Thank you so much for the kind words! I just hope that I’m letting Eckhart’s thought shine through and that it’s useful to others as it has been for me
@ClintJohnson I thank Something that you're the one who introduced me to Eckhart, like last month. 🤯! Any other translator would probably have put me off, because Language. Enormous Thanks. I won't send $; after watching just one of your videos I bought your book! ❤
When you practise Silent meditation, Eckhart's expressions such as being free from images, at rest, non attachment, etc., all make perfect sense. As you watch the mind settle down and become quiet, you see the images and attachments fade away. In fact, everything fades until there is just Awareness. At this point, even the sense of 'I' being aware fades until there is just Awareness alone. There is no need for any analysis of his words - just experience them.
@@jagirkaur6216 It will only open when you are truly ready - and then you realise there never was a lock to open. But be careful, many think it has opened, when in fact all that occurs is an ego game.
@@SolveEtCoagula93 thanks for reminding about being careful it's made me remember how many of those travellers of old remained silent and secretive and were not in any hurry to be a teacher or anything of that sort, they gave this realization all the time possible to mature, grow and flower.
@@SolveEtCoagula93 Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi The Journey Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune: every success depends upon focusing the heart. Unconcerned with the business of the world, keep saying with all your soul, “Ku, ku,” like the dove. Consider this well, o you whom worldliness veils, God has tied “invocation” to “I will answer.” When weakness is cleared from your heart, your prayer will reach the glorious Lord. [III, 2302-5] Even though you’re not equipped, keep searching: equipment isn’t necessary on the way to the Lord. Whoever you see engaged in search, become her friend and cast your head in front of her, for choosing to be a neighbor of seekers, you become one yourself; protected by conquerors, you will yourself learn to conquer. If an ant seeks the rank of Solomon, don’t smile contemptuously upon its quest. Everything you possess of skill, and wealth and handicraft, wasn’t it first merely a thought and a quest?[III, 1445-49] O God, You who know all that is hidden You who speak with compassion, don’t hide from us the errors of our wrong pursuits; nor reveal to us the lack within the good we try to do, lest we become disgusted and lose the heart to journey on this Path.[IV, 1348-54] On Resurrection Day God will ask, “During this reprieve I gave you, what have you produced for Me? Through what work have you reached your life’s end? Your food and your strength, for what have they been consumed? Where have you dimmed the luster of your eye? Where have you dissipated your five senses? You have expended eyes and ears and intellect and the pure celestial substances; what have you purchased from the earth? I gave you hands and feet as spade and mattock for tilling the soil of good works; when did they by themselves become existent?[III, 2147-2153] The Prophet said, “I am like an Ark in the Flood of Time. I and my companions are as the Ship of Noah: whoever clings to us will gain spiritual graces.” When you are with the Sheikh you are far removed from evil: day and night you are a traveller in a ship. You are under the protection of a life-giving spirit: you are asleep in the ship and proceeding on the way. Don’t break with the prophet of your day: don’t rely on your own skill and footsteps. Lion though you are, to go on the way without a guide is arrogant, foolish, and contemptible. Step aboard the ship and set sail, like the soul going towards the soul’s Beloved. Without hands or feet, travel toward Timelessness just as spirits flee from non-existence.[IV, 538-43;57-8] O Muslim, while you are still engaged in the quest, good manners are nothing but forbearance with everyone who is unmannerly. When you see anyone complaining of such and such a person’s ill-nature and bad temper, know that the complainant is bad-tempered, forasmuch as he speaks ill of that bad-tempered person, because he alone is good-tempered who is quietly forbearing towards the bad-tempered and ill-natured.[IV, 771-4] By God, don’t linger in any spiritual benefit you have gained, but yearn for more like one suffering from illness whose thirst for water is never quenched. This Divine Court is the Infinite Plane. Leave the seat of honor behind: the Way is your seat of honor.[III, 1960-91]
@@jagirkaur6216 Absolutely - totally agree with you. Especially with all the rubbish that is appearing via social media. Anyone can read a few books, watch a few videos and even have a type of experience which leads them to believe they have awoken. But, as an ex-teacher once told me, when you truly awaken, you will know, because you will also realise why there is no need to tell anyone. Those who feel they need to tell others are still under the ego illusion. It often makes me wonder just how many people, throughout history, have become enlightened but because no one else knew, we simply do not know about them? Take care, and walk without leaving traces.
