God beyond God: Meister Eckhart

For Meister Eckhart, the 13th c. German Dominican, the essence of God lies beyond every idea we have about God - beyond even the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This "Godhead" is present in our very soul; is "born" in our soul when we practice detachment from all created things. His work has been treated by D.T. Suzuki, the scholar of Zen Buddhism, as a bridge between Buddhism and Christianity. Here we explore some main themes in Eckhart's work, including especially his text "On Detachment."

This is part two in a four-part series on Christian mysticism:

[omxx]

Intresting topic. The concept of the divine spark and oneness lines up very closely with other traditions such as advaita vedanta, sikhism and sufism.

[marwar]

This is a great podcast for someone like me - a practitioner of Buddhist mediation who struggles mightily with the Catholic Church and it's excessive splaining. Thanks so much.

[yogawithhelen]

thank you with helping me on my journey to peace

[johnmiller]

I love this. I was turned off from Christianity as a child because it's purpose was never explained and I was forced to sing hymns and pray everyday at school by law. I am now on a non-dual path, having arrived at it through an attraction to Eastern teaching such as advaita vedanta. But now, I am beyond any traditions and understand that I have to go beyond all concepts etc. My teacher refers to "oneness". And here's this video doing the same!!! Thank you.

[JD-HatCreekCattleCo]

This is consistent to where science seems to be going…that perhaps the universe or something has always been…and the concept of the multiverse. One thing for sure…there is nothing new under the sun. Fascinating 🙏

[asifharoon]

Everything explained is simply marvellous and requesting noi to label it with any religion. God beyond God is also beyond any form of religion.

[bonniel]

Thank you for these videos. It's great that you are highlighting the original theologians, and inviting more disciplined and open-minded thought about Catholicism.

[gibbz]

Wow, this is so awesome. Soul touching stuff.

[stephenandracki]

Thank you. What you are presenting shrinks time to when we return

[stuartboorman]

Superb work here. I found this to be such a useful summary of Meister Eckhart's ideas. Thank you.

[carolinewaterstone]

Totally brilliant! I’ve been reading much about both Eckhardt and Pseudo-Dionysius, neither v easy to grasp, and this has been so helpful. I look forward to hearing about the others. V many thanks 😃

[born]

This is brilliant, so clear and concise. Bravo and thank you 😊

[LilachLavy-Emanuel]

Thank you for doing this-
Your knowledge & delivery brought much clarity and solace for me this morning.

[mizukarate]

I have been interested in Apophatic or Negative Theology as of late. The Mister is on

[prajnabala]

This was very helpful to explain why I am drawn to the Catholic church even though it seems absurd. This description of Eckhart's theology is exactly how I experience God.

[thomasturekhistorynerd]

What a wonderful video, I'll have to take inspiration when making my own! Thank you for sharing, subscribed.

[yogawithhelen]

the path of the sage comes to mind GOD BLESS THE PURE

[Angela-nsgl]

Thank you for this wonderful explanation of the thinking of Eckhart. Your lecture is clear, making an understanding of Eckhart understandable. Another lecture I listened to on Eckhart made my eyes cross.

[cecilcharlesofficial]

It's like this: No consciousness chooses its thoughts, its preferences, its will, what it feels moment to moment. I know that may sound crazy (no one talks about it) but bear with me. We can't make ourselves love by saying "I love you." We can't 'choose' a thought without just having it. We do learn, thank God. But it's not up to us when we learn: we don't rearrange our neurons to see finally "Ah-ha, " and even if we did, it wouldn't be up to us to have the desire TO rearrange our neurons. Just like if we could change our will - that's really still just will presenting itself. But 'free will' or determinism, either way a consciousness just feels "I want that" - whether 'that' is something basic, something wrong perhaps, or your grandest idea of communing with God. And this means we can't choose to have faith either. We don't choose anything. And yet we're stuck suffering the consequences, and our own judgment, and the judgment of others. We never escape our conscience, even if it evolves somewhat over time. We always judge, even if it's in saying "Judgment is bad." That's still a judgment, oh cult of tolerance. So, we're stuck, doing and judging and feeling and hoping to learn. But we never know what we'll think of next, and our next thought might change our life.

