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005 - True Hearing · Meister Eckharts Sermons First English Translation

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  Speaker 1: Sermon four of mister Eckhart's sermons, translated by Claude Field.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
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  Speaker 1: Eric Metzler. True Hearing Ecclesiasticus twenty four thirty. Whoso heareth
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  Speaker 1: me shall not be confounded the everlasting and Paternal Wisdom saith.
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  Speaker 1: Whoso heareth me is not ashamed. If he is ashamed
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  Speaker 1: of anything, he is ashamed of being ashamed. Whoso worketh
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  Speaker 1: in me sinneth not. Whoso confesseth me and feareth me
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  Speaker 1: shall have eternal life. Whoso will hear the wisdom of
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  Speaker 1: the Father must dwell deep, and abide at home, and
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  Speaker 1: be at unity with himself. Three things hinder us from
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  Speaker 1: hearing the everlasting word word. The first is fleshliness, The
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  Speaker 1: second is distraction. The third is the illusion of time.
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  Speaker 1: If a man could get free of these, he would
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  Speaker 1: dwell in eternity and in the spirit, and in solitude
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  Speaker 1: and in the desert, and there would hear the everlasting
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  Speaker 1: word Our Lord, saith. No man can hear my word
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  Speaker 1: nor my teaching without renouncing himself. All that the Eternal
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  Speaker 1: Father teaches and reveals is his being, his nature, and
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  Speaker 1: his Godhead, which he manifests to us in his son,
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  Speaker 1: and teaches us that we are also his son. All
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  Speaker 1: that God worketh and teacheth he worketh in his son.
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  Speaker 1: All his work is directed to this end, that we
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  Speaker 1: also may be his son. When God sees that we
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  Speaker 1: are indeed his son, he yearns after us, and in
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  Speaker 1: the depth of his divine being, waves of longing break
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  Speaker 1: forth to reveal to us the abyss of his Godhead
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  Speaker 1: and the fullness of his essence. He hastens to identify
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  Speaker 1: himself with us. Hear him. He hath joy and gladness
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  Speaker 1: in full measure. God loveth men not less than he
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  Speaker 1: loveth himself. If thou really lovest thyself, thou lovest all
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  Speaker 1: men as thyself. As long as thou lovest any one
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  Speaker 1: less than thyself, thou dost not really love thyself. That
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  Speaker 1: man is right who loves all men as himself. Some
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  Speaker 1: folks say, I love my friends who do me kindness
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  Speaker 1: more than other people. Such love is imperfect and incomplete.
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  Speaker 1: It is like having your sails only half filled with wind.
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  Speaker 1: When I love any one as much as myself, I
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  Speaker 1: would just assume that joy or sorrow, death or life
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  Speaker 1: were mine. As well as his That would be the
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  Speaker 1: dictate of right reason. Saint Paul felt such love when
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  Speaker 1: he said, I would that I were cut off from
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  Speaker 1: God for my friend's sake. Now, to be cut off
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  Speaker 1: from God is equivalent to suffering the pains of hell.
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  Speaker 1: Some ask whether Saint Paul was on the way to
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  Speaker 1: perfection or was perfect. I answer he was perfect, or
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  Speaker 1: he would have spoken otherwise. I wish further to elucidate
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  Speaker 1: the saying of Saint Paul that he was willing to
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  Speaker 1: be cut off from God. The highest act of renunciation
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  Speaker 1: for man is for God's sake to give up God.
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  Speaker 1: And that is what Saint Paul was willing to do,
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  Speaker 1: to give up all the blessings that he might receive
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  Speaker 1: from God. When for God's sake he gave up God,
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  Speaker 1: God still remained with him. Since God's essence is himself,
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  Speaker 1: not any impression or reception of himself, he who does
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  Speaker 1: so is a true man to whom no grief may happen,
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  Speaker 1: any more than it happens to the divine Being. There
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  Speaker 1: is a somewhat in the soul, that is, as it
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  Speaker 1: were a blood relative of God. It is one it
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  Speaker 1: has nothing in common with nothing nor is it like
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  Speaker 1: nothingness nothing. All that is created is nothing, all far
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  Speaker 1: from and foreign to the soul. Could I but find
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  Speaker 1: myself one instant in that sphere of pure existence, I
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  Speaker 1: should regard myself as little as a worm. A question
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  Speaker 1: arises regarding the angels who dwell with us, serve us,
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  Speaker 1: and protect us, whether their joys are equal to those
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  Speaker 1: of the angels in heaven, or whether they are diminished
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  Speaker 1: by the fact that they protect and serve us. No,
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  Speaker 1: they are certainly not, For the work of the angels
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  Speaker 1: is the will of God, and the will of God
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  Speaker 1: is the work of the angels. Their service to us
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  Speaker 1: does not hinder their joy nor their working. If God
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  Speaker 1: told an angel to go to a tree and pluck
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  Speaker 1: caterpillars off it, the angel would be quite ready to
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  Speaker 1: do so, and it would be his happiness if it
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  Speaker 1: were the will of God. The man who abides in
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  Speaker 1: the will of God wills nothing else than what God
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  Speaker 1: is and what he wills. If he were ill, he
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  Speaker 1: would not wish to be well. If he really abides
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  Speaker 1: in God's will, all pain is to him a joy,
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  Speaker 1: All complication simple, yea, even the pains of hell would
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  Speaker 1: be a joy to him. He is free and gone
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  Speaker 1: out from himself and from all that he receives. He
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  Speaker 1: must be free. If my eye is to discern color,
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  Speaker 1: it must itself be free from all color. The eye
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  Speaker 1: with which I see God is the same with which
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  Speaker 1: God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one
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  Speaker 1: eye and one sight, and one knowledge and one love.
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  Speaker 1: The man who abides in God's love must be dead
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  Speaker 1: to himself and all created things, and regard himself as
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  Speaker 1: a mere unit among a thousand million. Such a man
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  Speaker 1: must renounce himself and all the world. Supposing a man
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  Speaker 1: possessed all the world and gave it back to God
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  Speaker 1: intact just as he received it, God would give him
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  Speaker 1: back all the world and everlasting life to boot. And
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  Speaker 1: supposing there were another man who had nothing but a
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  Speaker 1: good will, and he thought in his heart, Lord, were
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  Speaker 1: all this world mine, and two worlds more beside it,
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  Speaker 1: I would give them, and myself also back to THEE
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  Speaker 1: as I received them from THEE. To that man, God
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  Speaker 1: would give back as much as he had given away.
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  Speaker 1: And supposing a man had renounced himself for twenty years,
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  Speaker 1: if he took himself back for a moment, that man's
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  Speaker 1: renunciation would be as nothing. The man who has truly
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  Speaker 1: renounced himself and does not once cast a glance on
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  Speaker 1: what he has renounced, and thus remains immovable and irnalterable.
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  Speaker 1: That man alone has really renounced self. May God and
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  Speaker 1: the eternal wisdom grant us to remain equally immovable and
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  Speaker 1: unalterable with himself. Amen, And of sermon for recording by
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  Speaker 1: Eric man Butler, Albuquerque, New Mexico,