since they are hateful to him. And when the repentance which comes from God rises up to him, all our sins vanish more quickly in the abyss of God than the eye can blink, and are eradicated so totally that it is as if they had never existed, provided only that we have perfect contrition. ~ Meister Eckhart,
228:How the temptation to sin always aids our progress. You should know that the impulse to sin always brings great benefit for someone who is righteous. Now listen to this. Imagine two individuals, one of whom is the type of person who experiences little or no temptation while the other is the type who is much troubled by temptation. The mere presence of certain things rouses their outer self so that they are moved to anger, to vanity or to sensuality, according to the nature of the stimulus. But with their higher powers they remain steadfast and unmoved, and determined not to give in to their weakness, whether it be losing their temper or any other sin, and they strongly resist it. Perhaps it is a question of a weakness which is rooted in their own nature, just as certain people are irascible or vain or whatever but do not wish to commit the sin. These are far worthier of praise and deserving of a far greater reward, and are far nobler than the first type, for the perfection of virtue is born in struggle, as St Paul says: ‘virtue is perfected in weakness’ (2 Cor. 12:9). It is not being tempted to sin which is sinful, but consenting to sin; it is wanting to lose your temper which is sinful. In fact, if someone who is in the right state of mind had the power to make the temptation to sin go away, then they would not exercise that power, for without temptation we would be untried in all things and in all that we do, unaware of the dangers of things, and without the honour of battle, victory and reward. The assault and stimulation of vice bring virtue and our struggle’s reward. Temptation makes us work harder in the practice of virtue, and it drives us forcefully into the arms of virtue and is a sharp lash which teaches us vigilance and virtue; for the weaker someone is, the more they should arm themselves with strength and victory, since virtue, like vice, is a matter of the will. ~ Meister Eckhart,
229:What has just been said of the followers of different faiths is even more patent in their mystics. Despite the abrogation of their religions, we do not doubt the possibility of mystics of other faiths reaching a higher spiritual plane, for when the lower soul is negated and sublimated by spiritual disciplines, the powers of the higher soul seldom fail to appear, and it is not impossible that in such a condition it might behold Ultimate Reality, which is, after all, as real and objective as Detroit or anything else in the physical world.

But what a difference between the few hundred Jewish, Christian, or even American Indian mystics of the Western tradition who left any record of their experiences-men and women such as Catherine of Siena, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Francis of Assisi, Moses Cordovero, Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila, John Tauler, Henry Suso, Jakob Böhme, Handsome Lake, Isaac Luria, Julian of Norwich, John of the Cross-and the literally thousands of Sufi masters of the Islamic tradition who founded the great mystical orders, had immense influence for centuries at all levels of society, produced an unparalleled and monumental body of mystic literature in poetry and prose, and left countless adepts in the beatitude of the Divine Presence, a living tradition that continues to this day. What other religion has ever seen a Mathnawi like Rumi’s? There is a tremendous difference between a few outstanding spiritual personalities that appeared at times and places in the West, like occasional watering places scattered across a hinterland, and the throngs of mystics of the Islamic milieu, on a sea of the Divine whose tides flooded regularly.