I would argue that, no matter how much you may not like it, or disagree, all of us live the 'proper way'. Indeed, we have no choice but to do so. We are exactly where we should be, doing exactly what we should be doing.
@@SolveEtCoagula93 ok, thanks for the reply 🙂 isn't that the answer of a slave or prisoner? It's an answer of acceptance regardless of the condition of self and society. It's not an answer from a man that applies himself toward the betterment of his condition or that of society. I mean, I get your point, and i see truth in it, but maybe it's only half the truth. Maybe another half is that it is important to push ourselves beyond zones of comfort or conformity to develop muscles, physical or otherwise; or disciplines, or other things that are not naturally within our zone of comfort. If children were allowed to follow that philosophy, they'd never know how to read+write or do math. Much of what we accomplished as children was a result of doing things we really didn't want to do. So, maybe we have a duty of some kind to push ourselves as others pushed us as children.
@@chadkline4268 I would completely reverse your sentiments. Far from being enslavement, it's the way to liberation and freedom - total freedom. But, you are not seeing what the real message is. The biggest trap humans fall into is thinking that they are free, when all the time they are enslaved. From the moment you are born, you are conditioned and programmed. Firstly by education, then by society. Both of these systems give you the message that they are ways to freedom, but when you look around you, how many people are really free? It has nothing to do with acceptance - rather, it relates to understanding. Which man is more liberated - the one who thinks he is free but in fact lives chained and bound - or the one who sees the chains and works within them to liberate himself? You are making the standard error in thinking that understanding what you are, what your real condition is leads to some type of passive, denial of life. That seeing how things really are causes a person to drop into a state of complete apathy. Nothing could be further from the truth. But understanding the conditions of being human, we then free to truly appreciate what it means to be human and to appreciate its wonder and beauty. It isn't about what you are doing, what particular actions you may be undertaking, it's about seeing into the nature of those actions. Once this happens, you are free to carry out anything. Far from not helping or caring for others, you then see why it is such a beautiful action to do so. But, of course, the hardest thing is to convince others. Plato summed it up very nicely in his 'Simile of the Cave' - a story of people chained up such that they could only see flickering shadows before them and believing that the shadows were the real world. Occasionally, someone turns around and 'sees' that everyone has been taken in by this shadow world. Such a person then walks out into the sunshine and understands the reality of the world. But when they return to liberate their fellow captives, it proves to be an impossible task. The captives do not want to be liberated - they have become too conditioned and therefore remain trapped in illusion. It was true for Plato, and it is still true (perhaps more so) today.
@@chadkline4268 I didn't know this reply existed - sorry for a late response. I think the trouble is we have to apply it to EVERYTHING that is happening. So, it isn't a case of 'doing what you want', it's a case of doing what you're doing. If that means protesting, arguing, discipling, growing, meditating, eating, shitting or whatever - fine - just do whatever it is. Your statement about pushing yourself is exactly the point - if you find yourself performing such an action, it is because that is what you are meant to be doing. Every action is a proper action under the conditions in which it arises - otherwise, it couldn't arise. If it exists, it is because the Tao (God) brings it into being. Krishna explains this so much better than me in the Bhagavad Gita. Even though Arjuna is completely distraught at the thought of killing his friends and family members, Krishna tells him to do so - IF that is what he has found himself in the position to do. He is in there because his past karma and all the karma of those around him brings them to the battle. He also tells Arjuna that the reason for not wanting to fight is based on ignorance of what it means to be human. But please read the Gita - it is explained in great detail.
