The Seer

When the great Dominican mystic Meister Eckhart was first hailed into court by the heresy-hunters of the Archbishop of Cologne in 1326, one of his sayings they objected to was this famous and mysterious remark: p>

“The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me: my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing and one love.” (From German Sermon No. 12.)

Eckhart replied by citing a famous passage from Saint Augustine about God’s intimacy with us. Not that it did much good, although the objectionable passage did not make it into the final list denounced by the pope’s bull of condemnation two years later and published a year after Eckhart’s death. For in fact, what he was teaching was not heretical, but ancient Christian spirituality.

But the Cologne censors also objected to a similar statement in Sermon 10, which makes the point even clearer if less dramatically:

“The nearness of God and the soul makes no distinction in truth. The same knowing in which God knows Himself is the knowing of every detached spirit, and no other. The soul takes her being immediately from God. Therefore God is nearer to the soul than she is to herself,’ and therefore God is in the ground of the soul with all His Godhead.”

Here again, Eckhart was citing Saint Augustine on the divine intimacy. In another sermon (German Sermon 5b), he put it this way: “God’s ground is my ground and my ground is God’s ground.”

What Eckhart is getting at in all these koan-like passages is that our union with God is so intimate that it is impossible to distinguish the Lover from the Beloved. (The implication must have upset the inquisitors deeply: then why bother to?) For Eckhart, such total union with

God is both the original source of our existence and the final point of our destiny. Still, between our original unity in the eternal womb of the Godhead and our ultimate union with God , the goal of all our questing, the difference made by awareness is all-important.

In German Sermon 68, Eckhart said, beginning again with his favorite passage from Augustine,

” God is closer to me than I am to myself: my being depends on God’s being near me and present to me. So God is also in a stone or a log of wood, only they do not know it. If the wood knew God and realized how close God is to it as the highest angel does, it would be as blissful as the highest angel. And so a human is more blessed than a stone or a piece of wood because she or he is aware of God and knows how close God is. And I am the more blessed, the more I realize this, and I am the less blessed, the less I know this. I am not blessed because God is in me and is near me and because I possess Him, but because I am aware of how close God is to me, and that I know God .”

Eventually, however, Eckhart insists that we must go beyond even this awareness. As long as we are aware of the difference between God and our own selves, between the “I” and the “Thou,” we are not truly one. So Eckhart could say in all sincerity, as he did in Sermon 52, “I pray God to rid me of God.”

Eckhart never confuses God and creatures. But he denies that union with God ultimately admits of any experienced duality of Lover and Beloved.

It is like the ecstasy of lovers gazing into each others’ eyes, oblivious of anything except their love. True intercourse means forgetting any distinction between “your” joy and “my” joy, or love, or being, or presence, or anything else. Such awareness expands even beyond any awareness of “our” into an unimaginable and ineffable dimension of one-ness, what in Hindu teaching is called Sat-chit-ananda – “being-awareness-bliss.”

No wonder that Hindus think of Eckhart as a Hindu, Buddhists think of him as a Buddhist, and Sufis regard him as one of their own. He speaks the mystical language of the world’s greatest lovers, those who really KNOW .

~ Richard Woods , O.P. is a leading authority on Meister Eckhart. He is author of many books including Eckhart’s Way , a study of the life and enlightened understanding of the 14th century German mystic.

The Journey is but letting go,
Arriving at the One we know
We are, the One we’ve always been,
The One I AM, the never seen,
The Light.

“To know that the known cannot be me nor mine, is liberation enough. Freedom from self-identification with a set of memories and habits, the state of wonder at the infinite reaches of the being, its inexhaustible creativity and total transcendence, the absolute fearlessness born from the realisation of the illusoriness and transiency of every mode of consciousness — flow from a deep and inexhaustible source. To know the source as source and appearance as appearance, and oneself as the source only is self-realisation.”

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

All things, all beings and all activities, no matter how ordinary, are equal expressions of the Infinite.

There is no more or less Infinite, no higher or lower Infinite. Therefore, all attempts to either find or hold onto the Infinite are based in illusion. And illusion itself is none other than the Infinite.

The Infinite uses all measures in order to awaken in all the various forms in existence. It uses birth, life, death, happiness, sorrow, clarity, and delusion in order to awaken.

All of your seeking is in reality the activity of the Infinite as well. No matter how far astray or deluded you become, you can never get a single step away from the Infinite’s embrace.

If you could all at once stop believing your dreaming mind and be completely still right in the midst of your present state, the Infinite would effortlessly present itself.

~ Adyashanti

“Learn to live without self concern. For this you must know your own true being as indomitable, fearless, ever victorious. Once you know with absolute certainty that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas, and live by truth alone”.

~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“And his disciples said to him, ‘On what day will the kingdom come?’ And Jesus replied: ‘It will not come while people watch for it; they will not say ‘Look, here it is!’ or “Look, there it is!’, but the Kingdom of Heaven is spread out over the earth, and people do not see it.’” ~ Gospel of Thomas

‘The Kingdom of Heaven is spread out over the earth, and people do not see it.’ The reason people don’t see it is because they are looking for it. Their attention is focussed on the future, and so they miss the gift of this moment. They are so caught up in the game of asking-questions-and-waiting-for-answers, so busy trying to be a ’somebody’ rather than a ‘nobody’, that they miss the astonishing intimacy that is already here, an intimacy that simply burns up all questions and answers, leaving only the wonder of what is.

