Background Image

...

The First Measn By Which He Draws Is Affinity, That Affinity Which Brings Creatures Of The Same Species Together, And Like To Its Like. With This Cord Of Affinity He Drew Men To The Godhead, Whom He Always Resembles. In Order That God May Draw More To Himself, And Forget His Wrath.

-Meister Eckhart

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The First Measn By

Meister Eckhart

...

The First Measn By Which He Draws Is Affinity, That Affinity Which Brings Creatures Of The Same Species Together, And Like To Its Like. With This Cord Of Affinity He Drew Men To The Godhead, Whom He Always Resembles. In Order That God May Draw More To Himself, And Forget His Wrath.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Meister Eckhart

Some People Prefer Solitude. They Say Their Peace Of Mind Depends On This. Others Say They Would Be Better Off In Church. If You Do Well, You Do Well Wherever You Are. If You Fail, You Fail Wherever You Are. Your Surroundings Don't Matter. God Is With You Everywhere -- In The Market Place As Well As In Seclusion Or In The Church. If You Look For Nothing But God, Nothing Or No One Can Disturb You. God Is Not Distracted By A Multitude Of Things. Nor Can We Be.

The Moral Task Of Man Is A Process Of Spiritualization. All Creatures Are Go-betweens, And We Are Placed In Time That By Diligence In Spiritual Business We May Grow Liker And Nearer To God. The Aim Of Man Is Beyond The Temporal - In The Serene Region Of The Everlasting Present.

The Price Of Inaction Is Far Greater Than The Cost Of Making A Mistake.

The Outward Work Will Never Be Puny If The Inward Work Is Great.

Words Derive Their Power From The Original Word.

If God Gave The Soul His Whole Creation She Would Not Be Filled Thereby But Only With Himself.

Do Not Think That Saintliness Comes From Occupation; It Depends Rather On What One Is. The Kind Of Work We Do Does Not Make Us Holy But We May Make It Holy. However “sacred” A Calling May Be, As It Is A Calling, It Has No Power To Sanctify.

To Be Full Of Things Is To Be Empty Of God; To Be Empty Of Things Is To Be Full Of God.

There Is In The Soul A Something In Which God Dwells, And There Is In The Soul A Something In Which The Soul Dwells In God.

Behold How All Those People Are Merchants Who Shun Great Sins And Would Like To Be Good And Do Good Deeds In God's Honour, Such As Fasts, Vigils, Prayers, And Similar Good Deeds Of All Kinds. They Do All These Things So That Our Lord May Give Them Something, Or So That God May Do Something Dear To Them. All These People Are Merchants.

We Shall Find God In Everything Alike, And Find God Always Alike In Everything.

Once A Man Came To Me - It Was Not Too Long Ago - And Said That He Had Given Away Much Landed Property And Many Goods For His Own Sake So That He Might Save His Soul. Then I Thought: 'how Little And How Insignificant Is What You Have Let Go Of! It Is Blindness And Foolishness For You To Continue Looking At All You've Let Go Of. If, However, You've Let Go Of Yourself, Then You've Really Let Go.'

Therefore, Look Only For This Fishhook, And You Will Be Happily Caught. The More You Are Caught, The More You Will Be Liberated.

He Who Would Be Serene And Pure Needs But One Thing, Detachment.

I Will Be Silent And Will Hear What God Will Say In Me...if God Wishes To Speak To Me, Let Him Enter. I Will Not Go Out.

God Holds Each Of Us By A String. When We Sin, We Cut The String. But God Ties It Up Again, Making A Knot. Each Time Our Wrongdoing Cuts The String, God Ties Another Knot Drawing Us Up Closer To Him.

Knowing Who You Are

A Question Arises Regarding The Angels Who Dwell With Us, Serve Us And Protect Us, Whether Their Joys Are Equal To Those Of The Angels In Heaven, Or Whether They Are Diminished By The Fact That They Protect And Serve Us. No, They Are Certainly Not; For The Work Of The Angels Is The Will Of God, And The Will Of God Is The Work Of The Angels; Their Service To Us Does Not Hinder Their Joy Nor Their Working. If God Told An Angel To Go To A Tree And Pluck Caterpillars Off It, The Angel Would Be Quite Ready To Do So, And It Would Be His Happiness, If It Were The Will Of God.

