Meister Eckhart: if you have given up self, then you have really given up

 Be assured of this as I live: if we are to receive thus from Him, we must be raised up in eternity, above time.

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What is a pure heart? That is pure which is separated and parted from all creatures, for all creatures produce impurity, because they are nothing and nothing is a lack and tarnishes the soul. All creatures are mere nothing, neither angels nor creatures are anything.
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All things are created out of nothing, therefore their true source is nothing, and as far as this noble will inclines to creatures, it is dissipated with creatures in their nothing. The question arises, whether this noble will can be so dissipated that it can never return. The masters generally declare that it can never return insofar as it is dispersed in time. But I say, whenever this will turns back from itself, and from all creation for a moment into its primal source, then the will has its true birthright of freedom and is free, and in this moment all time lost is recovered.

People often say to me, 'Pray for me.' And I think, 'Why do you go out? Why do you not stay within yourself and draw on your own treasure? For you have the whole truth in its essence within you.' That we may thus truly stay within, that we may possess all truth immediately, without distinction, in true blessedness, may God help us. Amen.
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You should be firm and steadfast; that is, you should be the same in weal and woe, in fortune and misfortune, having the noble nature of precious stones; that is, all virtues should be enclosed in you and flow out of you in their true being. You should traverse and transcend all the virtues, drawing virtue solely from its source in that ground where it is one with the divine nature.
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Why did God become man? That I might be born God Himself. God died that I might die to the whole world and all created things.

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It has naught in common with anything. All that is created or creaturely is alien. It is a single one in itself, and takes in nothing from outside.

Our Lord ascended into heaven, beyond all light, beyond all under­ standing and all human ken. The man who is thus translated beyond all light, dwells in eternity. Therefore St. Paul says, "God dwells in a light to which there is no approach" (1 Tim. 6: 16), and that is in itself pure unity. Therefore a man must be slain and wholly dead, devoid of self and wholly without likeness, like to none, and then he is really God-like. For it is God's character, His nature, to be peerless and like no man.
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A man once came to me - it was not long ago - and told me he had given up a great deal of property and goods, in order that he might save his soul. Then I thought, Alas! how little and how paltry are the things you have given up. It is blindness and folly, so long as you care a jot for what you have given up. But if you have given up self, then you have really given up.
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The just man serves neither God nor creatures, for he is free, and the closer he is to justice, the closer he is to freedom, and the more he is freedom itself. Whatever is created, is not free. So long as there is anything at all above me, that is not God, that oppresses me, however small it may be or whatever its nature; even though it were reason and love, as long as this is something created and not God Himself, it oppresses me, for it is not free.
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In created things - as I have said before - there is no truth. There is something that transcends the created being of the soul, not in contact with created things, which are nothing; not even an angel has it, though he has a clear being that is pure and extensive: even that does not touch it. It is akin to the nature of deity, it is one in itself, and has naught in common with anything. It is a stumbling­ block to many a learned cleric. It is a strange and desert place, and is rather nameless than possessed of a name, and is more unknown than it is known. If you could naught yourself for an instant, indeed I say less than an instant, you would possess all that this is in itself. But as long as you mind yourself or any thing at all, you know no more of God than my mouth knows of color or my eye of taste: so little do you know or discern what God is.