The mind just loves to ask questions, because as long as it is asking questions, its continuity is assured: there is a sense of past, future, individuality. There is a person who has questions, and who will eventually find the answers. There is a seeker who, one day, will come to rest. Curious how it’s always ‘one day’…

Do you not think that if there were answers to find, you would have found them by now? Have you not already been given enough answers? Are your bookshelves not full of answers, overflowing with them?

You see, the questioning must continue, because thought must continue. It doesn’t want to give up, it doesn’t want to die. Answers to your questions have been given over and over again, but the mind cannot accept these as the real answers. If it did so, not only would the questions be annihilated, but also the one who asks them. The questioner arises and dissolves with the questions. They depend on each other. Ultimately, they are each other. If the questions go, so does the questioner.

What is the questioner but a bundle of conditioning, a mass of assumptions, collected over the years? The one who asks the questions, and waits for answers, is actually made of the answers that he has collected! So to let go of this knowledge, to let go of the questions and answers, would be to let go of his very self. No wonder we don’t want to stop seeking. The end of seeking is the death of the questioner, the death of the seeker!

It’s inevitable that the mind must continue to ask questions and wait for answers, for its very existence is at stake! So the great search goes on: “One day I will be liberated! One day I will be free!”

Why not today? Why not now? If not now, when?

What answers are you waiting for? What questions are you asking? For how much longer will you seek the Kingdom?

Perhaps eventually the futility of the seeking will be seen through, and then maybe you will burst out laughing when you see the ridiculous knots that you have tied yourself up in, trying to be free, trying to be liberated. Yes, there’s plenty of laughter when the dream of individuality and the struggle to be free from it all is seen through — indeed, there’s very little to be serious about then!

‘The Kingdom of Heaven is spread out over the earth, and yet people do not see it.’ Even that — even our ignorance of the Kingdom, even our search for the Kingdom — even that is part of the Kingdom.

There’s nothing that the Kingdom is not. It embraces everything. Everything.

~ From: The Wonder of Being: Awakening to an Intimacy Beyond Words, by Jeff Foster

“And his disciples said to him, ‘On what day will the kingdom come?’ And Jesus replied: ‘It will not come while people watch for it; they will not say ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘Look, there it is!’, but the Kingdom of Heaven is spread out over the earth, and people do not see it.’” ~ Gospel of Thomas

‘The Kingdom of Heaven is spread out over the earth, and people do not see it.’ The reason people don’t see it is because they are looking for it. Their attention is focussed on the future, and so they miss the gift of this moment. They are so caught up in the game of asking-questions-and-waiting-for-answers, so busy trying to be a ’somebody’ rather than a ‘nobody’, that they miss the astonishing intimacy that is already here, an intimacy that simply burns up all questions and answers, leaving only the wonder of what is.

The mind just loves to ask questions, because as long as it is asking questions, its continuity is assured: there is a sense of past, future, individuality. There is a person who has questions, and who will eventually find the answers. There is a seeker who, one day, will come to rest. Curious how it’s always ‘one day’…

Do you not think that if there were answers to find, you would have found them by now? Have you not already been given enough answers? Are your bookshelves not full of answers, overflowing with them?

You see, the questioning must continue, because thought must continue. It doesn’t want to give up, it doesn’t want to die. Answers to your questions have been given over and over again, but the mind cannot accept these as the real answers. If it did so, not only would the questions be annihilated, but also the one who asks them. The questioner arises and dissolves with the questions. They depend on each other. Ultimately, they are each other. If the questions go, so does the questioner.

What is the questioner but a bundle of conditioning, a mass of assumptions, collected over the years? The one who asks the questions, and waits for answers, is actually made of the answers that he has collected! So to let go of this knowledge, to let go of the questions and answers, would be to let go of his very self. No wonder we don’t want to stop seeking. The end of seeking is the death of the questioner, the death of the seeker!

It’s inevitable that the mind must continue to ask questions and wait for answers, for its very existence is at stake! So the great search goes on: “One day I will be liberated! One day I will be free!”

Why not today? Why not now? If not now, when?

What answers are you waiting for? What questions are you asking? For how much longer will you seek the Kingdom?

Perhaps eventually the futility of the seeking will be seen through, and then maybe you will burst out laughing when you see the ridiculous knots that you have tied yourself up in, trying to be free, trying to be liberated. Yes, there’s plenty of laughter when the dream of individuality and the struggle to be free from it all is seen through — indeed, there’s very little to be serious about then!

‘The Kingdom of Heaven is spread out over the earth, and yet people do not see it.’ Even that — even our ignorance of the Kingdom, even our search for the Kingdom — even that is part of the Kingdom.

There’s nothing that the Kingdom is not. It embraces everything. Everything.