Protect And Serve

Do Not Think That Saintliness Comes From Occupation; It Depends Rather On What One Is. The Kind Of Work We Do Does Not Make Us Holy, But We May Make It Holy.

If The Seal Is Pressed Completely Through The Wax So That No Wax Remains Without Being Impressed By The Seal, Then It Becomes Indistinguishably One With The Seal. Similarly The Soul Becomes Completely United With God.

It Is In The Darkness That One Finds The Light.

One Person Who Has Mastered Life Is Better Than A Thousand Persons Who Have Mastered Only The Contents Of Books, But No One Can Get Anything Out Of Life Without God.

There Is No Greater Valor Nor No Sterner Fight. He Who Would Be What He Ought To Be Must Stop Being What He Is.

The Ultimate And Highest Leave Taking Is Leaving God For God, Leaving Your Notion Of God For An Experience Of That Which Transcends All Notions.

There Exists Only The Present Instant... A Now Which Always And Without End Is Itself New. There Is No Yesterday Nor Any Tomorrow, But Only Now, As It Was A Thousand Years Ago And As It Will Be A Thousand Years Hence.

Even Stones Have A Love, A Love That Seeks The Ground.

Love Is As Strong As Death, As Hard As Hell. Death Separates The Soul From The Body, But Love Separates All Things From The Soul.

God Is Intelligence Occupied With Knowing Itself.

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.

You Need Seek God Neither Below Or Above.he Is No Farther Away Than The Door Of The Heart.

Outward As Well As Inward Morality Helps To Form The Idea Of A True Christian Freedom. We Are Right To Lay Stress On Inwardness, But In This World There Is No Inwardness Without An Outward Expression.

The Love By Which We Love God Is The Very Same Love With Which God Has First Loved Us.

This Much Is Certain: When A Man Is Happy, Happy To The Core And Root Of Beatitude, He Is No Longer Conscious Of Himself Or Anything Else.

I Do Not Find God Outside Myself Or Conceive Him Except As My Own And In Me.

We Are Celebrating The Feast Of The Eternal Birth Which God The Father Has Borne And Never Ceases To Bear In All Eternity... But If It Takes Not Place In Me, What Avails It? Everything Lies In This, That It Should Take Place In Me.

This Then Is Salvation - When We Marvel At The Beauty Of Created Things And Praise Their Beautiful Creator.

The Beast That Bears You Fastest To Perfection Is Suffering.

Let God Work In You, Give The Work To God, And Have Peace. Don't Worry If He Works Through Your Nature Or Above Your Nature, Because Both Are His, Nature And Grace.

God Does Not Work In All Hearts Alike, But According To The Preparation And Sensitivity He Finds In Each.

The Human Spirit Must Transcend Number And Break Through Multiplicity, And God Will Break Through Him; And Just As He

Saint Augustine Cries, Lord I Cannot Love You, But Come In And Love Yourself In Me. According To Saint Paul, We Must Put Off Our Own Natural Form And Put On The Form Of God, And Saint Augustine Tells Us To Discard Our Own Mode Of Nature; Then The Divine Nature Will Flow In And Be Revealed. Saint Augustine Says, Those Who Seek And Find, Find Not. He Who Seeks And Finds Not, He Alone Finds. Saint Paul Says, What I Was, Was Not I, It Was God In Me.

People Should Not Worry So Much About What They Do But Rather About What They Are.

Grace Pours All Beauty Into The Soul ... The Soul Means The World.

God Wants Nothing From You But The Gift Of A Peaceful Heart.

For The Person Who Has Learned To Let Go And Let Be, Nothing Can Ever Get In The Way Again.

To Be Properly Expressed A Thing Must Proceed From Within, Moved By Its Form: It Must Come, Not In From Without But Out From Within.

Theologians May Quarrel, But The Mystics Of The World Speak The Same Language.

I Maintain That All Sorrow Comes From Love Of Those Things Of Which Loss Deprives Me.

