Christmas with Meister Eckhart: Sermon 1

welcome everyone to what I'm calling Christmas with Meister eart this is something that I've been wanting to do since um you know we we all love Meister eart here on the channel and of course he is famous among other things for doing his Christmas or Advent sermons for for the Christmas season we did read one of those sermons a few years ago go but um there are more than one so um the idea here is to do a kind of Series where once every week on on Sunday we will read one of those sermons and

and finishing off on hopefully on Christmas Eve and today at least when I'm recording this today is the first of Advent and Advent is this um period in in in waiting for for the the the birth of of Christ in Christianity right it's it's it's from the the the fourth Sunday before Christmas until Christmas Eve is called Advent and this is a time of usually of fasting and contemplation again in sort of preparation for for Christmas when when Christians will celebrate the the the birth of of Jesus or of Christ so and again you know

I'm recording this on Sunday but probably I won't be able to edit this in time so I'm sorry that this first one is not like actually on the Sunday but hopefully the the coming um videos will be on time on on each Sunday um and we will be reading uh some of those me echart sermons that are so fascinating and so beautiful um just to make things even more dramatic and and U special uh we're of course going to we're going to light the Advent candle the first one here so one every every week until

Christmas um let's see I only have one have one chance to do this that's the first [Music] one there we go for all the sweets out there I feel like on Aisa right now um I thought this would be a this would be a a a cozy and nice way to to celebrate the Christmas season this year with the great C Catholic uh frier uh doin Dominican frier even philosopher Mystic Theologian Meister ekot from Germany um Meister eot was all of those things he was from from Germany from from what is known as the well

it's in the region of the Ryan river right so he's one of the so-called Rin land Mystics alongside others like Hill thegarden you know Henry suzo and Toler and all these people um eart is is very famous for his very daring philosophical ideas he lived between the 13th century to um he died in in 1328 and his ideas like he was a prominent figure in the Dominican church he was a professor or he was a a master as his name suggests in in the university in Paris he taught at that University he also taught in

Cologne in different places so he was a prominent figure uh and he would preach and and and write works of philosophy and Theology and in particular his preaching was was really what one of the things that he was most famous for especially his preaching in his native language which was Middle High German and and those those sermons in German in Middle High German have survived and those are also often the most profound ones because he uses the German language in such a creative way way rather than using the sort of lurgical language of Latin which

was the most common and he does use Latin in his written works um when he preaches um he uses Middle High German he's able to sort of use that language in such a fascinating and beautiful way he come ups with new words for things and just it's really amazing and one or I should one series of those sermons in German was held there are four of them they were held in Christmas season and as I understand it they were held on each Sunday of of Advent until Christmas Eve um I'm not sure what the audience

was it doesn't seem like this was one of those sermons for the general public but perhaps for a more select group of of you know maybe monks or nuns because he's speaking about things that are more advanced let's say in that sense um so eart again a prom minent figure but also a controversial one because ehart had some very daring ideas and we talked about this in our full video on ehart which you can check out but also briefly in our previous episode where we read one of these sermons in that the basic idea of

Art's philosophy Bernard mcin talks about the the core of Art's thought as he calls it the mysticism of the ground and eart talks particularly about this Concept in German called the grun which is what it's translated as the ground uh the grun it's not ground just in the sense of being like something you walk on grunt also means things like Foundation Essence um core like the most foundational core of something or or origin of something you mean all these different things and and what I would say at least is that the core of of e

Art's philosophy is this idea that the ground of the soul of the human being being and the ground of God is one and the same ground and that's a really profound idea right um some would call it a kind of non-dualism I'm careful with those kinds of terms but certainly there's this idea that that that the ground of God is the ground of all things go God is identified with being and the being of all things and all things other than God are nothingness right and we recognize this from many other mystical philosophers as well

and this philosophy and we'll get into the details of some of these things as we read but these philosophies of eart or this mystical theology or whatever you want to refer to it as comes out in these amazing Christmas sermons that he that he that he held back then um in particular when it comes to Christmas eart has a pretty unique perspective and again we talked about this in our earlier video talking about you know Christmas according to my eart but Art's view on Christmas is certainly uh focused on the metaphysical you could say um

Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus the birth of Christ and he recognizes of course that that is what the celebration is about on a surface level it's about the birth of the human Christ but he doesn't focus on that right his whole thing is focusing rather on the metaphysical um implications and aspects of that uh what is the birth of Christ it is the birth of the son to the father right the birth of the word as it is said in in the Gospel of John right in the beginning was the word and the Word

was with God and the Word was God the word or logos is identified with the son with Christ so he uses these terms the birth of the son or the birth of the word um and this birth not only takes place in history with the human Christ but uh it is the birth birth um of the Sun in the Trinity which take place eternally in the Eternal present it is something that happens before creation Before Time um and thus it is profoundly according art taking place right now the birth of the son um in the

