wildly in love

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They are always kissing, they can't
control themselves.

It is not possible
that any creature can have greater instincts
and perceptions than the
mature human
mind.

God
ripened me.
So I see it is true:
all objects in existence are
wildly in
love. 

 

 

 

~ Meister Eckhart

.

abandon yourself

People say: "O Lord, how much I wish that I stood as well with God,

 that I had as much devotion and peace in God as others have. 

 I wish that it were so with me!"  Or "I should like to be poor." or else
Things will never go right for me till I am in this place or that,

 or till I act one way or another.  I must go and live in a strange land, 

or in a hermitage, or in a cloister."  

In fact, this is all about yourself, and nothing else at all.  

This is just self-will, only you do not know it, or it does not seem so to you. 

 There is never any trouble that starts in you that does not come from your own will,

 whether people see this or not.  We can think what we like:

 that a man ought to shun one thing or pursue another -

 places and people and ways of life and environments and undertakings. 

 That is not the trouble; such ways of life or such matters are not what impedes you.

  It is what you are in these things that causes the trouble, 

because in them you do not govern yourself as you should.

Therefore, make a start with yourself, and abandon yourself. 

 Truly, if you do not begin by getting away from yourself,

 wherever you run to, you will find obstacles and trouble wherever it may be. 

 People who seek peace in external things - be it in places or ways of life

 or people or activities or solitude or poverty or degradation -

 however great such a thing may be or whatever it may be, 

still it is all nothing and it gives no peace.

 

  People who seek in that way are doing it all wrong;  

the further they wander, the less will they find what they are seeking.  

They go around like someone who has lost his way; 

 the farther he goes, the more lost he is.  

 

Then what ought he to do?  He ought to begin by forsaking himself,

 because then he has forsaken everything.  Truly, if a man renounced 

a kingdom or the whole world but held on to himself,

 he would not have renounced anything.  

What is more, if a man renounces himself, 

 whatever else he retains, riches or honors or whatever it may be,

 he has forsaken everything.  

About what Saint Peter said: "See, Lord, we have forsaken everything" (Matt. 19:27) -

 and all that he had forsaken was just a net and his little boat -

 there is a saint who says: "If anyone willingly gives up something little,

 that is not all which he has given up, but he has forsaken everything 

that worldly men can gain and what they can even long for; 

for whoever has renounced his own will and himself, has renounced everything,

 as truly as if he had possessed it as his own, to dispose of as he would."

 

 For what you choose not to long for, you have wholly forsaken and renounced

 for the love of God.  That is why our Lord said: "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matt 5:3)  -

 that is, in the will.  And no one ought to be in doubt about this;

 if there were a better form of living, our Lord would have said so,

 as he also said: "Whoever wishes to come after me, let him deny himself" (Matt 16:24);

 as a beginning; everything depends on that.  

 

Take a look at yourself, 

and whenever you find yourself deny yourself.  

That is the best of all.

 

~ Meister Eckhart

from Selections from His Essential Writings,

Counsels on Discernment

toward me

Existence leans its mouth
toward me,
because my love
cares for
it.

 

 

 

 
~ Meister Eckhart

art by Coleen-Joy Page

work perfectly realized

.

 

 

 

In work perfectly realized 

there is no thought of reward, 

no love of procedure, 

no seeking after good, 

no clinging to goals, 

whether of attainment 

or of god himself.

 

 

 

~ Meister Eckhart 

art by Harlan Hubbard, "Below Madison," 1934

 

 

 

intimately

Knowledge always deceives.
It always limits the Truth, every concept and image does.

From cage to cage the caravan moves,
but I give thanks,
for at each divine juncture
my wings expand
and I

touch Him more
intimately.




~ Meister Eckhart

what keeps us alive

What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?

I think it is the hope of loving,

or being loved.

I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey 

to find its source, and how the moon wept

without her lover's 

warm gaze.

We weep when light does not reach our hearts, We wither

like fields if someone close

does not rain their

kindness

upon 

us.

~  Meister Eckhart

the inner work

The outward work will never be puny if the inward work is great.

 And the outward work can never be great or even good if the onward one is puny

 or of little worth. The inward work invariably includes in itself all expansiveness,

 all breadth, all length, all depth.

 Such a work receives and draws all its being from nowhere 

else except from and in the heart of God.

If that which you seek cannot be found within you, 

you will never find it outside of you.

~ Meister Eckhart
Dominican Theologian and Christian Mystic, 14th Century

annihilate separation

How long can the moth flirt

near the mouth of the flame before their lips touch

and the moth’s soul

becomes like

a sun.

And does the moth then die? No.

In serving God one is transformed into Him.

What lovers would return to us,

what lovers would not unite beyond belief and annihilate

their separation forever if they

had the power

to do so?

That power our Lord has. How long do you think

you can just flirt with Him before you

dissolve in ecstasy?

Existence spins on His potter’s wheel;

all is being shaped into the Divine.

What lovers would

not want to die

embraced?

~ Meister Eckhart

love frees

All day long a little burro labors, sometimes

with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries

about things that bother only

burros.

And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting

than physical labor.