To Be Right, A Person Must Do One Of Two Things: Either He Must Learn To Have God In His Work And Hold Fast To Him There, Or He Must Give Up His Work Altogether. Since, However, We Cannot Live Without Activities That Are Both Human And Various, We Must Learn To Keep God I Everything We Do, And Whatever The Job Or Place, Keep On With Him, Letting Nothing Stand In Our Way.

The Less You Feel And The More Firmly You Believe, The More Praiseworthy Is Your Faith And The More It Will Be Esteemed And Appreciated; For Real Faith Is Much More Than A Mere Opinion Of Man. In It We Have True Knowledge: In Truth, We Lack Nothing Save True Faith.

What Good Is It To Me That Mary Gave Birth To The Son Of God Fourteen Hundred Years Ago, And I Do Not Also Give Birth To The Son Of God In My Time And In My Culture? We Are All Meant To Be Mothers Of God. God Is Always Needing To Be Born.

A Man Should Orient His Will And All His Works To God And Having Only God In View Go Forward Unafraid, Not Thinking, Am I Right Or Am I Wrong? One Who Worked Out All The Chances Before Starting His First Fight Would Never Fight At All. And If, Going To Someplace, We Must Think How To Set The Front Foot Down, We Shall Never Get There. It Is Our Duty To Do The Next Thing: Go Straight On, That Is The Right Way.

If We Seek God For Our Own Good And Profit, We Are Not Seeking God.

All That The Eternal Father Teaches And Reveals Is His Being, His Nature, And His Godhead, Which He Manifests To Us In His Son, And Teaches Us That We Are Also His Son.

Truly, It Is In Darkness That One Finds The Light, So When We Are In Sorrow, Then This Light Is Nearest Of All To Us.

A Life Of Rest And Peace In God Is Good; A Life Of Pain Lived In Patience Is Still Better; But To Have Peace In A Life Of Pain Is Best Of All.

There Are Plenty To Follow Our Lord Half-way, But Not The Other Half. They Will Give Up Possessions, Friends And Honors, But It Touches Them To Closely To Disown Themselves.

Truth Is Something So Noble That If God Could Turn Aside From It, I Could Keep The Truth And Let God Go.

One Must Learn An Inner Solitude, Wherever Or With Whomsoever He May Be.

The Now Wherein God Made The World Is As Near This Time As The Now I Am Speaking In This Moment, And The Last Day Is As Near This Now As Was Yesterday.

This Is My Only And Permanent Complaint, That Vulgar People, Empty Of The Spirit Of God, Want To Judge Solely By Their Human Thinking What They Listen To Or Read In The Bible, Which Has Been Pronounced And Written By The Holy Spirit And In The Holy Spirit.

No-one Knows What The Soul Is. But What We Do Know Is, The Soul Is Where God Works Compassion

What We Plant In The Soil Of Contemplation, We Shall Reap In The Harvest Of Action.

I May Err But I Am Not A Heretic, For The First Has To Do With The Mind And The Second With The Will!

The Most Important Hour Is Always The Present. The Most Significant Person Is Precisely The One Sitting Across From You Right Now. The Most Necessary Work Is Always Love.

When I Experience Love I Must Go To God. When I Experience Non-attachment God Must Come To Me.

Experience Love

It Is A Fair Trade And An Equal Exchange: To The Extent That You Depart From Things, Thus Far, No More And No Less, God Enters Into You With All That Is His, As Far As You Have Stripped Yourself Of Yourself In All Things. It Is Here That You Should Begin, Whatever The Cost, For It Is Here That You Will Find True Peace, And Nowhere Else.

The Soul Will Bring Forth Person If God Laughs Into Her And She Laughs Back To Him. To Speak In Parable, The Father Laughs Into The Son And The Son Laughs Back To The Father; And This Laughter Breeds Liking And Liking Breeds Joy, And Joy Begets Love, And Love Begets Person, And Person Begets The Holy Ghost.

When God Sends His Angel To The Soul It Becomes The One Who Knows For Sure.

Love Will Never Be Anywhere Except Where Equality And Unity Are..... And There Can Be No Love Where Love Does Not Find Equality Or Is Not Busy Creating Equality. Nor Is There Any Pleasure Without Equality. Practice Equality In Human Society. Learn To Love, Esteem, Consider All People Like Yourself. What Happens To Another, Be It Bad Or Good, Pain Or Joy, Ought To Be As If It Happened To You.