Not only in the numbers of contemplatives, but in the abidingness of their personal experiences, there is a great difference between the mystics of Islam, who proceeded from the light of true monotheism to a state of perpetual illumination, men such as Sahl al-Tustari, al-Ghawth Abu Madyan, Shams al-Tabrizi, Ibn ‘Arabi, Abul Hasan al-Shadhili, and others whose testimony is unambiguous, and those of other faiths, who through self-mortification caught momentary glimpses of the Godhead in “experiences” they then translated to others in spiritual depositions. ~ Nuh Ha Mim Keller,
230:On the two kinds of certainty of eternal life. In this life there are two kinds of certainty concerning the life which is eternal: the one consists in those occasions when God tells us of it either himself or through an angel or special revelation, although this happens rarely and only to a few. The other kind of knowledge is better and more beneficial and falls frequently to those whose love is perfect. This happens to those whose love for and intimacy with their God is so great that they trust him completely and are so sure of him that they can no longer have any doubts, their certainty being founded on their love for him in all creatures without distinction. And if all creatures were to reject and abjure him, even if God himself were to do so, then they would not cease to trust, for love is not capable of mistrust but can only trust all that is good. And there is no need for anything to be said to either the lover or the beloved, for as soon as God senses that this person is his friend, he immediately knows all that is good for them and that belongs to their well-being. For however devoted you are to him, you may be sure that he is immeasurably more devoted to you and has incomparably more faith in you. For he is faithfulness itself – of this we can be certain as those who love him are certain. This type of certainty is far greater, more perfect and true than the other and it cannot deceive us, while the first kind can be deceptive and can easily be an illusion. Indeed, the second type is experienced in all the faculties of our soul and cannot deceive those who truly love God; indeed they no more doubt it than they doubt God himself, for love drives out all fear. ‘Love knows no fear’ as St John12 (1 John 4:18) says, and it is also written: ‘Love covers a multitude of sins’ (1 Peter 4:8). For where there is sin, there can be neither complete trust nor love, since love completely covers over sins and knows nothing of them. Not in such a way as if we had not sinned, but rather it wipes them away and drives them out, as if they had never existed. For all God’s works are so utterly perfect and overflowing that whoever he forgives, he forgives totally and absolutely, preferring to forgive big sins rather than little ones, all of which creates perfect trust. I hold this kind of knowledge to be incomparably better, more rewarding and more authentic than the other, since neither sin nor anything else can obstruct it. For when God finds people in the same degree of love, then he judges them in the same way, regardless of whether they have sinned greatly or not at all. But those to whom more is forgiven, should have a greater love, as our Lord Jesus Christ said: ‘They to whom more is forgiven must love more’ (Luke 7:47). ~ Meister Eckhart,
231:How we should perform our works in the most rational way. There are many people (and we can ourselves easily be among them, if we wish) who are not impeded by those things with which they come into contact and in whom such things do not create a permanent image; for creatures can neither have nor find a resting place in a heart which is filled with God. But we should not rest content with this: we should also derive great profit from all things, whatever they may be, wherever we may be, whatever we see or hear and however alien and strange to us they are. It is then, and only then, that we are in the right state of mind. And no one can ever come to the end of this process, but rather we should grow in it without end and come to achieve ever more. We should make good use of our reason in all our works and in all things and have a clear understanding of ourselves and our inner nature, grasping God in all things and in the highest possible manner. For we should be as our Lord told us: ‘You should be like those who at all times watch and wait for their Lord’ (Luke 12:36). Truly, such vigilant people are alert and on the watch for their Lord for whom they wait; they look to see if he is not by chance concealed in what befalls them, however strange it may be to them. So we too should consciously look out for our Lord in all things. This demands much effort, and must cost us all that our senses and faculties are capable of. But this is the right thing for us to do, so that we grasp God in the same way in all things and find him equally everywhere. Works are different in kind, but whatever is done in the same spirit will be of equal value. For those who are in the right frame of mind, and for whom God has become their own, God will truly shine out just as clearly from their worldly acts as he does from their most sacred ones. But of course this is not to be understood as meaning that we should do things which are either worldly or wrong, but rather that we should offer to God whatever we see or hear of things in the world. Only those for whom God is present in all things and who make the very best use of their reason, know what true peace is and truly possess heaven. For those who want to achieve this, one of two things must always happen: either they must learn to grasp and to hold God in what they do, or they must stop doing things altogether. But since we cannot abandon all activity in this life, which is part of being human and which takes so many different forms, we must learn to possess God in all things, while remaining free in all that we do and wherever we are. Thus, if the beginner is to achieve something in company, then he or she must first enlist God’s help, fixing him firmly in their hearts and uniting all their intentions, thoughts, desires and faculties with him so that nothing else can take form in them. ~ Meister Eckhart,
232:Concerning sin and our proper attitude when we find ourselves in sin. Truly, to have committed a sin is not sinful if we regret what we have done. Indeed, not for anything in time or eternity should we want to commit a sin, neither of a mortal, venial or any other kind. Whoever knows the ways of God should always be mindful of the fact that God, who is faithful and loving, has led us from a sinful life into a godly one, thus making friends of us who were previously enemies, which is a greater achievement even than making a new earth. This is one of the chief reasons why we should be wholly established in God, and it is astonishing how much this inflames us with so great and so strong a love that we strip ourselves entirely of ourselves. Indeed, if you are rightly placed in the will of God, then you should not wish that the sin into which you fell had not happened. Of course, this is not the case because sin was something against God but, precisely because it was something against God, you were bound by it to greater love, you were humbled and brought low. And you should trust God that he would not have allowed it to happen unless he intended it to be for your profit. But when we raise ourselves out of sin and turn away from it, then God in his faithfulness acts as if we had never fallen into sin at all and he does not punish us for our sins for a single moment, even if they are as great as the sum of all the sins that have ever been committed. God will not make us suffer on their account, but he can enjoy with us all the intimacy that he ever had with a creature. If he finds that we are now ready, then he does not consider what we were before. God is a God of the present. He takes you and receives you as he finds you now, not as you have been, but as you are now. God willingly endures all the harm and shame which all our sins have ever inflicted upon him, as he has already done for many years, in order that we should come to a deep knowledge of his love and in order that our love and our gratitude should increase and our zeal grow more intense, which often happens when we have repented of our sins. Therefore God willingly tolerates the hurtfulness of sin and has often done so in the past, most frequently allowing it to come upon those whom he has chosen to raise up to greatness. Now listen! Was there ever anyone dearer to or more intimate with our Lord than the apostles? And yet not one of them escaped mortal sin. They all committed mortal sin. He showed this time and again in the Old and New Testament in those individuals who were to become the closest to him by far; and even today we rarely find that people achieve great things without first going astray. And thus our Lord intends to teach us of his great mercy, urging us to great and true humility and devotion. For, when repentance is renewed, then love too is renewed and grows strong. ~ Meister Eckhart,
233:On true penance and the holy life. Many people think that they are achieving great things in external works such as fasting, going barefoot and other such practices which are called penances. But true penance, and the best kind of penance, is that whereby we can improve ourselves greatly and in the highest measure, and this consists in turning entirely away from all that is not God or of God in ourselves and in all creatures, and in turning fully and completely towards our beloved God in an unshakeable love so that our devotion and desire for him become great. In whatever kind of good work you possess this the more, the more righteous you are, and the more there is of this, the truer the penance and the more it expunges sin and all its punishment. Indeed, in a short space of time you could turn so firmly away from all sin with such revulsion, turning just as firmly to God, that had you committed all the sins since Adam and all those which are still to be, you would be forgiven each and every one together with their punishment and, were you then to die, you would be brought before the face of God. This is true penance, and it is based especially and consummately on the precious suffering in the perfect penance of our Lord Jesus. Christ The more we share13 in this, the more all sin falls away from us, together with the punishment for sin. In all that we do and at all times we should accustom ourselves to sharing in the life and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, in all that he did and chose not to do, in all that he suffered and experienced, and we should be always mindful of him as he was of us. This form of penance is a mind raised above all things into God, and you should freely practise those kinds of works in which you find that you can and do possess this the most. If any external work hampers you in this, whether it be fasting, keeping vigil, reading or whatever else, you should freely let it go without worrying that you might thereby be neglecting your penance. For God does not notice the nature of the works but only the love, the devotion and the spirit which is in them. For he is not so much concerned with our works as with the spirit with which we perform them all and that we should love him in all things. They for whom God is not enough are greedy. The reward for all your works should be that they are known to God and that you seek God in them. Let this always be enough for you. The more purely and simply you seek him, the more effectively all your works will atone for your sins. You could also call to mind the fact that God was a universal redeemer of the world, and that I owe him far greater thanks therefore than if he had redeemed me alone. And so you too should be the universal redeemer of all that you have spoiled in yourself through sin, and you should commend yourself altogether to him with all that you have done, for you have spoiled through sin all that is yours: heart, senses, body, soul, faculties, and whatever else there is in you and about you. All is sick and spoiled. Flee to him then in whom there is no fault but rather all goodness, so that he may be a universal redeemer for all the corruption both of your life within and your life in the world. ~ Meister Eckhart,