Ok question. What if he is right about images but we are all wrong of the interpretation of it? What if self is also an image that must be lost before union/birth can take place like one of many events? The same self that we created as children and maybe that is the freedom lost?
He does use the “image of” language for the soul, but with “image of God” as Christ. He has a sermon where he goes into detail about the “image of” dynamic. I should probably do an analysis of that one. I believe it’s maybe 71… I’ll have to check. Eckhart’s way of talking about the self goes all the way to God rather than being an obstacle in the way that other images are. Now that said, there is a sense in which we “annihilate the self” (his wording). So in that sense (perhaps the one that you have in mind with our constructed sense of self), then yes. Hmm. I like your question. I can see that I need to treat that topic in more detail
Ok now. Everything I told you and said was said to me from a person that only read 2 sentences of ekhart and in those 2 he knew that Ekhart has what he has. Ekhart said “it all comes down to definitions.” Listening to this man and hearing him say the exact words as those in the book and then just to have those same words fit with Ekhart there is a pattern and it is all in plain English in his words but they fit into words spoken 2000 years ago and again what 700+ years ago again and this man has been saying it now for almost 4 years since that event that is most talked about happened to him. these humans are new creations connected to something that is providing them with an understanding that has no equal. How can people from different centuries be saying the same thing? I am not here to convince you that is impossible. 👍🏿
@@goodtothinkwithidk if it’s. You fell short as much as you can’t not fall short? Even I can only hear so much I totally understand when it gets supper tricky!
Yes, but paradoxically of course! That’s where one becomes “a virgin who was a wife” being paradoxically in both at the same time as virgin (pure with the capacity to receive God) and wife (as God who eternally speaks the Word)
Confusing for me. The Buddha essentially said: don't worry about humans not having sex. That'll never happen. And the Pattimoka, rules for monks, began because of a monk that had sex with his former wife to make a baby. The gist being: there will always be those too dull for the spiritual life, and not to worry, they'll always be making plenty of babies. The exchange of alms was supposed to take care of the exchanges of teachings for physical necessities. This series is too deep for me to comprehend with a single listening.
Ahh what if we are not connected to god because if he was he would destroy who we think we are? What if the self has to be lessened to its essence for any union to happen? Lessened to the point it is in all instances destroyed that only the very essence of that person is left that unites with father?
I think you’re in the right track! After the “annihilation” of self and purification by clearing out all obstacles/hindraces (the “foreign images” and “buyers and sellers” of sermon 1), then what is left is God, who was there the whole time. That’s the sense we get in Neoplatonism as well. Again, I like your thinking… it makes me wonder if I could find evidence for that same thing more directly in Plato.
Well if evil and good are a thing and good can not be in the presence of evil less it destroys it. Then how could we fill the temple with merchants if good was there? It could be seen that good is not here or in us at all and the only sense of good we claim or can is the human variety? As for how the merchants get out of the temple maybe they are kicked out by someone or something that is not us? If we are made to stand alone then why would we need saving? If we are diminished to the point of nothing would that human need saving?
Fantastic analysis; so eastern. Eckhart rocks. But you say he takes liberties with his hermeneutics, that was more acceptable than our conservative approach. Interesting.
Thank you so much!! Yes, they had a considerably more fluid approach to scriptural exegesis than people today - less concerned with the “literal” or any kind of “objective”meaning
Thanks!
You’re quite welcome - Thank you so much!
Wow. What an insightful presentation. I truly respect and awe in your knowledge. Thank you 🙏
Thank you so much for the kind words! I just hope that I’m letting Eckhart’s thought shine through and that it’s useful to others as it has been for me
@ClintJohnson I thank Something that you're the one who introduced me to Eckhart, like last month. 🤯! Any other translator would probably have put me off, because Language. Enormous Thanks. I won't send $; after watching just one of your videos I bought your book! ❤
I’m so happy to hear that!! I hope you enjoy the book - let me know what you think of it 😁
When you practise Silent meditation, Eckhart's expressions such as being free from images, at rest, non attachment, etc., all make perfect sense.