~ From: The Wonder of Being: Awakening to an Intimacy Beyond Words, by Jeff Foster

There are many ideas about what enlightenment, or self-realization, is. Many envision it as some kind of blessed state where there are no more problems, and you experience a constant state of inner bliss, joy, and a profound compassion for all humankind.

Others think only saints can be self-realized, and for it to happen you have to have transcended the desire realm, and be beyond the need for companionship, physical comfort, sex and any personal wants or preferences.

This is why we don’t really like using the term enlightenment. It’s such a loaded word, weighed down by many far-fetched stories. We prefer to speak in terms of freedom, or self-realization.

What we teach is that the more you see (recognise What you really are), the freer you are, and the freer you are, the more you’re simply present wherever you are — present without any story.

The freer you are, the more you know yourself as pure consciousness or aware presence, expressing in this unique body, mind, and personality known as “you”.

You still have a story, but now you know you’re not your story. You still have an ego, an “I”, a “me”, but now you know you’re not your ego. You honor the past, keep an eye on the future, but live right here, now. You feel a tremendous gratitude for the gift of being alive, you’re always, essentially, at peace, one with the flow of life.

We say essentially because no matter how free we are, we are still human, and subject to human flaws and foibles, like illness, disability, mistakes, errors in judgment, and even occasional residues of old egoic patterns. Part of being free, or self-realized, is accepting and being at peace with our imperfect humanity!

Above all, you feel moved to share your good fortune with others. You see that the world needs this, before anything else.

~ by Jim Dreaver

Invariably, it takes a flash of light to reveal the true meaning of Life and of all things to us: nor can it be obtained in any other way.

As the veil lifts, one moment’s sudden revelation completely rearranges and shifts our viewpoint; and the scene abruptly changes. In fact, this was exactly what happened to me one day while in deep meditation.

I was considering ‘Spirituality’, its study and problems, when suddenly it dawned upon me that the student-position, which I had assumed, was certainly an unreliable and unsound one.

As this actuality burst upon me, breathlessly my heart cried out, “Oh to be the great subject itself instead of a mere stidemt of it!”

Instantly there followed a moment of shining light with its electrifying transfusion, sudden and swift. As though a curtain had been raised admitting some startling new sight, I saw the indisputable fact with vivid, clear distinctness — I saw that I was the Truth ItSelf … not a student at all!

Under this flood of blazing revelation, what else could I do but exclaim further, — “Why, this means that I am the TRUTH! I am not a student trying to solve problems of human existence, but I am the absolute and changeless Truth itself!” The simplicity of all this amazed and overwhelmed me. Here in this brief but thrilling moment, I saw what years of study and research had never given me.

Immediately, I then understood Jesus’ dynamic statement, “I am the Truth!” Yes, this was it. I was not a student of Truth, endeavoring to obtain and attain certain states of consciousness, always letting go one for another higher on the scale. No, I was the Truth ItSelf!

What more then could I ask? What more could be desired? Did Truth, or true Being, have any association with a problem? Certainly not. Neither, then, did I!

“I am the Truth!” exuberantly I told myself again and again, in my newly found changed relationship. I am not trying to do, to think or to know something; but I am doing, feeling and being Truth, the Life, and the Way! Oh, the blessed wonder of light!

I saw then that the problem of human existence could never be solved … but will dissolve when we take our rightful stand as the Truth, the Life and the Way.

Now once having seen and accepted this platform, all other speculations immediately vanished, while beautiful verifications in Jesus” life and teaching came flooding my rapturous thought. How plainly now to see that Jesus never said that he was a student of Life, but insisted, “I am the Life!” Neither did he intimate that he was a follower of some particular way or system, but again and again reiterated, “I am the Way!”

No wonder he was so absolute, so completingly certain and sure. Never did he speak nor act as though he were using Truth as a means to bring about certain healing results in a material existence! His attention was NOT towards conditions, states nor beliefs, but upon that Being which is unalterable; that Principle which is fixed and absolute; that Life which is wholeness always … ‘Against such there is no law.’

So, ‘Know thyself!’ Learn Who and What you really are; the meaning of life and the fullness of all things. Then for you, wars and problems will cease and be no more; sorrows and limitations fade away; for finding yourself as you really are, you shall be in touch with every good and perfect thing; and shall live here on earth a life of peace, joy and plenty.

~ From: The Christ Within by Lillian DeWaters

All things — all beings and all activities, no matter how ordinary — are equal expressions of the Infinite. There is no more or less Infinite, no higher or lower Infinite.

Therefore, all attempts to either find or hold onto the Infinite are based in illusion. And illusion itself is none other than the Infinite.

The Infinite uses all measures in order to awaken in all the various forms in existence. It uses birth, life, death, happiness, sorrow, clarity, and delusion in order to awaken.

All of your seeking is in reality the activity of the Infinite as well. No matter how far astray or deluded you become, you can never get a single step away from the Infinite’s embrace.

If you could all at once stop believing your dreaming mind and be completely still right in the midst of your present state, the Infinite would effortlessly present itself.

~ by Adyashanti, 2010