234:On undetached people who are full of self-will.4 People say: ‘O Lord, I wish that I stood as well with God and that I had as much devotion and peace with God as other people, and that I could be like them or could be as poor as they are.’ Or they say: ‘It never works for me unless I am in this or that particular place and do this or that particular thing. I must go to somewhere remote or live in a hermitage or a monastery.’ Truly, it is you who are the cause of this yourself, and nothing else. It is your own self-will, even if you don’t know it or this doesn’t seem to you to be the case. The lack of peace that you feel can only come from your own self-will, whether you are aware of this or not. Whatever we think – that we should avoid certain things and seek out others, whether these be places or people, particular forms of devotion, this group of people or this kind of activity – these are not to blame for the fact that you are held back by devotional practices and by things; rather it is you as you exist in these things who hold yourself back, for you do not stand in the proper relation to them. Start with yourself therefore and take leave of yourself. Truly, if you do not depart from yourself, then wherever you take refuge, you will find obstacles and unrest, wherever it may be. Those who seek peace in external things, whether in places or devotional practices, people or works, in withdrawal from the world or poverty or self-abasement: however great these things may be or whatever their character, they are still nothing at all and cannot be the source of peace. Those who seek in this way, seek wrongly, and the farther they range, the less they find what they are looking for. They proceed like someone who has lost their way: the farther they go, the more lost they become. But what then should they do? First of all, they should renounce themselves, and then they will have renounced all things. Truly, if someone were to renounce a kingdom or the whole world while still holding on to themselves, then they would have renounced nothing at all. And indeed, if someone renounces themselves, then whatever they might keep, whether it be a kingdom or honour or whatever it may be, they will still have renounced all things. St Peter said, ‘See, Lord, we have left everything’ (Matt. 19:27), when he had left nothing more than a mere net and his little boat, and a saint5 comments that whoever willingly renounces what is small, renounces not only this but also everything which worldly people can possess or indeed even desire. Whoever renounces their own will and their own self, renounces all things as surely as if all things were in that person’s possession to do with as they pleased, for what you do not wish to desire, you have given over and given up to God. Therefore our Lord said, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ (Matt. 5:3), which is to say those who are poor in will. Let no one be in any doubt about this: if there were a better way, then our Lord would have told us, who said, ‘If anyone would follow me, he must first deny himself’ (Matt 16:24). This is the point which counts. Examine yourself, and wherever you find yourself, then take leave of yourself. This is the best way of all. ~ Meister Eckhart,
235:How we can appropriately enjoy good food, fine clothes and cheerful company as these come our way in the natural course of things. You should not worry yourself about food or clothing, feeling that these things are too good for you, but train your mind and the ground of your being to be above them. Nothing should rouse your mind to love and delight but God alone. It should be above all other things. Why? It would be a sickly form of inwardness which needed to be put right by external clothing; rather, as long as it is under your control, what is inside should correct what is outside. And if the latter comes to you in a different form, then you should accept it as being good from the ground of your being, but in such a way that you would accept it just as willingly if it were different again. It is just the same with the food, the friends and relatives and with everything that God may give you or take from you. And so in my view the most important thing of all is that we should give ourselves up entirely to God whenever he allows anything to befall us, whether insult, tribulation or any other kind of suffering, accepting it with joy and gratitude and allowing God to guide us all the more rather than seeking these things out ourselves. Willingly learn all things from God therefore and follow him, and all will be well with you. Then we will be able to accept honour and comfort, and if dishonour and discomfort were to be our lot, we could and would be just as willing to endure these too. So they can justifiably feast who would just as willingly fast.15 And that must also be the reason why God relieves his friends of both major and minor suffering, which otherwise his infinite faithfulness could not allow him to do, for there is so much and such great benefit in suffering and he neither wishes nor ought to deny his own anything which is good. But he is content with a good and upright will, or else he would spare them no suffering on account of the inexpressible benefit which it contains. As long as God is content, you too should be content, and when it is something else in you which pleases him, then you should still be content. For we should be so totally God’s possession inwardly with the whole of our will that we should not be unduly concerned about either devotional practices or works. And in particular you should avoid all particularity, whether in the form of clothes, food or words – as in making grand speeches, or particularity of gesture, since these things serve no useful purpose at all. But you should also know that not every form of particularity is forbidden to you. There is much that is particular which we must sometimes do and with many people, for whoever is a particular person must also express particularity on many occasions and in many ways. We should have grown into our Lord Jesus Christ inwardly and in all things so that all his works are reflected in us together with his divine image. We should bear in ourselves all his works in a perfect likeness as far as we can. Though we are the agents of our actions, it is he who should take form in them. So act out of the whole of your devotion and your intent, training your mind in this at all times and teaching yourself to grow into him in all that you do. ~ Meister Eckhart,
236:O soaring eagle! darling lamb! O glowing spark! Set me on fire! How long must I endure this thirst? One hour is already too long, A day is as a thousand years When Thou art absent! Should this continue for eight days I would rather go down to Hell -- (Where indeed I already am!) Than that God should hide Himself From the loving soul; For that were anguish greater than human death, Pain beyond all pain. The nightingale must ever sing Because its nature is love; Whoso would take that from it Would bring it death. Ah! Mighty Lord! Look on my need! Then the Holy Spirit spoke to the soul -- "Come, noble maid! Prepare thyself, Thy Lover comes!" Startled but inwardly rejoicing She said: "Welcome, faithful messenger, Would that it were ever so! I am so evil and so faithless That I can find no peace of mind Apart from my Love. The moment it seems that I cool But a little from love of Him, Then am I in deep distress And can do nothing but seek for Him lamenting." Then the messenger spoke: "Thou must purify thyself, Sprinkle the dust with water, Scatter flowers in thy room." And the exiled soul replied: "When I purify, I blush, When I sprinkle, I weep, When I pray, then must I hope, When I gather flowers, I love. When my Lord comes I am beside myself For there cometh with Him such sweet melody That all carnal desire dieth within me: And His sweet music puts far from me All sorrow of heart. The mighty voice of the Godhead Has spoken to me in powerful words Which I have received With the dull hearing of my misery -- A light of utmost splendor Glows on the eyes of my soul Therein have I seen the inexpressible ordering Of all things, and recognized God's unspeakable glory -- That incomprehensible wonder -- The tender caress between God and the soul, The sufficiency in the Highest, Discipline and understanding, Realization with withdrawal, According to the power of the senses, The unmingled joy of union, The living love of Eternity As it now is and evermore shall be." Then were seen four rays of light Which shot forth all at once From the noble crossbow of the Trinity From the Divine Throne through the nine Choirs. There none is so poor nor so rich That he is not met by Love; The rays of the Godhead illuminate him With inconceivable light; The humanity of the Son greets him In brotherly love; The Holy Spirit flows through him With the miraculous creative power Of everlasting joy! The undivided Godhead welcomes him With the glory of His Divine Countenance And fills him with the blessedness Of His life-giving breath. Love flows from God to man without effort As a bird glides through the air Without moving its wings -- Thus they go whithersoever they will United in body and soul Yet in their form separate -- As the Godhead strikes the note Humanity sings, The Holy Spirit is the harpist And all the strings must sound Which are strung in love. There was also seen That sublime vessel In which Christ dwelt nine months on earth In soul and body, As it ever shall remain Only without the great glory Which at the last day The heavenly Father will give to all The bodies of the redeemed. This our Lady must also lack So long as the earth floats above the sea. [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell

~ Mechthild of Magdeburg, Of the voices of the Godhead
,

IN CHAPTERS [19/19]



   7 Psychology
   7 Occultism
   5 Poetry
   1 Philosophy


   9 Carl Jung
   5 Mechthild of Magdeburg
   2 Ken Wilber


   5 Mysterium Coniunctionis
   2 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
   2 Sex Ecology Spirituality
   2 Aion


1.03 - The Desert, #The Red Book Liber Novus, #unset, #Integral Yoga
  Chinese texts and by Meister Eckhart, was that of allowing psychic events to happen of their own accord: "Letting things happen, the action through non-action, the 'letting go of oneself' of
   Meister Eckhart, became the key for me that succeeded in opening the door to the way: One must be able to psychically let things happen" (CW I3, 20).

1.07 - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
  I have elsewhere given preliminary descriptions of the deep structures (and pathologies) of each of these four major stages.22 Instead of repeating myself, I have for this presentation simply chosen four individuals who are especially representative of these stages, and will let them speak for us. They are (respectively) Ralph Waldo Emerson, Saint Teresa of Avila, Meister Eckhart, and Sri Ramana Maharshi. Each also represents the type of mysticism typical at each stage: nature mysticism, deity mysticism, formless mysticism, and nondual mysticism (each of which we will discuss).
  And each represents a form of tomorrow, a shape of our destiny yet to come. Each rode time's arrow ahead of us, as geniuses always do, and thus, even though looming out of our past, they call to us from our future.

1.08 - The Depths of the Divine, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
  In the subtle level, the Soul and God unite; in the causal level, the Soul and God are both transcended in the prior identity of Godhead, or pure formless awareness, pure consciousness as such, the pure Self as pure Spirit (Atman = Brahman). No longer the "Supreme Union" of God and Soul, but the "Supreme Identity" of Godhead. As Meister Eckhart put it, "I find in this breakthrough that God and I are one and the same."
  As we will see, this pure formless Spirit is said to be the Goal and Summit and Source of all manifestation. And that is the causal.
  --
  I have chosen Meister Eckhart and Sri Ramana Maharshi to illustrate both of these "stages" (causal and nondual), since we find in both of them not only a breakthrough to the causal, but also through the causal to the ultimate or Nondual, and as inadequate and misleading as words here invariably are, at least an indication of these two "movements" can be clearly and unmistakably discerned in both of these extraordinary sages.
  Sri Ramana Maharshi (echoing Shankara) summarizes the "viewpoint" of the ultimate or Nondual realization:

1.13 - Gnostic Symbols of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  magnetically attracted. That is why Meister Eckhart uses the
  same symbolism to describe Adam's relation to the Creator on
  --
  3 01 Meister Eckhart's theology knows a "Godhead" of which no
  qualities, except unity and being, 26 can be predicated; 27 it "is
  --
  32 The world-embracing spirit of Meister Eckhart knew, with-
  out discursive knowledge, the primordial mystical experience of
  --
  of the East and, as we have seen, Meister Eckhart in the West
  both bear witness to this.
  --
  vitae, the "little spark of the soul" in Meister Eckhart, 140 which
  we meet with rather early in the teachings of Saturninus. 141

1.14 - Bibliography, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  Meerpohl, Franz. Meister Eckharts Lehre vom Seelenfiinklein.
  (Abhandlungen zur Philologie und Psychologie der Religion, 10.)

1.mm - In pride I so easily lost Thee, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
   English version by Lucy Menzies Original Language German In pride I so easily lost Thee -- But now the more deeply I sink The more sweetly I drink Of Thee! [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell <
1.mm - Of the voices of the Godhead, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
   English version by Lucy Menzies Original Language German O soaring eagle! darling lamb! O glowing spark! Set me on fire! How long must I endure this thirst? One hour is already too long, A day is as a thousand years When Thou art absent! Should this continue for eight days I would rather go down to Hell -- (Where indeed I already am!) Than that God should hide Himself From the loving soul; For that were anguish greater than human death, Pain beyond all pain. The nightingale must ever sing Because its nature is love; Whoso would take that from it Would bring it death. Ah! Mighty Lord! Look on my need! Then the Holy Spirit spoke to the soul -- "Come, noble maid! Prepare thyself, Thy Lover comes!" Startled but inwardly rejoicing She said: "Welcome, faithful messenger, Would that it were ever so! I am so evil and so faithless That I can find no peace of mind Apart from my Love. The moment it seems that I cool But a little from love of Him, Then am I in deep distress And can do nothing but seek for Him lamenting." Then the messenger spoke: "Thou must purify thyself, Sprinkle the dust with water, Scatter flowers in thy room." And the exiled soul replied: "When I purify, I blush, When I sprinkle, I weep, When I pray, then must I hope, When I gather flowers, I love. When my Lord comes I am beside myself For there cometh with Him such sweet melody That all carnal desire dieth within me: And His sweet music puts far from me All sorrow of heart. The mighty voice of the Godhead Has spoken to me in powerful words Which I have received With the dull hearing of my misery -- A light of utmost splendor Glows on the eyes of my soul Therein have I seen the inexpressible ordering Of all things, and recognized God's unspeakable glory -- That incomprehensible wonder -- The tender caress between God and the soul, The sufficiency in the Highest, Discipline and understanding, Realization with withdrawal, According to the power of the senses, The unmingled joy of union, The living love of Eternity As it now is and evermore shall be." Then were seen four rays of light Which shot forth all at once From the noble crossbow of the Trinity From the Divine Throne through the nine Choirs. There none is so poor nor so rich That he is not met by Love; The rays of the Godhead illuminate him With inconceivable light; The humanity of the Son greets him In brotherly love; The Holy Spirit flows through him With the miraculous creative power Of everlasting joy! The undivided Godhead welcomes him With the glory of His Divine Countenance And fills him with the blessedness Of His life-giving breath. Love flows from God to man without effort As a bird glides through the air Without moving its wings -- Thus they go whithersoever they will United in body and soul Yet in their form separate -- As the Godhead strikes the note Humanity sings, The Holy Spirit is the harpist And all the strings must sound Which are strung in love. There was also seen That sublime vessel In which Christ dwelt nine months on earth In soul and body, As it ever shall remain Only without the great glory Which at the last day The heavenly Father will give to all The bodies of the redeemed. This our Lady must also lack So long as the earth floats above the sea. [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell <
1.mm - The devil also offers his spirit, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
   English version by Lucy Menzies Original Language German The devil also offers his spirit To those who in hatred and proud desire Are ready for the worst. Such know not that love leads to all good, They become poor from hatred And the fury of the devil, So that it becomes impossible They should ever again find or follow The love of God. True love praises God constantly; Longing love gives the pure heart sweet sorrow; Seeking love belongs to itself alone; Understanding love loves all in common; Enlightening love is mingled and sadness; Selfless love bears fruit without effort; It functions so quietly That the body knows nothing of it. Clear love is still, in God alone, Seeing that both have one will And there is no creature so noble That it can hinder them. This is written by Knowledge Out of the everlasting book. Gold is often heavily flecked by copper, Just as falseness and vain honor Blot out virtue from the human soul. The ignoble soul to whom passing things are so dear That it never trembled before Love Never heard God speak lovingly in it -- Alas! to such this life is darkness! [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell <
1.mm - Wouldst thou know my meaning?, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
   English version by Lucy Menzies Original Language German Wouldst thou know my meaning? Lie down in the Fire See and taste the Flowing Godhead through thy being; Feel the Holy Spirit Moving and compelling Thee within the Flowing Fire and Light of God. [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell <
1.mm - Yea! I shall drink from Thee, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
   English version by Lucy Menzies Original Language German Yea! I shall drink from Thee And Thou shalt drink from me All the good God has preserved in us. Blessed is he who is so firmly established here That he may never spill out What God has poured into him. [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell <
2.00 - BIBLIOGRAPHY, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
  . Meister Eckhart, A Modern Translation. By R. B. Blakney (New York, 1941).
  EVANS-WENTZ, W. Y. The Tibetan Book of the Dead (New York, 1927).