Knowledge Comes Through Likeness. And So Because The Soul May Know Everything, It Is Never At Rest Until It Comes To The Original Idea, In Which All Things Are One. And There It Comes To Rest In God.

In My Breaking Through...i Transcend All Creatures And Am Neither God Nor Creature...for In This Breaking Through I Find That God And I Are Both The Same.

I Am As Sure As I Live That Nothing Is So Near To Me As God. God Is Nearer To Me Than I Am To Myself; My Existence Depends On The Nearness And The Presence Of God.

Presence Of God

The Soul Is Created In A Place Between Time And Eternity: With Its Highest Powers It Touches Eternity, With Its Lower Time.

A Man May Go Into The Field And Say His Prayer And Be Aware Of God, Or He May Be In Church And Be Aware Of God; But If He Is More Aware Of Him Because He Is In A Quiet Place, That Is His Own Deficiency And Not Due To God, Who Is Alike Present In All Things And Places, And Is Willing To Give Himself Everywhere So Far As Lies In Him... He Knows God Rightly Who Knows Him Everywhere.

That Which A Man Acquires By Contemplation He Should Spend In Love.

Now The Father Draws Us From The Evil Of Sin To The Goodness Of His Grace With The Might Of His Measureless Power, And He Needs All The Resources Of His Strength In Order To Convert Sinners, More Than When He Was About To Make Heaven And Earth, Which He Made With His Own Power Without Help From Any Creature. But When He Is About To Convert A Sinner, He Always Needs The Sinner's Help. "he Converts Thee Not Without Thy Help," As St. Augustine Says.

...where And When God Finds You Ready, He Must Act And Overflow Into You, Just As When The Air Is Clear And Pure, The Sun Must Overflow Into It And Cannot Refrain From Doing That.

I Tell You The Truth, Any Object You Have In Your Mind, However Good, Will Be A Barrier Between You And The Inmost Truth.

The Eye With Which I See God Is The Same Eye With Which God Sees Me.

The Most Powerful Prayer, One Well-nigh Omnipotent, And The Worthiest Work Of All Is The Outcome Of A Quiet Mind. The Quieter It Is The More Powerful, The Worthier, The Deeper, The More Telling And More Perfect The Prayer Is. To The Quiet Mind All Things Are Possible. What Is A Quiet Mind? A Quiet Mind Is One Which Nothing Weighs On, Nothing Worries, Which, Free From Ties And From All Self-seeking, Is Wholly Merged Into The Will Of God And Dead To Its Own.

Become Aware Of What Is In You. Announce It, Pronounce It, Produce It, And Give Birth To It.

If I Had A Friend And Loved Him Because Of The Benefits Which This Brought Me And Because Of Getting My Own Way, Then It Would Not Be My Friend That I Loved But Myself. I Should Love My Friend On Account Of His Own Goodness And Virtues And Account Of All That He Is In Himself. Only If I Love My Friend In This Way Do I Love Him Properly.

Through The Higher Love The Whole Life Of Man Is To Be Elevated From Temporal Selfishness To The Spring Of All Love, To God: Man Will Again Be Master Over Nature By Abiding In God And Lifting Her Up To God.

Now Rejoice, All Ye Powers Of My Soul, That You Are So United With God That No One May Separate You From Him. I Cannot Fully Praise Nor Love Him Therefore Must I Die, And Cast Myself Into The Divine Void, Till I Rise From Non-existence To Existence.

Wisdom Consists In Doing The Next Think You Have To Do, Doing It With Your Whole Heart, And Finding Delight In Doing It.

Be Willing To Be A Beginner Every Single Morning.

The More Deeply We Are Our True Selves, The Less Self Is In Us.

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 Bear's, Cover The Soul. Go Into Your Own Ground And Learn To Know Yourself There.

Let God Operate In Thee; Hand The Work Over To Him And Do Not Disquiet Thyself As To Whether Or No He Is Working With Nature Or Above Nature, For His Are Both Nature And Grace.

