As you know I am a christian. However I have lately been intrigued by the writings of Meister Eckhart a renowned christian mystic. However many christians I know who I have showed his writings to think that he is a blasphemer against the word of god because of his different spin and interpretation on christianity. Anyway I thought I'd run this poll and get the opinion of christians and non-christians about this guy. If you have never heard of him then I guess that is ok because I'll put up some of his writings and then let you decide for yourself. And I guess you can always google or wikipedia information on him. Anyway I hope you enjoy these writings as I think they are some of the deepest spiritual insights I have ever read.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart


The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without. ---Eckhart

To gauge the soul we must gauge it with God, for the Ground of God and the Ground of the Soul are one and the same. ---Eckhart

For though she sink all sinking in the oneness of divinity, she never touches bottom. For it is of the very essence of the soul that she is powerless to plumb the depths of her creator. And here one cannot speak of the soul any more, for she has lost her nature yonder in the oneness of divine essence. There she is no more called soul, but is called immeasurable being.---Eckhart

The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God, as if He stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge. --Eckhart

There is a spirit in the soul, untouched by time and flesh, flowing from the Spirit, remaining in the Spirit, itself wholly spiritual. In this principle is God, ever verdant, ever flowering in all the joy and gloryof His actual Self. Sometimes I have called this principle the Tabernacle of the soul, sometimes a spiritual Light, anon I say it is a Spark. But now I say that it is more exalted over this and that than the heavens are exalted above the earth. So now I name it in a nobler fashion.....It is free of all names and void of all forms. It is one and simple, as God is one and simple, and no man can in any wise behold it. --Eckhart

When I came out of the Godhead into multiplicity, then all things proclaimed, "There is a God" (the personal Creator). Now this cannot make me blessed, for hereby I realize myself as creature. But in the breaking through I am more than all creatures; I am neither God nor creature; I am that which I was and shall remain, now and for ever more. There I recieve a thrust which carries me above all angels. By this thrust I become so rich that God is not sufficient for me, in so far as He is only God in his divine works. For in thus breaking through, I perceive what God and I are in common. There I am what I was. There I neither increase or decrease. For there I am the immovable which moves all things. Here man has won again what he is eternally and ever shall be. Here God is recieved into the soul. ---Eckhart

The Godhead gave all things up to God. The Godhead is poor, naked and empty as though it were not; it has not, wills not, wants not, works not, gets not. It is God who has the treasure and the bride in him, the Godhead is as void as though it were not. ----Eckhart

Meanwhile, I beseech you by the eternal and imperishable truth, and by my soul, consider; grasp the unheard-of. God and Godhead are as distinct as heaven and earth. Heaven stands a thousand miles above the earth, and even so the Godhead is above God. God becomes and disbecome. Whoever understands this preaching, I iwsh him well. But even if nobody had been here, I must still have preached this to the poor-box. ---Eckhart

Thou must love God as not-God, not-Spirit, not-person, not-image, but as He is, a sheer, pure absolute One, sundered from all two-ness, and in whom we must eternally sink from nothingness to nothingness. ---Eckhart

The Scriptures say of human beings that there is an outward man and along with him an inner man. To the outward man belong those things that depend on the soul, but are connected with the flesh and are blended with it, and the co-operative functions of the several members, such as the eye, the ear, the tongue, the hand and so on.
The Scripture speaks of all this as the old man, the earthy man, the outward person, the enemy, the servant. Within us all is the other person, the inner man, whom the Scripture calls the new man, the heavenly man, the young person, the friend, the aristocrat. ---Eckhart

The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God seed into God. ---Eckhart

Any flea as it is in God is nobler than the highest of angels in himself. ---Eckhart

The inner man relishes things not as creatures but as the gift of God. But to my innermost man they savour not of God's gift, but of ever and aye. --Eckhart

Nature's intent is neither food, nor drink nor clothing, nor comfort, nor anything else from which God is left out. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly Nature seeks and hunts and tries to ferret out the track in which God may be found. ---Eckhart

A man must become truly poor and as free from his own creaturely will as he was when he was born. And I tell you, by the eternal truth, that so long as you desire to fulfill the will of God and have any hankering after eternity and God, for just so long you are not truly poor. He alone has true spiritual poverty who wills nothing, knows nothing, desires nothing. ---Eckhart

Therefore I give you still another thought, which is yet purer and more spiritual: In the Kingdom of Heaven all is in all, all is one, and all is ours. ---Eckhart

Some people want to see God with their own eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their cow---for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth and inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage. Indeed, I tell the truth, any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost Truth.---Eckhart

This identity out of the One into the One and with the One is the source and fountainhead and breaking forth of glowing Love. ---Eckhart