As you watch the mind settle down and become quiet, you see the images and attachments fade away. In fact, everything fades until there is just Awareness. At this point, even the sense of 'I' being aware fades until there is just Awareness alone. There is no need for any analysis of his words - just experience them.
It strangely seems to be true as if one knows which is the right key but is hesitant to put it in the lock what if the lock really opens up
@@jagirkaur6216 It will only open when you are truly ready - and then you realise there never was a lock to open.
But be careful, many think it has opened, when in fact all that occurs is an ego game.
@@SolveEtCoagula93 thanks for reminding about being careful it's made me remember how many of those travellers of old remained silent and secretive and were not in any hurry to be a teacher or anything of that sort, they gave this realization all the time possible to mature, grow and flower.
@@SolveEtCoagula93 Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi
The Journey
Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune:
every success depends upon focusing the heart.
Unconcerned with the business of the world,
keep saying with all your soul, “Ku, ku,” like the dove.
Consider this well, o you whom worldliness veils,
God has tied “invocation” to “I will answer.”
When weakness is cleared from your heart,
your prayer will reach the glorious Lord.
[III, 2302-5]
Even though you’re not equipped,
keep searching:
equipment isn’t necessary on the way to the Lord.
Whoever you see engaged in search,
become her friend and cast your head in front of her,
for choosing to be a neighbor of seekers,
you become one yourself;
protected by conquerors,
you will yourself learn to conquer.
If an ant seeks the rank of Solomon,
don’t smile contemptuously upon its quest.
Everything you possess of skill, and wealth and handicraft,
wasn’t it first merely a thought and a quest?[III, 1445-49]
O God, You who know all that is hidden
You who speak with compassion,
don’t hide from us the errors of our wrong pursuits;
nor reveal to us the lack within the good we try to do,
lest we become disgusted and lose the heart
to journey on this Path.[IV, 1348-54]
On Resurrection Day God will ask,
“During this reprieve I gave you,
what have you produced for Me?
Through what work have you reached your life’s end?
Your food and your strength, for what have they been consumed?
Where have you dimmed the luster of your eye?
Where have you dissipated your five senses?
You have expended eyes and ears and intellect
and the pure celestial substances;
what have you purchased from the earth?
I gave you hands and feet as spade and mattock
for tilling the soil of good works;
when did they by themselves become existent?[III, 2147-2153]
The Prophet said, “I am like an Ark in the Flood of Time.
I and my companions are as the Ship of Noah:
whoever clings to us will gain spiritual graces.”
When you are with the Sheikh you are far removed from evil:
day and night you are a traveller in a ship.
You are under the protection of a life-giving spirit:
you are asleep in the ship and proceeding on the way.
Don’t break with the prophet of your day:
don’t rely on your own skill and footsteps.
Lion though you are, to go on the way without a guide
is arrogant, foolish, and contemptible.
Step aboard the ship and set sail,
like the soul going towards the soul’s Beloved.
Without hands or feet, travel toward Timelessness
just as spirits flee from non-existence.[IV, 538-43;57-8]
O Muslim, while you are still engaged in the quest,
good manners are nothing but forbearance
with everyone who is unmannerly.
When you see anyone complaining
of such and such a person’s ill-nature and bad temper,
know that the complainant is bad-tempered,
forasmuch as he speaks ill of that bad-tempered person,
because he alone is good-tempered who is quietly forbearing
towards the bad-tempered and ill-natured.[IV, 771-4]
By God, don’t linger
in any spiritual benefit you have gained,
but yearn for more like one suffering from illness
whose thirst for water is never quenched.
This Divine Court is the Infinite Plane.