2.02 - THE SCINTILLA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  ,55 scintilla, the little soul-spark of Meister Eckhart.56 We find it already in the teachings of Saturninus.57 Similarly Heraclitus, the physicist, is said to have conceived the soul as a spark of stellar essence.58 Hippolytus says that in the doctrine of the Sethians the darkness held the brightness and the spark of light in thrall,59 and that this smallest of sparks was finely mingled in the dark waters60 below.61 Simon Magus62 likewise teaches that in semen and milk there is a very small spark which increases and becomes a power63 boundless and immutable.64
  [43] Alchemy, too, has its doctrine of the scintilla. In the first place it is the fiery centre of the earth, where the four elements project their seed in ceaseless movement. For all things have their origin in this source, and nothing in the whole world is born save from this source. In the centre dwells the Archaeus, the servant of nature, whom Paracelsus also calls Vulcan, identifying him with the Adech, the great man.65 The Archaeus, the creative centre of the earth, is hermaphroditic like the Protanthropos, as is clear from the epilogue to the Novum lumen of Sendivogius: When a man is illuminated by the light of nature, the mist vanishes from his eyes, and without difficulty he may behold the point of our magnet, which corresponds to both centres of the rays, that is, those of the sun and the earth. This cryptic sentence is elucidated by the following example: When you place a twelve-year-old boy side by side with a girl of the same age, and dressed the same, you cannot distinguish between them. But take their clothes off66 and the difference will become apparent.67 According to this, the centre consists in a conjunction of male and female. This is confirmed in a text by Abraham Eleazar,68 where the arcane substance laments being in the state of nigredo:

2.03 - THE ENIGMA OF BOLOGNA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  [102] In conclusion, I would like to mention one more document that seems relevant to our context, and that is the anecdote about Meister Eckharts daughter:
  A daughter came to the Dominican convent asking for Meister Eckhart. The porter said, Who shall I tell him? She answered, I do not know. Why do you not know? he inquired. Because, she said, I am neither virgin nor spouse, nor man nor wife nor widow nor lady nor lord nor wench nor thrall. The porter went off to Meister Eckhart. Do come out, he said, to the strangest wight that ever I heard, and let me come too and put your head out and say, Who is asking for me? He did so. She said to him what she had said to the porter. Quoth he, My child, thou hast a shrewd and ready tongue, I prithee now thy meaning? An I were a virgin, she replied, I were in my first innocence; spouse, I were bearing the eternal word within my soul unceasingly; were I a man I should grapple with my faults; wife, should be faithful to my husband. Were I a widow I should be ever yearning for my one and only love; as lady I should render fearful homage; as wench I should be living in meek servitude to God and to all creatures; and as thrall I should be working hard, doing my best tamely to serve my master. Of all these things I am no single one, and am the one thing and the other running thither. The Master went away and told his pupils, I have been listening to the most perfect person I ween I ever met.258
  [103] This story is more than two hundred years older than the earliest reference to the Aelia inscription, and therefore, if there is any literary influence at all, it could at most be derived from Mathieu de Vendme, which seems to me just as unlikely as that Meister Eckharts vision of the naked boy was derived from the classical puer aeternus. In both cases we are confronted with a significant archetype, in the first that of the divine maiden (anima), in the second that of the divine child (the self).259 As we know, these primordial images can rise up anywhere at any time quite spontaneously, without the least evidence of any external tradition. This story could just as well have been a visionary rumour as a fantasy of Meister Eckhart or of one of his pupils. It is, however, rather too peculiar to have been a real happening. But occasionally reality is quite as archetypal as human fantasy, and sometimes the soul seems to imagine things outside the body,260 where they fall to playing, as they do in our dreams.

3.05 - SAL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
   the desert and the wilderness. Everyone who becomes conscious of even a fraction of his unconscious gets outside his own time and social stratum into a kind of solitude, as our text remarks. But only there is it possible to meet the god of salvation. Light is manifest in the darkness, and out of danger the rescue comes. In his sermon on Luke 19: 12 Meister Eckhart says: And who can be nobler than the man who is born half of the highest and best the world has to offer, and half of the innermost ground of Gods nature and Gods loneliness? Therefore the Lord speaks in the prophet Hosea: I will lead the noble souls into the wilderness, and speak into their hearts. One with the One, One from the One, and in the One itself the One, eternally!473
  [259] I have gone into this Hippolytus text at some length because the Red Sea was of special significance to the alchemists. Sermo LXII of the Turba mentions the Tyrian dye, which is extracted from our most pure Red Sea. It is the parallel of the tinctura philosophorum, which is described as black and is extracted from the sea.474 The old treatise Rosinus ad Euthiciam says: And know that our Red Sea is more tincturing than all seas, and that the poison,475 when it is cooked and becomes foul and discoloured, penetrates all bodies.476 The tincture is the dip and the baptismal water of the alchemists, here asserted to come from the Red Sea. This idea is understandable in view of the patristic and Gnostic interpretation of the Red Sea as the blood of Christ in which we are baptized; hence the paralleling of the tincture, salt, and aqua pontica with blood.477