Whoever Has God Truly As A Companion, Is With Him In All Places, Both On The Streets, And Among People, As Well As In Church, Or In The Desert Or In A Monastic Cell...why Is This So? It Is So Because Such A Person Possesses God Alone, Keeping Their Gaze Fixed Upon God, And Thus All Things Become God For Him Or Her. Such People Be A God In All Their Deeds And In All The Places They Go, And It Is God Alone Who Is The Author Of All Their Deeds.

Nothing Is Sharper Than Suffering, Nothing Is Sweeter Than To Have Suffered.

He Is Conscious Only Of God...to Be Conscious Of Knowing God Is To Know About God And Self.

What Our Lord Did Was Done With The Intent, And This Alone, That He Might Be With Us And We With Him.

What A Man Takes In By Contemplation, That He Pours Out In Love.

I Have A Capacity In My Soul For Taking In God Entirely. I Am As Sure As I Live That Nothing Is So Near To Me As God.

God Cannot Know Himself Without Me.

My Lord Told Me A Joke. And Seeing Him Laugh Has Done More For Me Than Any Scripture I Will Ever Read.

This Is Not Only A Commandment But Also A Promise Or Reward.

If You Seek The Kernel, Then You Must Break The Shell. An Likewise, If You Would Know The Reality Of Nature, You Must Destroy The Appearance, And The Farther You Go Beyond The Appearance, The Nearer You Will Be To The Essence.

When Someone Goes Out Of Himself To Find God Or Fetch God, He Is Wrong.

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 Actions; It Must Rest On What You Are.

Remember This: All Suffering Comes To An End. And Whatever You Suffer Authentically, God Has Suffered From It First.

All God Wants Of Man Is A Peaceful Heart.

A Just Person Is One Who Is Conformed And Transformed Into Justice.

I Need To Be Silent For Awhile, Worlds Are Forming In My Heart.

God Is Greater Than God.

People Should Not Worry As Much About What They Do But Rather About What They Are. If They And Their Ways Are Good, Then Their Deeds Are Radiant. If You Are Righteous, Then What You Do Will Also Be Righteous. We Should Not Think That Holiness Is Based On What We Do But Rather On What We Are, For It Is Not Our Works Which Sanctify Us But We Who Sanctify Our Works.

The Eye Through Which I See God Is The Same Eye Through Which God Sees Me; My Eye And God's Eye Are One Eye, One Seeing, One Knowing, One Love.

Every Creature Is A Word Of God.

God Is Not Good, Or Else He Could Do Better.

In This Breaking-through, I Receive That God And I Are One. Then I Am What I Was, And Then I Neither Diminish Nor Increase, For I Am Then An Immovable Cause That Moves All Things.

Everything Is Full And Pure At Its Source And Precisely There, Not Outside.

And So, Too, I Speak Of Love: He Who Is Held By It Is Held By The Strongest Of Bonds, And Yet The Stress Is Pleasant. Moreover, He Can Sweetly Bear All That Happens To Him. When One Has Found This Bond, He Looks For No Other.

It Is Not By Your Actions That You Will Be Saved, But By Your Being.

God Is At Home, It's We Who Have Gone Out For A Walk.

Where Intuition Finds, Love Follows, And Memory And All The Soul As Well.

God Is Nearer To Me Than I Am To Myself; He Is Just As Near To Wood And Stone, But They Do Not Know It.

Nothing In All Creation Is So Like God As Stillness.

What Does God Do All Day Long? He Gives Birth. From The Beginning Of Eternity, God Lies On A Maternity Bed Giving Birth To All. God Is Creating This Whole Universe Full And Entire In This Present Moment.

It Is Permissible To Take Life's Blessings With Both Hands Provided Thou Dost Know Thyself Prepared In The Opposite Event To Take Them Just As Gladly. This Applies To Food And Friends And Kindred, To Anything God Gives And Takes Away... As Long As God Is Satisfied Do Thou Rest Content. If He Is Pleased To Want Something Else Of Thee, Still Rest Content.

Nothing Will Be Able To Hinder Us, If We Desire And Seek God Alone, And Take Pleasure In Nothing Else.

Love God, And Do As You Like, Say The Free Spirits. Yes; But As Long As You Like Anything Contrary To God's Will, You Do Not Love Him.

