Meister Eckhart Sermon #1 analysis: Cast out the merchants. Birth of the Word in the soul
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- Dr. Johnson explains the ideas in Meister Eckhart's Sermon #1 (Q.1, Pf.7): Intravit Iesus in Templum (Jesus went into the temple and cast out the buyers and sellers).
The ideas include divine rest and comfort, the birth of the Word in the soul, the metaphysics of flow, boiling over (ebullitio), living without a why, and many of Eckhart's other ideas and metaphors.
Dr. Johnson teaches at Georgia Tech. He is the author of Paradox at Play: Metaphor in Meister Eckhart's Sermons by Catholic University of America Press. It includes many sermons never before translated into English.
Meister Eckhart, Paradox at Play
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I hope you found these ideas good to think with!
This is so helpful in understanding Echart. And a joy to listen to our delightful guide. Blessings from Ireland.
You’re quite welcome, thank you!
Derek Poole is the name of a guy from my hometown Gordo,Alabama, USA
" In one of his prayers, Meister Eckhart has said… and this is one of the rarest men that Christianity has produced. In fact, he looks a stranger in the world of Christians. He should have been born in Japan as a Zen Master, his insight is so clear, so deep, so beyond dogma.
He says in one of his prayers, “Yes, I depend on you, God, but you also depend on me. If I were not here, who will worship and who will pray? and you would have missed me.” And he is true: it is not out of any ego, it is a simple fact. I know God must have nodded at that moment, “You are true, Eckhart, because if you were not there, I would not have been here.”
The worshipper and the worshipped exist together; the lover and the beloved exist together. One cannot exist without the other, and this is the mystery of existence: everything exists together. This togetherness is God. God is not a person; this very togetherness of all, is God."
This reminds me of an observation that Joseph Campbell made: monks from different religions don’t have much problem getting along well with one another. As I’ve argued and called “connoisseurship,” if you’ve left the Cave and seen the light (to use a Platonic metaphor), then you can recognize another person who has done the same even if they took a different path out of the Cave. I wrote an article in 2018 on how religious experience (as Eckhart points to) is a path to reconciliation, tolerance and peace between religions. It’s chapter 8 of Atone: rowman.com/ISBN/9781498560689/Atone-Religion-Conflict-and-Reconciliation
If Meister Eckhart were to respond to intellectuals without spiritual experience analyzing his works, he might assert that purely intellectual interpretation falls short of truly understanding his teachings. Eckhart, emphasizing personal experience of God, could be critical of such analysis, noting that without inner spiritual experience, one might miss the essence of his mystical insights. He might challenge these intellectuals to seek spiritual understanding to truly grasp the depth of his messages.
I entirely agree. In fact, we may be able to gather evidence to that effect in the material surrounding comments that specifically appeal to experience. I’m thinking of sermons 52 and 10 in particular. I may have to look into that. I took on Katz’ argument against experience and mysticism in my book
You know, in fact, I’ve made the same argument with Augustine. It’s easier, I think, to underscore the point by imagining what Eckhart or Augustine would have to say if they suddenly admitted: “oh no, I’ve never seen it! I was just intellectualizing!” That seems so laughably wrong that I think it helps motivate our understanding that Eckhart - and Augustine - as well were speaking from the position of experience
I believe many individuals throughout history have ACTUALLY experienced the “Kingdom Of Heaven”, and that this IS the single most important pinnacle of human experience.
Blessings from Russia
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. I hope you do more on Eckhart, I find him fascinating.
You’re quite welcome - thank you for the kind words!
Check the books of Nisargadata Maharaj...and You Will find Eckhart there....
I’ll have to give that a look. Thanks for the suggestion
Thank you for being able to study your work, God bless you
You are quite welcome! It's always nice to hear that someone's really enjoying it
Of interest¡
A powerful analogy and my introduction to Meister Eckhart's work.
Brilliant handling of the material.
Thank you so much! It’s wonderful to hear that people are enjoying this material so much. I need to push forward and do more of the videos on Eckhart in my idea queue
Thanks!
You’re quite welcome! Thank you!