That's part one. Part two is: you're not in charge of anything but you can learn to place your mind on the sensation of the thing you hate most: fear/pain. Fear, anxiety, anger, guilt - any/every feeling that drives you "up the wall, " are really all sensations of types of pain in your body. Just like thoughts, you don't choose sensations either. But seeing it's a sensation is great: no longer are you battling the idea of 'fear, ' rather you see it's a physical thing. Then spend time (every moment you can remember) putting your awareness on all sensation, but especially fear - and you'll realize you have all these pockets in your body that are physically tense (like you're clenching in expectation of an incoming punch), in an effort to not feel something you're worried about, some conversation you're scared to have, some insecurity you're dealing with, or maybe just because you're hungry. This tension keeps you from being your relaxed, best self. It makes you overly sensitive and frustrated that you can't seem to get it to go away. In taking time and looking at what your body feels (in as many moments and situations as you can) you see how much the things you do are steered by this pain.

This isn't an "Oh the pain!" sob story, and it's certainly not to make you feel like a victim. Because the point is: if you start to look straight at it, accept it: good things start to happen. But you have to admit it's there first, find it, accept it, and admit it's not up to you if it comes or goes. Versus what we do normally: grit, hoping the grit will cause the pain to go away. Rather, try a new habit.

If you can dare yourself, look straight at it.

We seem to be able to get those tense tissues and muscles to relent by simply holding our minds on them. Aka, find the anxiety (the vague pain of chronically tense muscles anywhere in your body, but especially behind your eyes, your mouth, voicebox, sternum, abdomen) and put your mind on it (the reverse of what you try to do whenever you 'take your mind off' pain). Much pain seems to be somewhat appeased (?) by just looking right at it. You watch those muscles/tissues physically relent, even just for a moment, and see yourself act (in those moments) without the hindrance that was there before, clouding your ability to be the gregarious, at-peace you.

Part three: We've progressed far enough with science to see that as things get smaller and smaller we never actually find the 'stuff, ' but rather smaller and smaller patterns of form. Take an atom, for example. It's actually protons and neutrons and electrons. There's no 'shell' of the atom. It's just those smaller things buzzing round making the form we'd call 'atom.' But then take the smaller things (the neutrons, protons, electrons)... they're not actually 'things' either, no shell. But they're smaller 'subatomic particles' which are themselves smaller patterns and/or energy. There's never any 'stuff, ' just pattern.

It hit me:

Space is 'the thing' and matter is when that thing is bunched, or energized, or 'in form' or 'discernible' or 'interactive.'

Imagine a napkin laid flat on a table. Now, pinch the napkin somewhere so it sticks up, like a nipple. We recognize the 'nipple, ' but in truth it's still just napkin. In the same way, apace is like the napkin and 'matter' is like the pinched section of the napkin. But it's all napkin. It's all God. And thus to it explains His will is always being done ("Thy will be done" means it's your will, God, and not "Gee God, I hope you get your way."). But this will includes our mistakes, and the fact that they're mistakes (they're not suddenly good), but also the consequences and the suffering and our learning.

And in seeing that absolutely nothing is in control we see also the real reason for faith: it's all God's will and there's nothing 'to be done.' Aka, you can't stop yourself from being you, but you've no idea what that actually means about who you'll be in each next moment. It's up to God. The ego is the illusion. It's Lucifer saying "I can do better, " and God saying "Yes, Lucifer, but who put that idea in your mind?" It's all God. Even when you think it's not. Even when you've got no faith. And there's still morality. And consequence. I don't know about eternal Hell, other than life is hellish (to varying degrees) so long as we forget our place. We are obeying but we think we're not. It's just that our obeying includes the bad stuff too, and we can't fathom that this conundrum doesn't disprove God, or the Good, or our own 'accountability' in it all. But it doesn't. There's still God, and morality, and the consequences (though no one knows precisely what those are, either). Just breathe and have faith, since we're not in control.

[koolertrek]

Which you’d put out more videos like these. I need as much sound information to know these greats.