Divine ground so to say and remember also that we said that according to eart the ground of God and the ground of the soul is one and the same ground which means that the birth of the sun is taking place in the depths of the soul of the human being as well and so the mystical journey is this process of of stripping away detaching all thing yourself from all things from all individuality from all multiplicity all these uh external things until you sort of penetrate into that ground the silent complete darkness the nothingness the unknowing

of the ground of the soul and there when we break through and he he uses a term in German which I cannot remember at the moment sadly he comes comes up with a term of his own actually that is often translated as detaching or sorry of of breaking through um and when we break through we go beyond you know multiplicity and Duality Beyond even the concept of God into the ground and in that ground in that silence we thus experience that birth of the sun within ourselves and that is the sort of symbol of the

utmost um mystical experience right so that is to Echo out what what Christmas is about and there are several Dimensions to that it's the birth of the of the son in in in God right or birth of the Sun metaphysically in the Eternal present it's also uh the birth our birth in God as the son as we are all sons and children of God it's the birth of God in ourselves in a certain sense um because again the ground of the soul and the ground of God is one in the same ground and so that

birth take place within our ourselves it is part of our own ground our own being and so these themes are all sort of interwoven in these in these sermons so you know um that's I think um a good amount of background for us to sort of dive into the text itself we're going to be using uh the translations by Maurice o c Walsh from this beautiful volume of the complete works of Meister eart uh and of course we're going to begin we're going to be Beginning by by reading the first of of the sermons um

and this first sermon is really interesting in many ways it's to me at least it's the clearest one he is very clear in his argumentation he's very clear um in different ways and and fascina this sermon through his discussion about this birth of the word and the bth you know Christmas he basically summarizes so many aspects of his thought at the same time so as we go through you'll see that all these themes if especially if you if You' read Master eart before or you watched my full video on his philosophy you'll see that like

many of those sort of Cornerstone features of his thought comes up in this sermon in different ways um which hopefully you'll see um my idea here is that I will read the sermon and I will also be stopping and sort of giving short comments on what's going on sometimes I'm trying that out this first time if you guys don't like that and you want me to just read through the whole thing then let me know in the comments and maybe I'll I'll change that for for next time but I think it could be helpful also

to have um some some sort of comments some some context to what's going on or clarifications of certain things not that I'm some sort of you know expert on on eart in particular but um I think it could be helpful for some people so without further Ado uh let's begin reading the first sermon of me eot delivered sometime 700 years ago uh on maybe not on this very day but around this season this Christmas season so many years ago and they you know even though it was so long ago um at least to me regardless

of your sort of religious affiliation and you guys know that mine is complicated right but um uh regardless these words really have a profound impact on on many people as they read it so here is the first sermon of Misa eart in his sort of Christmas series of sermons here in time we are celebrating the Eternal birth which God the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity because this same birth is now born in time in human nature St Augustin says what does it Avail me that this birth is always happening if it does not

happen in me that it should happen in me is what matters we shall therefore speak of this birth of how it may take place in us and be consummated in The Virtuous Soul whenever God the Father speaks his eternal word in the perfect soul for what I say here is to be understood of the good and perfected man who has walked and is still walking in the ways of God not of the natural undisciplined man for he is entirely remote from and totally ignorant of this birth so this is why I'm saying that this sermon

probably aimed at people who are more on a sort of more mystical dedicated path perhaps monks or nuns for example those are the kinds of people um who are able to have this experience or this this go on this path because it is a difficult path uh only meant for for for certain people so to say there is a saying of the wise man when all things lay in the midst of of Silence then there descended down into me from on high from the Royal Throne a secret word this sermon is about that word so

this is the Bible quote this is uh the quote that that the whole sermon sort of revolves around three things are to be noted here the first is where in the soul God the Father speaks his word where this birth takes place and where she is receptive of this act for that can only be in the very purest loftiest subtlest part that the soul is capable of in very truth if God the father in his omnipotence could endow the soul with anything more noble and if the soul could have received from him anything nobler then

the father would have had to delay the birth for the coming of this greater Excellence therefore the soul in which this birth is to take place must keep absolutely pure and must live in Noble fashion quite collected and turned entirely inward not not running out through the Five Senses Into the multiplicity of creatures but all inurned and collected and in the purest part there is his place he disdains anything less the second part of this sermon has to do with man's conduct in relation to this act to God's speaking of his word within to this

