Meister Eckhart, from Whom God Hid Nothing: Sermons, Writings, and Sayings
160
Meister Eckhart, from Whom God Hid Nothing: Sermons, Writings, and Sayings
160eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780834826397 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Shambhala |
| Publication date: | 12/13/2005 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Sales rank: | 739,815 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
1
What is truth? Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep to the truth and let God go.
2
Meister Eckhart said that no person in this life may reach the point at which he can be excused from outward service. Even if he is given to a life of contemplation, still he cannot refrain from going out and taking an active part in life. Even as a person who has nothing at all may still be generous for his will to give, another may have great wealth and not be generous because he gives nothing; so no man may have virtues without using them as time and occasion require. Thus, those who are given to the life of contemplation and avoid activities deceive themselves and are on the wrong track. I say that the contemplative person should indeed avoid even the thought of deeds to be done during the period of his contemplation but afterwards he should get busy, for no one can or should engage in contemplation all the time, for active life is to be a respite from contemplation.
3
Meister Eckhart asked why people are so reluctant to seek God in earnest. Then he made this comment: When one is looking for something and sees no sign that it is where he is searching, he will keep on looking there only with painful reluctance. If, however, he begins to find traces of it, then he will hunt gladly, gaily, and in earnest. The man who wants fire is cheered by feeling warmth and then joyously looks for the blaze. It is like that with people who ought to be seeking God: if they get no taste of the divine sweetness, they drag; but if a man lies in wait until he does catch the taste of the divine, ever afterward he is a glad seeker of God.
4
Earth cannot get away from heaven: let the earth drop downward or rise upward, heaven still penetrates it, imbuing it with strength and making it fruitful, whether it will or no. That is how God treats man: when he thinks to escape God, he runs into God’s bosom, for every hideout is open to him. God begets his Son in you whether you like it or not, whether you sleep or wake—still God is at work. That man is not aware of it is the fault of his [spiritual] tongue, which is smeared with the scum of creatures, in which there is none of the salt of God’s love. If we had God’s love in us, we could taste God in all his works and we would accept anything as from God and finish his work along with him. In sameness [of intent] we are his only begotten Son.
5
Meister Eckhart, the preacher, also said this: There never was a struggle or a battle which required greater valor than that in which a man forgets or denies himself.
6
I have often said that a person who wishes to begin a good life should be like a man who draws a circle. Let him get the center in the right place and keep it so and the circumference will be good. In other words, let a man first learn to fix his heart on God and then his good deeds will have virtue; but if a man’s heart is unsteady, even the great things he does will be of small advantage.
7
Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow and to love him as they love their cow—they love their cow for the milk and cheese and profit it makes 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. Indeed, I tell you the truth, any object you have on your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost truth.
8
The just man loves God for nothing, neither for this nor for that, and if God gave him wisdom or anything else he had to give, except himself, the just man would not look at it, nor would it be to his taste; for he wants nothing, seeks nothing, and has no reason for doing anything. As God, having no motives, acts without them, so the just man acts without motives. As life lives on for its own sake, needing no reason for being, so the just man has no reason for doing what he does.
9
Meister Eckhart says: He who is always alone is worthy of God, and to him who is always at home is God present, and in him who stands always in the present does God the Father bear his Son unceasingly.
10
Meister Eckhart said: I never ask God to give himself to me, I beg him to purify, to empty me. If I am empty, God of his very nature is obliged to give himself to me to fill me.
How to be pure? By steadfast longing for the one good, God. How to acquire this longing? By self-denial and dislike of creatures. Self-knowledge is the way, for creatures are all nothing, they come to nothing with lamentation and bitterness.
God being in himself pure good can dwell nowhere except in the pure soul. He overflows into her. Whole, he flows into her. What does emptiness mean? It means a turning from creatures: the heart uplifted to the perfect good so that creatures are no comfort, nor is there any need of them except in that God, the perfect good, is to be grasped in them. The clear eye tolerates the mote no more than does the pure soul anything that clouds, that comes between. Creatures, as she enjoys them, are all pure, for she enjoys creatures in God and God in creatures. She is so clear she sees through herself; nor is God far to seek: she finds him in herself when in her natural purity she flows into the supernatural pure Godhead, where she is in God and God in her, and what she does, she does in God and God does it in her.
Table of Contents
Foreword: On Reading Eckhart vii
Editor's Introduction xix
Sayings 1
From Table Talk
The Most Powerful Prayer of All 15
Solitude and God-Getting 16
Unremitting Effort in the Highest Progress 21
What to Do on Missing God Who Is in Hiding 22
Why God Often Lets Good People . . . 25
From The Book of Divine Consolation 27
From Sermons
This Is Meister Eckhart, from Whom God Hid Nothing 45
Innocents' Day 59
On Luke 14:16 61
The Love of God 65
Poverty 71
What Mary Was Doing 75
Peace 77
The Spark 81
The Beatific Vision 85
The Nobleman 89
On Detachment 105
For Further Reading 125
Sources and Credits 127