4.04 - THE REGENERATION OF THE KING, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  [379] In Ripleys case there is the more immediate possibility that he modified for his own purpose the conception of the Ancient of Days and his youthful son the Logos, who in the visions of Valentinus the Gnostic and of Meister Eckhart was a small boy. These concepts are closely related to those of Dionysus, youngest of the gods, and of the Horus-child, Harpocrates, Aion, etc. All naturally imply the renewal of the ageing god. The step from the world of Christian ideas back into paganism is not a long one,87 and the naturalistic conclusion that the father dwindles when the son appears, or that he is rejuvenated in the son, is implicit in all these age-old conceptions, whose effect is all the stronger the more they are consciously denied. Such a combination of ideas is almost to be expected in a cleric like Ripley, even though, like all alchemists, he may not have been conscious of their full import.
  [380] Verses 1112
  --
  [444] In the face of all this one is driven to the conjecture that medieval alchemy, which evolved out of the Arabic tradition sometime in the thirteenth century, and whose most eloquent witness is the Aurora consurgens, was in the last resort a continuation of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, which never came to very much in the Church.244 The Paraclete descends upon the single individual, who is thereby drawn into the Trinitarian process.245 And if the spirit of procreation and life indwells in man, then God can be born in hima thought that has not perished since the time of Meister Eckhart.246 The verses of Angelus Silesius are in this respect quite unequivocal:
  If by Gods Holy Ghost thou art beguiled,
  --
  [447] Perhaps the most eloquent witness to this spirit was Meister Eckhart, with his idea of the birth of the son in human individuals and the resultant affiliation of man to God.248 Part of this spirit was realized in Protestantism, another part was intuited by the mystics who succeeded Boehme, in particular by Angelus Silesius, who quite literally perished in the work. He advanced even beyond Protestantism to an attitude of mind that would have needed the support of Indian or Chinese philosophy and would therefore not have been possible until the end of the nineteenth century at the earliest. In his own age Angelus could only wither away unrecognized, and this was the tragedy that befell him. A third part took shape in the empirical sciences that developed independently of all authority, and a fourth appropriated to itself the religious philosophies of the East and transplanted them with varying degrees of skill and taste in the West.
  [448] No thinking person will wish to claim that the present state of affairs represents a durable end-state. On the contrary, everyone is convinced that the tempo of change and transition has speeded up immeasurably. Everything has become fragmented and dissolved, and it is impossible to see how a higher synthesis could take place in any of the spiritual organizations that still survive without their having to be modified to an almost intolerable degree. One of the greatest obstacles to such a synthesis is sectarianism, which is always right and displays no tolerance, picking and fomenting quarrels for the holiest of reasons in order to set itself up in the place of religion and brand anyone who thinks differently as a lost sheep, if nothing worse. But have any human beings the right to totalitarian claims? This claim, certainly, is so morally dangerous that we would do better to leave its fulfilment to Almighty God rather than presume to be little gods ourselves at the expense of our fellow-men.

5 - The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  8 Cf. the vision of the "naked boy" in Meister Eckhart (trans, by Evans, I, p. 438).
  9 I would remind the reader of the "boys" in Bruno Goetz's novel Das Reich ohne

6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  [Eckhart, Meister.] Meister Eckhart. By Franz Pfeiffer. Translated
  by C. de B. Evans. London, 1924-52. 2 vols.

6.10 - THE SELF AND THE BOUNDS OF KNOWLEDGE, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  [782] Nothing provides a better demonstration of the extreme uncertainty of metaphysical assertions than their diversity. But it would be completely wrong to assume that they are altogether worthless. For in the end it has to be explained why such assertions are made at all. There must be some reason for this. Somehow men feel impelled to make transcendental statements. Why this should be so is a matter for dispute. We only know that in genuine cases it is not a question of arbitrary inventions but of involuntary numinous experiences which happen to a man and provide the basis for religious assertions and convictions. Therefore, at the source of the great confessional religions as well as of many smaller mystical movements we find individual historical personalities whose lives were distinguished by numinous experiences. Numerous investigations of such experiences have convinced me that previously unconscious contents then break through into consciousness and overwhelm it in the same way as do the invasions of the unconscious in pathological cases accessible to psychiatric observation. Even Jesus, according to Mark 3 : 21,237 appeared to his followers in that light. The significant difference, however, between merely pathological cases and inspired personalities is that sooner or later the latter find an extensive following and can therefore transmit their effect down the centuries. The fact that the long-lasting effect exerted by the founders of the great religions is due quite as much to their overwhelming spiritual personality, their exemplary life, and their ethical self-commitment does not affect the present discussion. Personality is only one root of success, and there were and always will be genuine religious personalities to whom success is denied. One has only to think of Meister Eckhart. But, if they do meet with success, this only proves that the truth they utter hits on a consensus of opinion, that they are talking of something that is in the air and is spoken from the heart for their followers too. This, as we know to our cost, applies to good and evil alike, to the true as well as the untrue.
  [783] The wise man who is not heeded is counted a fool, and the fool who proclaims the general folly first and loudest passes for a prophet and Fhrer, and sometimes it is luckily the other way round as well, or else mankind would long since have perished of stupidity.