This treasure of the Kingdom of God has been hidden by time and multiplicity and the soul's own works, or briefly by its creaturely nature. But in the measure that the soul can separate itself from this multplicity, to that extent it reveals within itself the Kingdom of God. Here the soul and the Godhead are one.---Eckhart

As long as I am this or that, or have this or that, I am not all things and I have not all things. Become pure till you neither are nor have either this or that; then you are omnipresent and, being neither this nor that, are all things. --Eckhart

Why dost thou prate of God? Whatever thou sayest of Him is untrue. --Eckhart

As the Godhead is nameless, and all naming is alien to Him, so also the soul is nameless; for it is here the same as God. ---Eckhart

A man has many skins in himself, covering the depths of his heart. Man knows so many things; he does not know himself. Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, just like an ox's or a bear's, so thick and hard, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there. --Eckhart

God is bound to act, to pour Himself into thee as soon as He shall find thee ready. ---Eckhart

God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being and let God be God in you. --Eckhart

People should think less about what they ought to do and more about what they ought to be. If only their being were good, their works would shine forth brightly. Do not imagine that you can ground your salvation upon actionsl; it must rest on what you are. The ground upon which good character rests is the very same ground from which man's work derives its value, namely a mind wholly turned to God. Verily, if you were so minded, you might tread on a stone and it would be more pious work than if you, simply for your own profit, were to recieve the Body of the Lord and were wanting in spiritual detachment. --Eckhart

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 small of time. --Eckhart

I have maintained ere this and I will maintain that I already possess all that is granted to me in eternity. For God in the fulness of his Godhead dwells eternally in his image---the soul. --Eckhart

He who suffers for love does not suffer, for all suffering is forgot. ---Eckhart

Whoever has God in mind, simply and soley God, in all things, such a man carries God with him into all his works and into all places, and God alone does all his works. He seeks nothing but God in every though. Just as no multiplicity can dissipate God, so nothing can dissipate this man or make him multiple. --Eckhart

I tell you that no one can experience this birth(of God realized in the soul) without a mighty effort. No one can attain birth unless he can withdraw his mind entirely from things.--Eckhart

Rejoice in God all the time, says St Paul. He rejoices all the time who rejoices above time and free from time. Three things prevent a man from knowing God. The first is time, the second is corporeality, the third is multiplicity. That God may come in, these things must go out- except thou have them in a higher, better way: multitude summed up to one in thee. --Eckhart

Love (the sensible love of the emotions) does not unify. True, it unites in act; but it does not unite in essence. ---Eckhart

If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice. ---Eckhart

I voted that he is an insightful christian. Personally I think he is just as wise and connected to God as Jesus was and any other mystic. Personally I think if there were more christians like Meister Eckhart there would be more truly spiritual priests and directors of souls to help people find true religious fulfillment.

one cannot be made traitorous by their maker

I agree. It is like a chinese mystic saying I heard which goes something like : Mankind fears an evil man but heaven does not.

He reminds me of Plotinus.

Thank you for your vote and post. Well both plotinus and eckhart are perennial philosophers so it doesn't strike me as odd they are similar. Eckhart most probably had some influence from plotinus.

Plotinus: ...see all things, not in process of becoming but in Being, and see themselves in the other. Each being contains in itself the whole intelligible world. Therefore All is everywhere. Each is there All, and All is each. Man as he now is has ceased to be the All. But when he ceases to be an individual, raises himself again and penetrates the whole world.

I have no clue as to who that person is, and since I've to meet my first insightful christian, I've voted the second.

Thanks for your vote!

Being myself a Jew, I guess I could concider all X-tian works blasphamy! Well, except for a few that say Jesus wasn't G-d.

Personally, I have never heard of this guy before but, since we are going off of the litle we know, since he is not a "Jewish" mystic, I guess that would kind of sort of make him somehting of a heretic by my standards. Not that that is a bad thing, you understand.

Thank you for your input. I am not here to judge people for what they think im just curious to hear the diverse views and expressions of what they think of this guy.

All we have to guy by is this guys quotes...who knows if he practiced what he preached.

P.S. BNW couldn't we have done just one thread?

I'm not sure what I think about him, so I couldnt vote sorry

From what I have read in my quick study of this individual (about 20 minutes with google) I would have to go with insightful Christian.

To me if feels like meister eckhart truly was in touch with the nature of god and was not afraid to share the knowledge he gained from that. I think his ideas put the power to understand god within men and not necessarily via the church.

Thanks sharing, I had not heard of meister eckhart before, but his ideas are shockingly similar to many of my own beliefs. I will be doing a bit more reading on this man had to say!

Thank you for your vote and reply!@!

i put up a thread cadek