MEISTER ECKHART #1: Some Definitions

January 23, 2003

{This is the first of some postings I'll be sending, extracted from the writings of Meister Eckhart.

Born in Germany in 1260. Eckhart entered the Dominican Order at the age of fifteen. By the age of 34 he was Prior (second to the Abbot) of his Convent; nine years later he was Provincial, in charge of the province of Saxony.

19 years later, in 1325 (he was 65 years old) it was rumoured within the order that he was "setting forth things in his sermons to the common people that might easily lead his listeners into error."

Two years later he was charged with heresy, but the charges were delayed in ecclesiastical bureaucracy. At some time within the two years after being charged, Eckhart died. He was not, technically, a heretic--but it's a safe supposition that he would have been so declared.

Among Christian writers, Eckhart and St. John of the Cross come closest to Eastern philosophy; but whereas Juan de la Cruz takes an emotional (_bhakta_) approach to the Reality, Eckhart takes a more analytic approach, much closer to the Advaita Vedânta, or, more recently, the teaching of Ramana Maharshi.

Students of Bhagavan will find many familiar notes rung in the quotations I hope to post here.

The DEFINITIONS that follow are all extracted, as will be everything that is not marked with [brackets] from the 1924 Evans translation of the writings.

Namaste! -- Diva Das.]

* * * * *

GOD:

* God is a light shining in itself in silent stillness.

* God is such that we apprehend him better by negation than affirmation.

* Gos is a word, an unspoken word.

THE ETERNAL BIRTH:

* Birth must be taken in the sense of revelation, the Son being said to be born of the Father because he reveals the Father as father.

ESSENCE

* Essence is self-absorbed: not an effusion, but an inner fusion.

NATURE:

* Nature is the thing that essence can receive.