Observations placeholder

Meister Eckhart selected writings – edited and translated by Oliver Davies

Sometimes I have said that there is a power in the soul that can alone be said to be free.

Sometimes I have said that it is a refuge of the spirit and sometimes I have said that it is a light of the spirit.

Sometimes I have said that it is a spark.

But now I say that it is neither this nor that, and yet still it is a something which is as far above this or that as heaven is above earth.

Therefore I shall now name it in a nobler manner than I have ever done before, and yet it mocks such reverence and the manner and is far above them.

It is free of all names and is devoid of all forms, quite empty and free as God is empty and free in himself, It is so entirely one and simple, as God is one and simple, that no one can see inside it in a particular manner.

This same power of which I have spoken, in which God flowers and is green with all his divinity, as the spirit in God, in this same power the Father bears his sole-begotten Son as truly as he does in himself, for he truly lives in this power, and together with the Father the spirit bears the same sole-begotten Son and itself as the same Son and is the same Son in this light and is the truth.

If you could see this with my heart, then you would understand what it is I am saying:  for it is true, and the truth itself tells it.

...........................

I have occasionally spoken of a light in the soul which is uncreated and uncreatable.  I constantly return in my sermons to this light, which apprehends God without medium, without concealment and nakedly, just as he is in himself.   Indeed, it apprehends him in the act of begetting. I can again say truthfully that this light has more unity with God than it does with any of the soul's faculties, although it coexists with these.

For you should know that this light is not nobler in the being of my soul than the lowest or most basic faculty, such as hearing or sight or some other of the senses which fall victim to hunger or thirst, cold or heat. This is so because of the homogeneous nature of being. In so far as we take the soul's faculties in their being, they are all one and are equally noble.

But if we take them according to their function, then one is far nobler and more elevated than another.