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"Paul rose from the ground and with open eyes saw nothing." I think this text has a fourfold sense. One is that when he rose up from the ground with open eyes he saw Nothing, and the Nothing was God; for when he saw God he1 calls that Nothing. The second: when he got up he saw nothing but God. The third: in all things he saw nothing but God. The fourth: when he saw God, he saw all things as nothing.
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God is the true light: to see it, one must be blind and must strip from God all that is 'something.' A master says whoever speaks of God in any likeness, speaks impurely of Him. But to speak of God with nothing is to speak of Him correctly. When the soul is unified and there enters into total self-abnegation, then she finds God as in Nothing.
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The soul cannot experience love or fear without knowing their occasion. If the soul does not go out into external things, she has come home, and dwells in her simple, pure light. There she does not love, nor does she know anxiety or fear.
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Therefore there is nothing for it but to peel off and shed all that belongs to the soul: her life, her powers, her nature - all must go, and she must stand in the pure light where she is one single image with God: there she will fi nd God. It is characteristic of God that nothing alien enters Him, nothing is superimposed on Him or added to Him. Therefore the soul should have no alien impressions, nothing superimposed, nothing added.
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We use the word homo for women as well as for men, but the Latins refuse it to woman because of her weakness.
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This light is so potent that it is not merely in itself free of time and space, but whatever it falls on it  robs of time and space and all corporeal images and whatever is alien to it. I have said before, if there were no time or place or anything else, all would be one being. If a man were one like this and would cast himself into the ground of humility, he would there be watered with grace.
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...'go forth and depart': go out of this world and leave everything your soul still inclines to. And wherever she is still attached to anything, let her hate it.
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"And I have set you over nations," that is, over all the world, which you must be rid of, and "over kingdoms," that is: what­ ever is more than one is too much, for you must die to all things and be again in-formed in the height, where we dwell in the Holy Ghost.
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It is the sign of a good man that he praises good people. So if a good man praises me, then I am truly praised, but if a bad man praises me, then in truth I am blamed. But if a bad man blames me, then in truth I am praised. "Of that which fills the heart, the mouth speaks" (Matt. 12:34). It is always the sign of a good man that he likes to speak of God, for people like to speak of what they are concerned with. Those who are concerned with tools like to talk about tools, those who are concerned with sermons like to talk about sermons. A good man likes to speak of nothing so much as God.
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St. Dionysius says that holiness is complete purity, liberty, and perfection. Purity means that a man is separated from sin, and this makes the soul free.
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Again, 'holiness' denotes 'what is withdrawn from the world.' God is something and is pure being, and sin is nothing and draws us away from God. ... When she is free from earthly things the soul is holy. ... St. Augustine says, 'If a man would be holy let him forsake mundane things.' I have often said that the soul cannot be pure unless she is reduced to her original purity, as God made her, just as gold cannot be made from copper by two or three roastings: it must be reduced to its primary nature.
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It is easy to make show of virtues, or to talk of them: but to have them in reality is extremely rare.
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Plato: 'What God is, I do not know, but what He is not I know well enough,'