A Free Mind Is One Which Is Untroubled And Unfettered By Anything, Which Has Not Bound Its Best Part To Any Particular Manner Of Being Or Worship And Which Does Not Seek Its Own Interest In Anything But Is Always Immersed In God's Most Precious Will. . . . There Is No Work Which Men And Women Can Perform, However Small, Which Does Not Draw From This Its Power And Strength.

Apprehend God In All Things, For God Is In All Things. Every Single Creature Is Full Of God And Is A Book About God. Every Creature Is A Word Of God.

When I Think Of God's Kingdom, I Am Compelled To Be Silent Because Of Its Immensity, Because God's Kingdom Is None Other Than God Himself With All His Riches.

Nobody At Any Time Is Cut Off From God.

Though One Should Live Through All The Time From Adam And All The Time To Come Before The Judgment Day Doing Good Works, Yet He Who, Energising In His Highest, Purest Part, Crosses From Time To Eternity, Verily In The Sight Of God This Man Conceives And Does Far More Than Anyone Who Lives Throughout All Past And Future Time, Because This Now Includes The Whole Of Time. One Master Says That In Crossing Over Time Into The Now Each Power Of The Soul Will Surpass Itself. . . .

Spirituality Is Not To Be Learned By Flight From The World, Or By Running Away From Things, Or By Turning Solitary And Going Apart From The World. Rather, We Must Learn An Inner Solitude Wherever Or With Whomsoever We May Be. We Must Learn To Penetrate Things And Find God There.

Compassion Is Where Peace And Justice Kiss

As Long As I Am This Or That, I Am Not All Things.

Existence Itself Stands In Need Of Nothing, For It Lacks Nothing, Whereas Everything Else Needs It, Because Outside Of It There Is Nothing. Nothingness Stands In Need Of Existence, As A Sick Man Lacks Health And Is In Need. Health Has No Need Of A Sick Man. To Want Nothing, Therefore, Characterizes The Highest Perfection, Is Fullest And Purest Existence.

Even Now One Rarely Hears Of People Achieving Great Things Unless They First Stumble In Some Respect.

The Soul Loves The Body. And Consider Too How It Is That The Body Is More In The Soul Than The Soul Is In The Body.

One Must Not Always Think So Much About What One Should Do, But Rather What One Should Be. Our Works Do Not Ennoble Us; But We Must Ennoble Our Works.

To Be Sure, Our Mental Processes Often Go Wrong, So That We Imagine God To Have Gone Away. What Should Be Done Then? Do Exactly What You Would Do If You Felt Most Secure. Learn To Behave Thus Even In Deepest Distress And Keep Yourself That Way In Any And Every Estate Of Life. I Can Give You No Better Advice Than To Find God Where You Lost Him.

Do Exactly What You Would Do If You Felt Most Secure.

When A Man Sees The One In All Things, He Is Above Mere Understanding.

There Is No Stopping Place In This Life--nor Is There Ever One For Any Person, No Matter How Far Along The Way One's Gone.

Whoever Possesses God In Their Being Has Him In A Divine Manner, And He Shines Out To Them In All Things; For Them All Things Taste Of God And In All Things It Is God's Image That They See.

Above All Else, Know This: Be Prepared At All Times For The Gifts Of God And Be Ready Always For New Ones. For God Is A Thousand Times More Ready To Give Than We Are To Receive

God Is At His Greatest When I Am At My Least.

A Pure Heart Is One That Is Unencumbered, Unworried, Uncommitted And Which Does Not Want Its Own Way About Anything But Which, Rather, Is Submerged In The Loving Will Of God.

Think More About Who You Are And Less About What You Do, For If You Are Just, Your Ways Will Be Just.

The Shell Must Be Cracked Apart If What Is In It Is To Come Out, For If You Want The Kernel You Must Break The Shell. And Therefore If You Want To Discover Nature's Nakedness You Must Destroy Its Symbols, And The Farther You Get In The Nearer You Come To Its Essence. When You Come To The One That Gathers All Things Up Into Itself, There You Must Stay.

God Is Bound To Act, To Pour Himself Out (into Thee) As Soon As Ever He Shall Find Thee Ready.