Leave the seat of honor behind:
the Way is your seat of honor.[III, 1960-91]
@@jagirkaur6216 Absolutely - totally agree with you. Especially with all the rubbish that is appearing via social media.
Anyone can read a few books, watch a few videos and even have a type of experience which leads them to believe they have awoken. But, as an ex-teacher once told me, when you truly awaken, you will know, because you will also realise why there is no need to tell anyone.
Those who feel they need to tell others are still under the ego illusion.
It often makes me wonder just how many people, throughout history, have become enlightened but because no one else knew, we simply do not know about them?
Take care, and walk without leaving traces.
Weird feeling about Eckhart staying at Porette's inquisitor's house only one year after she was burned. I wonder if he condoned her murder.
That is indeed strange. It's a shame we don't have more documentation about that
Is there anyone on earth that knows the proper way for man to live? 🤔 I love the breadth+depth of the speaker. Truly vast 😊
thank you!
I would argue that, no matter how much you may not like it, or disagree, all of us live the 'proper way'. Indeed, we have no choice but to do so. We are exactly where we should be, doing exactly what we should be doing.
@@SolveEtCoagula93 ok, thanks for the reply 🙂 isn't that the answer of a slave or prisoner? It's an answer of acceptance regardless of the condition of self and society. It's not an answer from a man that applies himself toward the betterment of his condition or that of society.
I mean, I get your point, and i see truth in it, but maybe it's only half the truth. Maybe another half is that it is important to push ourselves beyond zones of comfort or conformity to develop muscles, physical or otherwise; or disciplines, or other things that are not naturally within our zone of comfort.
If children were allowed to follow that philosophy, they'd never know how to read+write or do math. Much of what we accomplished as children was a result of doing things we really didn't want to do. So, maybe we have a duty of some kind to push ourselves as others pushed us as children.
@@chadkline4268 I would completely reverse your sentiments. Far from being enslavement, it's the way to liberation and freedom - total freedom. But, you are not seeing what the real message is. The biggest trap humans fall into is thinking that they are free, when all the time they are enslaved. From the moment you are born, you are conditioned and programmed. Firstly by education, then by society. Both of these systems give you the message that they are ways to freedom, but when you look around you, how many people are really free?
It has nothing to do with acceptance - rather, it relates to understanding. Which man is more liberated - the one who thinks he is free but in fact lives chained and bound - or the one who sees the chains and works within them to liberate himself?
You are making the standard error in thinking that understanding what you are, what your real condition is leads to some type of passive, denial of life. That seeing how things really are causes a person to drop into a state of complete apathy. Nothing could be further from the truth. But understanding the conditions of being human, we then free to truly appreciate what it means to be human and to appreciate its wonder and beauty.
It isn't about what you are doing, what particular actions you may be undertaking, it's about seeing into the nature of those actions. Once this happens, you are free to carry out anything. Far from not helping or caring for others, you then see why it is such a beautiful action to do so.
But, of course, the hardest thing is to convince others. Plato summed it up very nicely in his 'Simile of the Cave' - a story of people chained up such that they could only see flickering shadows before them and believing that the shadows were the real world. Occasionally, someone turns around and 'sees' that everyone has been taken in by this shadow world. Such a person then walks out into the sunshine and understands the reality of the world. But when they return to liberate their fellow captives, it proves to be an impossible task. The captives do not want to be liberated - they have become too conditioned and therefore remain trapped in illusion.
It was true for Plato, and it is still true (perhaps more so) today.
@@chadkline4268 I didn't know this reply existed - sorry for a late response.
I think the trouble is we have to apply it to EVERYTHING that is happening. So, it isn't a case of 'doing what you want', it's a case of doing what you're doing.
If that means protesting, arguing, discipling, growing, meditating, eating, shitting or whatever - fine - just do whatever it is.
Your statement about pushing yourself is exactly the point - if you find yourself performing such an action, it is because that is what you are meant to be doing. Every action is a proper action under the conditions in which it arises - otherwise, it couldn't arise. If it exists, it is because the Tao (God) brings it into being.
