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Meister Eckhart
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- Meister Eckhart (circa 1260-1368), thirteenth century monk and mystic is regarded by
- some as the greatest teacher in Christianity since Christ himself. He is regarded as among
- the first to use the vernacular (his native German) to discuss metaphysics. He was originally
- given high honors by the Catholic Church, but later disclaimed due to his mystical approach
- which were associated by the church to heretical mystical sects. Although he conducted a
- brilliant public defense in 1327 in the Cologne church, he was condemned as one deceived by
- the devil and of deceiving others in a Papal bull issued in 1329. This bull never reached Eckhart.
- After his death, Eckharts writings were nearly forgotten until they were uncovered in the 19th century.
- These works are highly regarded by students of mysticism and metaphysics, East and West.
- His teachings seem to have transcended the cultural bounds of Germany and the Catholic church
- and have universal value. He seems to imply that all men who know God, regardless how they
- conceive Him, speak the same language ~ the language of Spirit.
{adapted fromThe Spiritual Athelete, by Ray Berry}
As the soul becomes more pure and bare and poor,
and possesses less of created things,
and is emptied of all things that are not God,
it receives God more purely,
and is more completely in Him;
and it truly becomes one with God,
and it looks into God and God into it,
face to face as it were;
two images transformed into one.
Some simple folk think that they will see God
as if He were standing there and they here.
It is not so.
God and I, we are one.
- Become aware of what is in you.
- Announce it, pronounce it,
- produce it and give birth to it.
- In so far as you are a created being
- and let God be God in you.
- Separate yourself from all twoness.
- Be one on one, one with one, one from one.
- Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world,
- by running away from things,
- or by turning solitary and going apart from the world.
- Rather, we learn an inner solitude
- wherever or with whomsoever we may be.
- We must learn to penetrate things and find God there….
- The outward work can never be small if the inward one is great,
and the outward work can never be great if the inward is small or of little worth…
All works are surely dead if anything from the outside compels you to work.
Even if it were God himself compelling you to work from the outside,
your works would be dead.
If your works are to live,
then God must work from the inside,
from the inner most region of the soul ~
then they will really live.
There is your life and there alone you live and your works live.
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