Treat All Things As If They Were Loaned To You Without Any Ownership - Whether Body Or Soul, Sense Or Strength, External Goods Or Honors, House Or Hall . . . Everything.

Your Own Efforts "did Not Bring It To Pass," Only God-but Rejoice If God Found A Use For Your Efforts In His Work.

God Is The Word That Speaks Itself.

The Man Who Has Submitted His Will And Purposes Entirely To God, Carries God With Him In All His Works And In All Circumstances.

For A Heart To Be Perfectly Ready It Has To Be Perfectly Empty. In This Condition It Has Attained Its Maximum Capacity.

When You Are Thwarted, It Is Your Own Attitude That Is Out Of Order

Positive Attitude

God Is Like A Person Who Clears His Throat While Hiding And So Gives Himself Away. God Lies In Wait For Us With Nothing So Much As Love.

I Have Often Said That A Person Who Wishes To Begin A Good Life Should Be Like One Who Draws A Circle. Let Him Or Her Get The Center In The Right Place And Keep It So And The Circumference Will Be Good.

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.

In Silence Man Can Most Readily Preserve His Integrity.

God Must Act And Pour Himself Into You The Moment He Finds You Ready. Don't Imagine That God Can Be Compared To An Earthly Carpenter, Who Acts Or Doesn't Act, As He Wishes; Who Can Will To Do Something Or Leave It Undone, According To His Pleasure. It Is Not That Way With God: Where And When God Finds You Ready, He Must Act And Overflow Into You, Just As When The Air Is Clear And Pure, The Sun Must Overflow Into It And Cannot Refrain From Doing That.

To The Extent That You Eliminate Ego From Your Activities, God Comes Into Them - But No More And No Less. Begin With That, And Let It Cost You Your Uttermost. In This Way, And No Other, Is True Peace To Be Found.

Know That When You Seek Anything Of Your Own, You Will Never Find God, Because You Do Not Seek God Purely. You Are Seeking Something Along With God, And You Are Acting Just As If You Were To Make A Candle Out Of God In Order To Look For Something With It. Once One Finds The Things One Is Looking For, One Throws The Candle Away. This Is What You Are Doing.

Philosophers Say The Soul Is Double-faced, Her Upper Face Gazes At God All The Time And Her Lower Face Looks Somewhat Down, Informing The Senses; And The Upper Face, Which Is The Summit Of The Soul, Is In Eternity And Has Nothing To Do With Time: It Knows Nothing Of Time Or Of Body.

If We Keep Our Eyes Fixed On God Alone, Then Truly He Must Work In Us And Nothing, Neither The Crowd Nor Any Place Can Hinder Him In This.

People Who Have Let Go Of Themselves Are So Pure That The World Cannot Harm Them.

The Outward Man Is The Swinging Door; The Inner Man Is The Still Hinge.

If I Say That God Is Good, That Is Not True. God Is Not Good. I Am Good, And If I Say That God Is Wise, That Is Not True. I Am Wiser Than He Is.

The Soul Does Not Grow By Addition But By Subtraction.

People Should Not Worry As Much About What They Do But Rather About What They Are. If They And Their Ways Are Good, Then Their Deeds Are Radiant... It Is Not Our Works Which Sanctify Us But We Who Sanctify Our Works.

You Will Have Peace To The Extent That You Have God, And The Further You Are Away From God The Less You Will Be At Peace... Thus You May Measure Your Progress With God By Measuring Your Peace Or The Lack Of It.

If The Only Prayer You Ever Say In Your Entire Life Is Thank You, It Will Be Enough.

To The Quiet Mind All Things Are Possible.

Love Is The Root Of All Joy And Sorrow.

To Walk On Not Wondering Am I Right Or Doing Something Wrong.

The Very Best And Highest Attainment In This Life Is To Remain Still And Let God Act And Speak In You.

My Children, Mark Me. I Pray You. Know! God Loves My Soul So Much That His Very Life And Being Depend Upon His Loving Me, Whether He Would Or No. To Stop God Loving Me Would Be To Rob Him Of His Godhood; For God Is Love No Less Than He Is Truth; As He Is Good, So Is He Love As Well. It Is The Absolute Truth, As God Lives... If Anyone Would Ask Me What God Is, I Should Answer: God Is Love, And So Altogether Lovely That Creatures All With One Accord Essay To Love His Loveliness, Whether They Do So Knowingly Or Unbeknownst, In Joy Or Sorrow.

