Quotes from Meister Eckhart

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me...

We should be able to recognize true and perfect love by whether or not someone has great hope and confidence in God, for there is nothing that testifies more clearly to perfect love than trust.

Now some people are of the opinion that they are altogether holy and perfect, and go around the place with big deeds and big words, and yet they strive for and desire so many things, they wish to possess so much and are so concerned both with themselves and with this thing and that. They assert that they are seeking great piety and devotion, and yet they cannot accept a single word of reproval without answering back. Be certain of this: they are far from God and are not in union with him.

You should not imagine that your reason can evolve to the extent of understanding God. Rather, if God is to shine divinely within you, your natural light cannot assist this process but must become a pure nothingness, going out of itself. Only then can God enter with his light, bringing back with him all that you have renounced and a thousand times more, including a new form which contains all things in itself.

It is a lie - any talk of God that does not comfort you.

Only those for whom God is present in all things and who make the very best use of their reason, know what true peace is and truly possess heaven.

His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama feels quite at home in the world of Meister Eckhart, and His Holiness Pope John Paul II quotes the same Meister Eckhart on occasion in a sermon. Now, there's a bridge builder between traditions! Should this come as a surprise? No, it shouldn't surprise us, for Meister Eckhart is a mystic. The mystics of all traditions speak one and the same language, the language of religious experience. When

Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go.

The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life: your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away, but they're not punishing you, they're freeing your soul. If you're frightened of dying and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. If you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth.

It is written: 'They have become rich in all virtues' (1 Cor. 1:5). Truly, this cannot happen unless they first become poor in all things. Whoever desires to be given everything, must first give everything away.

But many people want to look upon God with the eyes with which they look upon a cow; they want to love God the way they love a cow that you love because it gives you milk and cheese. This is how people behave who want to love God because of external wealth or inner comfort; but they do not love God properly: rather, they love their self interest.

It is not outside us: it is all within.

the man who sat naked in his tub said to Alexander the Great, who ruled the whole world: 'I am a greater lord than you are, for I have spurned more than you have seized. What you think it is a great thing to possess, is too trivial for me to scorn.

Indeed, the more we are our own possession, the less we are God's possession.

Alle Dinge müssen, der Mensch allein ist das Wesen, welches will.

For however devoted you are to him, you may be sure that he is immeasurably more devoted to you and has incomparably more faith in you. For he is faithfulness itself – of this we can be certain as those who love him are certain.

say, 'I wish to come to you so that your wealth shall fill my poverty, your infinity shall fill my emptiness, and your immeasurable, incomprehensible Godhead shall fill my base and wretched humanity.

You should be like those who at all times watch and wait for their Lord' (Luke 12:36). Truly, such vigilant people are alert and on the watch for their Lord for whom they wait; they look to see if he is not by chance concealed in what befalls them, however strange it may be to them.

Christ said: 'Whoever leaves anything for my sake will receive again a hundredfold in return' (Matt 19:29).

Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time.

Whoever wants to receive the body of our Lord does not need to scrutinize what they are feeling at the time or how great their piety or devotion is, but rather they should note the state of their will and attitude of mind. You should not place too much weight on your feelings but emphasize rather the object of your love and striving.

If his accusers charged Eckhart with heresy, then he charged them with stupidity.

When we go out of ourselves through obedience and strip ourselves of what is ours, then God must enter into us; for when someone wills nothing for themselves, then God must will on their behalf just as he does for himself.