Once in a while a kind monk comes

to her stable and brings

a pear, but more

than that,

he looks into the burros eyes and touches her ears

and for a few seconds the burro is free

and even seems to laugh,

because love does

that.

Love frees.

~ Meister Eckhart

art by: Stephen Filarsky

I was the forest

When I was the stream, when I was the

forest, when I was still the field,

when I was every hoof, foot,

fin and wing, when I

was the sky

itself,

no one ever asked me did I have a purpose, no one ever

wondered was there anything I might need,

for there was nothing

I could not

love.

It was when I left all we once were that

the agony began, the fear and questions came,

and I wept, I wept. And tears

I had never known

before.

So I returned to the river, I returned to

the mountains. I asked for their hand in marriage again,

I begged – I begged to wed every object

and creature,

and when they accepted,

God was ever present in my arms.

And He did not say,

“Where have you

been?”

For then I knew my soul – every soul -

has always held

Him.

~ Meister Eckhart

Daniel Ladinsky translation

unite yourselves to the formless being

Whoever now wishes to see properly what is the excellence
 and the profit of perfect detachment, let him take good heed 
of Christ's words when he spoke about his human nature
 and said to his disciples:  

"It is expedient for you that I go from you, 

for if I do not go, the Holy Spirit cannot come to you."  

(John 16:7) 

 This is just as if he were to say: 

"You have taken too much delight in my present image, 
so that the perfect delight of the Holy Spirit cannot be yours.  
So detach yourselves from the image, 
and unite yourselves to the formless being, 
for God's spiritual consolation is delicate; 
therefore he will not offer it to anyone except to him
 who disdains bodily consolations."

~ Meister Eckhart

from Meister Eckhart - 
Selections from his Essential Writings

detachment

When I preach, I usually speak of detachment and

 say that a man should be empty of self and all things;

 and secondly, that he should be reconstructed in the simplicity
  beyond all words and beyond all understanding that God is;

 and thirdly, that he should consider the great longing

 which God has set up in the soul, such that by means of it 

man may wonderfully attain to God; and fourthly, 

of the purity of the divine nature.

~ Meister Eckhart

It is a lie

It is a lie - any talk of God

that does not

comfort

you.

~ Meister Eckhart

temporal affections

Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. 

There is no greater obstacle to God than time: 

and not only time but temporalities, 

not only temporal things but temporal affections, 

not only temporal affections 

but the very taint and smell of time. 

~  Meister Eckhart

with thanks to blue mountain center of meditation

art by dali

unsophisticated teachers say

Unsophisticated teachers say that God is pure

being.  He is as high above being as the highest

angel is above a gnat.  I would be speaking as incorrectly

in calling God a being as if I called the sun pale or black.

God is neither this or that.

~ Meister Eckhart

so many skins

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 a bear’s, 

cover the soul. 

 

Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there. 

 

 

 

~ Meister Eckhart

all objects in existence are wildly in love

 

 

 

 

They are always kissing, they can't

control themselves.

 

It is not possible

that any creature can have greater instincts

and perceptions than the 

mature human

mind.

 

God

ripened me.

So I see it is true;

all objects in existence are

 wildly in

love.

 

 

 

 

~ Meister Eckhart

 

 

 

 

Jerusalem

A hand in my soul can reach out and touch Jerusalem

as my other hand tastes the beauty of the Rhine.

And my bare foot can stand upon the holy ashes of rain – each drop a

fallen Phoenix – that sang out from the fire of union

with clay.

The hills, the valleys, the beasts, the vineyards, the sacred meadows

on our earth and body – they shall pass and ascend as all form does,

tiring of the space within a cage;

for all crowds the soul but the infinite. Ascenders to God we are.

Look though how we enrich this planet with our melting organic

shadows, wondrous shadows are all but He.

What a womb God has – what wild love He must have made to

Himself for days and days without stopping

to have given birth to all you can imagine, and to all you cannot

conceive.

All language has taken an oath to fail to describe Him;

any attempt to do so is the height of arrogance and will

always declare some kind of war:

the inner ones that undermine our strength, and the outer conflicts

that maim red.

I cried out one night in the madness of separation from love,

in the madness of doing, of trying to add to the Perfect;

for Perfect is All.

The awakened heart is like a luminous sphere – just giving without

thought to any who may come close or gaze at it.

The soul becomes blessedly lost to all

but its own holy

being.

When we cannot be who we are our divine senses become mute,

mute and sick from the insanity of judging

what He made Immaculate.

Who must God have made love to in order to have given birth to

all this sound,

to this sacred spectrum of color, scents, and music from the

wind’s body and existence’s plea for mercy – that

plea for the real mercy, unbearable joy?

Once we had four legs and tails so useful to balance our raid into

heaven, and I found them again.

I am a swimming galaxy tonight. Angels prowl around me

hoping I will toss them a fresh piece of light -

here dears, here, my sack is full.

The universe rents space from me, and oceans are drawn

from my will. How can that be?

For I can touch Jerusalem while my other hand tastes

the beauty of the

Rhine.

Yes, I can kiss Jerusalem while my mouth

tastes the wonders of

the Rhine.

~ Meister Eckhart