Observations placeholder
Meister Eckhart - Miscellaneous quotes - I am my own first cause
Identifier
013482
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Meister Eckhart
Therefore, I am my own first cause, both of my external being and of my temporal being. To this end I was born, and by virtue of my birth being eternal, I shall never die. It is of the nature of this eternal birth that I have been eternally, that I am now and shall be forever. What I am as temporal creature is to die and come to nothingness, for it came with time and so with time it will pass away. In my eternal birth, however, everything was begotten. I was my own first cause as well as the first cause of everything else. If I had willed it, neither I nor the world would have come to be! If I had not been, there would have been no god. There is, however, no need to understand this.