There Is A Huge Silence Inside Each Of Us That Beckons Us Into Itself, And The Recovery Of Our Own Silence Can Begin To Teach Us The Language Of Heaven.

The Second Means Of Attraction Which He Used Is Emptiness, As We See When We Place One End Of A Hollow Pipe In Water, And Draw Up It By Suction; The Water Runs Up The Stem To The Mouth, Because The Emptiness Of The Pipe, From Which The Air Has Been Drawn, Draws The Water To Itself.

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 Made And Let God Be God In You.

The Authorities Teach That Next To The First Emanation, Which Is The Son Coming Out Of The Father, The Angels Are Most Like God. And It May Well Be True, For The Soul At Its Highest Is Formed Like God, But An Angel Gives A Closer Idea Of Him. That Is All An Angel Is: An Idea Of God. For This Reason The Angel Was Sent To The Soul, So That The Soul Might Be Re-formed By It, To Be The Divine Idea By Which It Was First Conceived.

Be Ready At All Times For The Gifts Of God, And Always For New Ones.

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.

The Soul At Its Highest Is Found Like God, But An Angel Gives A Closer Idea Of Him. That Is All An Angel Is: An Idea Of God.

We Are All Meant To Be Mothers Of God, For God Is Always Needing To Be Born.

The Seed Of God Is In Us: Pear Seeds Grow Into Pear Trees; Hazel Seeds Into Hazel Trees; And God Seeds Into God.

The More We Have The Less We Own.

Jesus Might Have Said, I Became Man For You. If You Do Not Become God For Me, You Wrong Me.

Whatever Thou Sayest Of God Is Untrue.

Our Bodily Food Is Changed Into Us, But Our Spiritual Food Changes Us Into It.

As God Can Only Be Seen By His Own Light, So He Can Only Be Loved By His Own Love.

There Exists Only The Present Instant ... There Is No Yesterday Nor Any Tomorrow, But Only Now.

Between God And Me There Is No 'between'.

When The Soul Wants To Experience Something She Throws Out An Image In Front Of Her And Then Steps Into It.

Above Thought Is The Intellect, Which Still Seeks: It Goes About Looking, Spies Out Here And There, Picks Up And Drops. But Above The Intellect That Seeks Is Another Intellect Which Does Not Seek But Stays In Its Pure, Simple Being, Which Is Embraced In That Light.

[w]e Must Come Into A Transformed Knowing, An Unknowing Which Comes Not From Ignorance But From Knowledge.

God Is Not Found In The Soul By Adding Anything But By A Process Of Subtraction.

I Have Sought Earnestly And With Great Diligence That Good And High Virtue By Which Man May Draw Closest To God... And As Far As My Intelligence Would Permit, I Find That High Virtue To Be Pure Disinterest, That Is, Detachment From Creatures. Our Lord Said To Martha 'unum Est Necessarium', Which Is To Say; To Be Untroubled And Pure, One Thing Is Necessary And That Is Disinterest.

Whatever God Does, The First Outburst Is Always Compassion.

And Suddenly You Know: It's Time To Start Something New And Trust The Magic Of Beginnings.

God Is A Great Underground River That No One Can Dam Up And No One Can Stop.

Though It May Be Called A Nescience, And Unknowing, Yet There Is In It More Than All Knowing And Understanding Without It; For This Unknowing Lures And Attracts You From All Understood Things, And From Yourself As Well.

The Father And The Son Have One Will, And That Will Is The Holy Ghost, Who Gives Himself To The Soul So That The Divine Nature Permeates The Powers Of The Soul So That It Can Only Do God-like Works.

The Soul Must Long For God In Order To Be Set Aflame By God's Love; But If The Soul Cannot Yet Feel The Longing, Then It Must Long For The Longing. To Long For The Longing Is Also From God.

Action And Becoming Are One.

Trending Author

Michel Foucault

Geraldine Brooks

Category