Blazing P3 - Explore the Stages of Postconventional Consciousness, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
  Norwich), sages (e.g., Lao Tzu, Al-Gahzzali, Judah Loew, Meister Eckhart), and spiritual
  guides (e.g., Ramana Maharshi, Brother Lawrence, Patanjali). Esoteric traditions maintain

WORDNET



--- Overview of noun meister_eckhart

The noun meister eckhart has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
              
1. Eckhart, Johannes Eckhart, Meister Eckhart ::: (German Roman Catholic theologian and mystic (1260-1327))


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun meister_eckhart

1 sense of meister eckhart                      

Sense 1
Eckhart, Johannes Eckhart, Meister Eckhart
   INSTANCE OF=> theologian, theologist, theologizer, theologiser
     => scholar, scholarly person, bookman, student
       => intellectual, intellect
         => person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
           => organism, being
             => living thing, animate thing
               => whole, unit
                 => object, physical object
                   => physical entity
                     => entity
           => causal agent, cause, causal agency
             => physical entity
               => entity
   INSTANCE OF=> mystic, religious mystic
     => believer, worshiper, worshipper
       => religious person
         => person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
           => organism, being
             => living thing, animate thing
               => whole, unit
                 => object, physical object
                   => physical entity
                     => entity
           => causal agent, cause, causal agency
             => physical entity
               => entity


--- Hyponyms of noun meister_eckhart
                                    


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun meister_eckhart

1 sense of meister eckhart                      

Sense 1
Eckhart, Johannes Eckhart, Meister Eckhart
   INSTANCE OF=> theologian, theologist, theologizer, theologiser
   INSTANCE OF=> mystic, religious mystic




--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun meister_eckhart

1 sense of meister eckhart                      

Sense 1
Eckhart, Johannes Eckhart, Meister Eckhart
  -> theologian, theologist, theologizer, theologiser
   => Church Father, Father of the Church, Father
   => Doctor of the Church, Doctor
   => eschatologist
   => futurist
   => presentist
   => preterist
   HAS INSTANCE=> Abelard, Peter Abelard, Pierre Abelard
   HAS INSTANCE=> Ambrose, Saint Ambrose, St. Ambrose
   HAS INSTANCE=> Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas, Saint Thomas, St. Thomas, Saint Thomas Aquinas, St. Thomas Aquinas
   HAS INSTANCE=> Arius
   HAS INSTANCE=> Arminius, Jacobus Arminius, Jacob Harmensen, Jakob Hermandszoon
   HAS INSTANCE=> Arnold of Brescia
   HAS INSTANCE=> Athanasius, Saint Athanasius, St. Athanasius, Athanasius the Great
   HAS INSTANCE=> Augustine, Saint Augustine, St. Augustine, Augustine of Hippo
   HAS INSTANCE=> Barth, Karl Barth
   HAS INSTANCE=> Basil, St. Basil, Basil of Caesarea, Basil the Great, St. Basil the Great
   HAS INSTANCE=> Bede, Saint Bede, St. Bede, Baeda, Saint Baeda, St. Baeda, Beda, Saint Beda, St. Beda, the Venerable Bede
   HAS INSTANCE=> Bellarmine, Bellarmino, Cardinal Bellarmine, Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmine
   HAS INSTANCE=> Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
   HAS INSTANCE=> Bultmann, Rudolf Bultmann, Rudolf Karl Bultmann
   HAS INSTANCE=> Calvin, John Calvin, Jean Cauvin, Jean Caulvin, Jean Chauvin
   HAS INSTANCE=> Duns Scotus, John Duns Scotus
   HAS INSTANCE=> Eck, Johann Eck, Johann Maier Eck, Johann Maier
   HAS INSTANCE=> Eckhart, Johannes Eckhart, Meister Eckhart
   HAS INSTANCE=> Edwards, Jonathan Edwards
   HAS INSTANCE=> Erasmus, Desiderius Erasmus, Gerhard Gerhards, Geert Geerts
   HAS INSTANCE=> Gregory, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nazianzen, St. Gregory of Nazianzen
   HAS INSTANCE=> Hooker, Richard Hooker
   HAS INSTANCE=> Hopkins, Mark Hopkins
   HAS INSTANCE=> Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Loyola
   HAS INSTANCE=> Jansen, Cornelis Jansen, Cornelius Jansenius
   HAS INSTANCE=> Jerome, Saint Jerome, St. Jerome, Hieronymus, Eusebius Hieronymus, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus
   HAS INSTANCE=> John Chrysostom, St. John Chrysostom
   HAS INSTANCE=> Knox, John Knox
   HAS INSTANCE=> Luther, Martin Luther
   HAS INSTANCE=> Melanchthon, Philipp Melanchthon, Philipp Schwarzerd
   HAS INSTANCE=> Newman, John Henry Newman, Cardinal Newman
   HAS INSTANCE=> Niebuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr
   HAS INSTANCE=> Origen
   HAS INSTANCE=> Pusey, Edward Pusey, Edward Bouverie Pusey
   HAS INSTANCE=> Socinus, Faustus Socinus, Fausto Paolo Sozzini
   HAS INSTANCE=> Swedenborg, Svedberg, Emanuel Swedenborg, Emanuel Svedberg
   HAS INSTANCE=> Tertullian, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus
   HAS INSTANCE=> Tillich, Paul Tillich, Paul Johannes Tillich
   HAS INSTANCE=> Watts, Isaac Watts
   HAS INSTANCE=> Wycliffe, John Wycliffe, Wickliffe, John Wickliffe, Wyclif, John Wyclif, Wiclif, John Wiclif
   HAS INSTANCE=> Zinzendorf, Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
   HAS INSTANCE=> Zwingli, Ulrich Zwingli, Huldreich Zwingli
  -> mystic, religious mystic
   HAS INSTANCE=> Buddha, Siddhartha, Gautama, Gautama Siddhartha, Gautama Buddha
   HAS INSTANCE=> Chuang-tzu
   => quietist
   HAS INSTANCE=> Boehme, Jakob Boehme, Bohme, Jakob Bohme, Boehm, Jakob Boehm, Behmen, Jakob Behmen
   HAS INSTANCE=> Eckhart, Johannes Eckhart, Meister Eckhart




--- Grep of noun meister_eckhart
meister eckhart



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