Krishna explains this so much better than me in the Bhagavad Gita. Even though Arjuna is completely distraught at the thought of killing his friends and family members, Krishna tells him to do so - IF that is what he has found himself in the position to do. He is in there because his past karma and all the karma of those around him brings them to the battle. He also tells Arjuna that the reason for not wanting to fight is based on ignorance of what it means to be human. But please read the Gita - it is explained in great detail.
Ok question. What if he is right about images but we are all wrong of the interpretation of it? What if self is also an image that must be lost before union/birth can take place like one of many events? The same self that we created as children and maybe that is the freedom lost?
He does use the “image of” language for the soul, but with “image of God” as Christ. He has a sermon where he goes into detail about the “image of” dynamic. I should probably do an analysis of that one. I believe it’s maybe 71… I’ll have to check. Eckhart’s way of talking about the self goes all the way to God rather than being an obstacle in the way that other images are. Now that said, there is a sense in which we “annihilate the self” (his wording). So in that sense (perhaps the one that you have in mind with our constructed sense of self), then yes. Hmm. I like your question. I can see that I need to treat that topic in more detail
Ok now. Everything I told you and said was said to me from a person that only read 2 sentences of ekhart and in those 2 he knew that Ekhart has what he has. Ekhart said “it all comes down to definitions.” Listening to this man and hearing him say the exact words as those in the book and then just to have those same words fit with Ekhart there is a pattern and it is all in plain English in his words but they fit into words spoken 2000 years ago and again what 700+ years ago again and this man has been saying it now for almost 4 years since that event that is most talked about happened to him. these humans are new creations connected to something that is providing them with an understanding that has no equal. How can people from different centuries be saying the same thing? I am not here to convince you that is impossible. 👍🏿
@@goodtothinkwithidk if it’s. You fell short as much as you can’t not fall short? Even I can only hear so much I totally understand when it gets supper tricky!
Ahh in the receptivity so in the receiving of _____ only then is that person made pure again?
Yes, but paradoxically of course! That’s where one becomes “a virgin who was a wife” being paradoxically in both at the same time as virgin (pure with the capacity to receive God) and wife (as God who eternally speaks the Word)
Confusing for me. The Buddha essentially said: don't worry about humans not having sex. That'll never happen. And the Pattimoka, rules for monks, began because of a monk that had sex with his former wife to make a baby. The gist being: there will always be those too dull for the spiritual life, and not to worry, they'll always be making plenty of babies. The exchange of alms was supposed to take care of the exchanges of teachings for physical necessities. This series is too deep for me to comprehend with a single listening.
Ahh what if we are not connected to god because if he was he would destroy who we think we are? What if the self has to be lessened to its essence for any union to happen? Lessened to the point it is in all instances destroyed that only the very essence of that person is left that unites with father?
I think you’re in the right track! After the “annihilation” of self and purification by clearing out all obstacles/hindraces (the “foreign images” and “buyers and sellers” of sermon 1), then what is left is God, who was there the whole time. That’s the sense we get in Neoplatonism as well. Again, I like your thinking… it makes me wonder if I could find evidence for that same thing more directly in Plato.
Well if evil and good are a thing and good can not be in the presence of evil less it destroys it. Then how could we fill the temple with merchants if good was there? It could be seen that good is not here or in us at all and the only sense of good we claim or can is the human variety? As for how the merchants get out of the temple maybe they are kicked out by someone or something that is not us? If we are made to stand alone then why would we need saving? If we are diminished to the point of nothing would that human need saving?
Fantastic analysis; so eastern. Eckhart rocks. But you say he takes liberties with his hermeneutics, that was more acceptable than our conservative approach. Interesting.
Thank you so much!! Yes, they had a considerably more fluid approach to scriptural exegesis than people today - less concerned with the “literal” or any kind of “objective”meaning