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Thursday, July 8, 2010

Beginning Eckhart

The inspiration has come to me to spend a little while exploring Meister Eckhart, the medieval mystic. His writings came into my awareness in the 70's. His thoughts have so often inspired me, given me fodder for journaling & some were included in my new book "Our Spiritual Ancestors Speak to Us Today," which I hope to get published one day. Right now it is in spiral binding in English & in the process of being translated & printed in Russian for our workshops this fall over there.

So I selected a quote from one of his talks of instruction to begin.

The strongest prayer, one well-nigh almighty in what it can effect, and the most exalted a man can do proceed from a pure heart. The more pure it is, the more powerful, and the more exalted, laudable and perfect is its prayer and work. A pure heart is capable of anything.

What is a pure heart?

A pure heart is one that is unencumbered, unworried, uncommitted, and which does not want its own way about anything but which, rather, is submerged in the loving will of God, having denied itself. Let a job be ever so inconsiderable, it will be raised in effectiveness and dimension by a pure heart.

We ought so to pray that every member and faculty, eyes, ears, mouth, heart, and the senses shall be directed to this end and never to cease prayer until we attain unity with him to whom our prayers and attention are directed, namely, God.

The first thing that I hear Meister Eckhart saying to me is to surrender. The way to a pure heart is to surrender fully to God. Let go and let God. Stop trying to be in charge of the universe. And, by surrendering, even the simple things we do will be raised. From a pure heart we can also do greater things. He says a pure heart is capable of anything. Anything!!! Is this the way to do as Jesus asked? Greater things than this shall you do.

Our prayers need to be aimed at this surrender, and they will lead not only to a pure heart and our lives and activities being raised, but also to unity with God. I might say conscious unity with God if I were saying it, for I believe even though we may forget and stray, God is still with us, waiting for us to turn and remember --- maybe rather like the story of the prodigal son Jesus told us.

Dear God, we present ourselves to You this day wanting to surrender. We may not be certain how to do this. So, God, show us the way to surrender to You. Help us welcome You into our lives at every level from the surface to the deepest levels. Every fiber of our being seeks You. Lead us to be so fully surrendered that we do in fact have pure hearts. Show us Your Way. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ and seal this prayer with the ancient seal of faith as we say, Amen, Amen & Amen

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