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St. Augustine says he rejoices all the time who rejoices above time. He says, "Rejoice all the time," that is, above time, and "have no care: the Lord is at hand and is near." The soul that is going to rejoice in the Lord must of necessity cast off all care, at least during the time when she yields herself to God.
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St. Paul says, "In the fullness of time God sent His Son" (Gal. 4:4). St. Augustine says what this fullness of time is: 'Where there is no more time, that is the "fullness of time." '
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Another meaning of "fullness of time": if anyone had the skill and the power to gather up time and all that has happened in six thousand years or that will happen till the end of time, into one present Now, that would be the "fullness of time." That is the Now of eternity ...
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The soul in which God is to be born must drop away from time and time from her, she must soar aloft and stand gazing into this richness of God's ...and inasmuch as the soul has dropped away from time, there is there no woe or pain; even distress is turned for her to joy.
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St. Augustine says a good man desires no praise, he desires to be worthy of praise. Now our masters say virtue is so pure, so wholly abstract and detached from all corporeal things in its ground and true nature that nothing whatever can enter into it without defiling the virtue and making it a vice. A single thought or any seeking of one's own advantage, and it is not a true virtue, it is turned to vice. Such is virtue by nature.

Now a pagan master says if a man practices virtue for the sake of anything else but virtue, then it never was a virtue. If he seeks praise or anything else, he is selling virtue. One should never give up a virtue by nature for anything in the world. Therefore a good man desires no praise, but he desires to be worthy of praise. A man should not be sorry if people are angry with him, he should be sorry to deserve the anger.
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How should a man be who is to see God? He must be dead. Our Lord says, "No man can see me and live" (Exod. 33:20).7 Now St. Gregory says he is dead who is dead to the world. Now judge for yourselves what a dead man is like and how little he is touched by anything in the world. If we die to the world we do not die to God.
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He who would hear God must be far removed from people.
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"Then the woman said, 'Sir, give me of the water.' Then our Lord said, 'Bring me your husband,' and she said, 'Sir, I have none.' Then our Lord said, 'You are right, you have none. But you have had five, and the one you have now is not yours.' " St. Augustine says, 'Why does our Lord say, "You are right"? He means to say "the five husbands are the five senses: they had you in your youth according to all their will and desire. Now you have one in your old age and he is not yours: that is the intellect, that you do not obey."
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This birth does not take place once a year or once a month or once a day, but all the time, that is, above time in the expanse where there is no here or now, nor nature nor thought.
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Where is Christ sitting? He is sitting nowhere. Whoever seeks him anywhere will not fnd him. His least part is everywhere, his highest nowhere. A master says that whoever knows anything does not know God. Christ means the anointed, he who is anointed by the Holy Ghost. The masters say sitting denotes rest and implies timelessness. What turns and changes has no rest, and also, resting adds nothing. Our Lord says, "I am God and do not change" (Mal. 3 : 6).
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Thus God cannot work except in the ground of humility, for the deeper we are in humility, the more receptive to God.
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In the silence and peace - there God speaks in the soul and utters Himself completely in the soul.
... Therefore it is a much greater thing to be silent about God than to speak.
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The reason why you find nothing is simply because you seek nothing. All creatures are pure nothing. I do not say they are a trifle or they are anything: they are pure nothing. What has no being, is not. All creatures have no being, for their being consists in the presence of God. If God turned away for an instant from all creatures, they would perish. I have sometimes said, and it is true, that he who possessed the whole world with God would have no more than if he had God by Himself. All creatures have nothing more without God than a midge would have without God - just the same, neither more nor less.

Now listen to a true saying! If a man gave a thousand marks of gold for building churches and convents, that would be a great thing. Yet that man would give far more who could regard a thousand marks as nothing; he would have done far more than the other.
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As I have clearly stated before, Whoever would receive from above must be below in true humility. Know this truly: he who is not fully below obtains and receives nothing, however small. If you have an eye to yourself or to any thing or person, you are not right under and will get nothing, but if you are right under, you will receive fully and per­ fectly. It is God's nature to give, and His being depends on His giving to us when we are under. If we are not, and receive nothing, we do Him violence and kill Him. If we cannot do this to Him, then we do it to ourselves, as far as in us lies. If you would truly give Him all, see to it that you put yourself in true humility under God, raising up God in your heart and your understanding. "Our Lord God sent His Son into the world" (Gal. 4:4). I once said here, God sent His Son into the world in the soul's fullness of time, when she had fi nished with time.3 When the soul is free from time and place, then the Father sends His Son into the soul. This is the meaning of the words "The best gift and perfection come from above, from the Father of lights."
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Moses says, "No man has seen God" (d. Exodus 33:20). As long as we are men and as long as anything human attaches to us and we are approaching, we cannot see God; we must be raised up and set in pure rest, and thus see God.
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Anything, however small, adhering to the soul, prevents us from seeing God. ...The soul that is to fi nd God must leap over and pass beyond all creatures. ...Boethius says, 'If you would know truth clearly, cast off joy, and fear, expectation, and hope, and pain.' Joy is a means, fear is a means, expectation and hope and pain are all means. As long as you regard them and they regard you, you cannot see God.
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The first point: it becomes detached from here and now. 'Here and now' means the same as place and time. Now is the minimum of time; it is not a portion of time or a part of time. It is just a taste of time, a tip of time, and end of time. Yet, small though it be, it must go: everything that touches or smacks of time must go. Again, it is detached from here. 'Here' means the same thing as place. The place where I am standing is small, but however small, it must still go before I can see God.
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If a man were to rest on nothing, and cling to nothing, then, if heaven and earth were overturned, he would remain unmoved, since he would cling to nothing, and nothing would cling to him.

Selected from sermons 13 - 42
Translated and Edited by Maurice O'C. Walshe