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27 January 2019

 

Amis letter 02/04

 

“Come, discover with me…!” Meister Eckhart

 

Dear Amis

 

Can we know someone who has lived long before us…? Could she/he become a sort of “friend”? We might differ on it… but surely someone can have an impact on me if I get to know their thoughts, discover their heartbeat, have insight in their heart and values. I can be influenced when I open myself to those ideas and listen deeply…

 

That is possible by reading what they have left behind. Think about the Gospels, Paul’s letters for example. And by sensitive imagination. Think about the creative experience of reading a novel… you are transported into another world.

 

Imagine someone sitting with you. He is dressed in a dark brown cloak, with deepset and soft eyes. He has a beard; his hands are folded and an air of deep calmness surrounds him. When you ask him a question, he listens intensely. There is a silence before he responds… It is Meister Eckhart.

 

You ask… Where do I find God? After a while he speaks. “God is mij meer nabij dan ik mijself.” God is closer to me than I am to myself.

His way of answering is not academic but filled with love and experiential wisdom.  His calmness gives you time to absorb what he has just said.

He continues: “Er zijn er veel hebben die licht en waarheid gezocht , doch steeds buiten, waar zij niet was. Want de waarheid is binnen, in de diepste grond, en niet buiten.” (Many has been looking for light and truth outside – where it isn’t. Because truth is inside, in the deepest ground, and not outside.)

 

Meister Eckhart wrote in Latin but spoke and preached in the local languages: High Dutch, German, French; the first of a group of theologians called the Rhineland Mystics.

 

One of his favourite words was “soul”. The deepest “you” there is.

 

And then Meister Eckart answered:

“God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction…”

 

 

While you sit with this man from such a different era, you become aware, not of him but of the One who is present in your deepest being; the one called Love.

 

As you leave, Meister Eckart remains there, available to listen and speak…

 

With kind love!

 

Until next week

 

Jan

 

To ponder on…

 

Do you have some “soul”-time?

 

What needs to be subtracted in your life?

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