Is it not sermon #46? Or the sermons are organized differently?
I'm using the numbering of the Kohlhammer critical edition. This one, Pr.1 is also Pfeiffer 6. Pr.46 is "Haec est vita aeterna" which is also Pfeiffer 47. Does that help?
@@goodtothinkwith thank you, also just bought your book,
Respekt for Works 👌
Thanks!
It would be wonderful if you could speak about Eckhart and Buddhism. Thanks very much for this talk.
Yes, that’s a great suggestion. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think perhaps I should look in detail at D.T. Suzuki’s book on Eckhart and Buddhism and go from there.
@@goodtothinkwith yes.. or compare the metaphors these traditions use. I like very much the "hinge" in Echkart. Thanks for mentioning this. In Lao Tze chapter 11 三十輻 共一轂，當其無，有車之用。
We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the centre hole that makes the wagon move.
I also found the ranking of the soul above the angels resonates with the Buddhist idea that humans have more potential to achieve enlightenment than the gods or devas.
Eckhart is very similar to nisargadata maharaj
And the modern pure non-dual classic, A Course in Miracles.
@judsimonson9087 A course in miracles is so long, but Nisargadatta's "I Am That" keeps it very short and says continuously "Go within!!!!"
Indeed he is!!!
Any thoughts on why the eternal birth of the Word in the soul appeals to people today?
What do doves have to do with Christianity?
Doves are long-standing symbols of peace and the divine, going back to the book of Genesis in early Judaism
too many ads
I didn’t change the default settings. I think the overall frequency has increased.
Down the hall upstairs from me, there's a girl that lives I never see. I hear the ringing of her phone, she must live up there all alone...
John Prine said that.
If a Christian doesn't understand Eckhart, they dont understand Christianity at all.
Now that’s an interesting claim. Eckhart is definitely part of the esoteric side of Christianity. But is it so different that it isn’t the same religion? That question quietly looms in the background for a lot of discussions about christian mysticism
@@goodtothinkwith well, I discovered things on my own, and it very nearly cost me my life, though we've all had such times in life most likely. It's probably appropriate to say that despite such cases dozens of times, the final time I didn't care if I lived or died to the greatest extent of those words, but I was not suicidal. I think that is what is meant by having no sensual desire remaining. And, maybe there is more than one way to attain that state, but for me, many years fighting corruption in court did it 🤪 it became like a hydra. For every instance of corruption, they do half a dozen more corrupt things, and it becomes exponential. You just collapse from the exhaustion and insurmountable evil.
But I had many years of breathing meditation under my belt. And under the circumstances, and attempting over a 12 hour supreme effort to not miss a single breath, and succeeding, I went thru a process that I could describe in detail whereby my spirit literally disconnected from my body. The entire universe, even spacetime itself. And at that point, you see the nature of existence, and you can kind of get the gist in the writings/speech of any other that has done the same. And Eckhart is in that category for me. But I do not think that is an ultimate attainment. I think it is an introduction, and more must be done. It is death, which would seem to be what is required if you are going to be born again. When Jesus said the path was narrow, he meant very very narrow, nearly impossible.
If you are interested in details, I'd be happy to share what I know. Basically, the truth is in front of your face, but most never consider what is in front of their face. They take things for granted and thus overlook the essential. I don't doubt Eckhart was a superior man that practiced something with austerity, that he made major efforts and sacrifices, and ultimately transcended the material universe.
No spirituality is belief based. There are actual things to be done. Mainly, perfect concentration+virtue, the 2 great commandments. It's all right there. But people want to interpret those 2 commandments casually. They don't know that when Jesus said: ALL YOUR HEART, MIND, AND SOUL, he was talking about a supreme effort .. nothing casual at all.
But .. nobody should be disheartened. I do not buy the doctrine of one life in the flesh only. The evidence from what I've seen is eternal births. Intents connected with mind+body is the binding power. And if the causes of binding remain, the results remain.
@@goodtothinkwithI am sometimes thinking, where is Jesus in all of this? Beyond the Trinity. The mystics were dicing with death given the times!