birth whether it is more profitable for man to cooperate with it so that it may come to pass in him through his own exerion and Merit by a man's creating in himself a mental image in his thoughts and disciplining himself that way by reflecting that God is wise omnipotent Eternal or whatever else he can imagine about God whether this is more profitable and conductive to this birth from the father or whether one should shun and free oneself from all thoughts words and deeds and from all images created by the understanding maintaining a holy God receptive

attitude such that one's own self is Idol letting God work within one which conduct conduces best to this birth the third point is the profit and how great it is which acrs from this birth note in the first place that in what I'm about to say I shall make use of natural proofs so that you yourselves can grasp that it is so for though I put more faith in the scriptures than in myself yet it is easier and better for you to learn by means of arguments that can be verified this is the the philosopher

in eart speaking right using arguments and and and and and you know proofs to to sort of get at what he's saying first we will take the words in the midst of Silence there was spoken within me a secret word but sir where is the silence and where is the place where the word is spoken as I said just now it is in the purest thing that the soul is capable of in the noblest part the ground indeed in the very essence of the Soul which is the Soul's most secret part there is the silent

middle for no creature ever entered there and no image nor has the soul there either activity or understanding therefore she is not aware there of any image whether of herself or of any other creature whatever the soul affects she affects with her powers what she understands she understands with the intellect what she remembers she does with memory if she would love she does that with the will and that she works with her powers and not with her Essence every external Act is linked with some means the power of sight Works only Through The Eyes otherwise

it can neither employ nor bestow a vision and so it is with all the other senses the Soul's every external Act is affected by some means but in the Soul's Essence there is no activity for the power she works with emanate from the ground of being yet in that ground is the silent middle here nothing but rest and celebration for this birth this act that God the Father may speak his word there for this part is by nature receptive to nothing save only the Divine Essence without mediation here God enters the soul with his all

not merely with a part god enters here the ground of the Soul none can touch the ground of the soul but God Alone no creature can enter the Soul's ground but must stop outside in the powers so to clarify here he's talking about the fact that um the ground is this utter Simplicity that is sort of Beyond knowledge of outside things right or rather when the soul knows things it knows it through images through things externally right so we uh when I know this lamp I see see it with my eyes so my eyes take

it in and then that leaves a sort of imprint or image on my mind so everything comes from outside uh knowledge of God or or you know the grace of God is not reached through this way rather it is reached through the ground of the Soul or in the ground of the Soul which is beyond these senses and these kinds of images in the ground there is no image there is no form there's there's nothing right so echar talks about the ground as as a kind of utter nothingness it's not a can't it's not knowing

it's unknowing and he like he takes this a lot from pseudo dianus of course if you're familiar with him um that in this ground there is just complete silence and darkness he calls it a nothingness even but in a literal sense a no thingness there is nothing there and that is where God can sort of speak and and he literally says that he enters the ground of the Soul here as we saw though God is like the ground of God is the ground of the soul and that is is why he can enter there because

there is no mediation it is a kind of direct presence and and knowledge that is beyond image or word or anything just a kind of direct ontological existential unity and direct apprehension and presence of God so that's the difference here right uh between knowing things externally through the powers as he says and knowing things in the ground which is a direct immediate uh knowing if we can call that a knowing direct immediate Unknowing which is a sort of direct um Union with God in a certain sense within the soul sees clearly the image whereby the

creature has been drawn in and taken lodging for whenever the powers of the Soul make contact with the creature they set to work and make an image and the likeness of the creature which they obsorb that is how they know the creature no creature can come closer to the soul than this and the soul never approaches a creature without having first voluntarily taken an image of it into herself through this presented image the soul approaches creatures an image being something that the soul makes of external objects with her own powers whether it is a stone

a horse a man or anything else that she wants to know she gets out the image of it that she has already taken in and is thus enabled to unite herself with it but for a man to receive an image in this way it must of necessity enter from without through the senses in consequence there is nothing so unknown to the soul as herself accordingly one master says that the soul can neither create nor obtain an image of herself therefore she has no way of knowing herself for images all enter through the senses and hence

she can have no image of herself and so she knows all other things but not herself of nothing does she know so little as of herself for want of mediation this is interesting because we can connect it to other um ideas in other um schools of thought such as in um different forms of of Hindu or H like indic thought like vidanta for example they talk about self- knowledge as a sort of pure absolute knowledge that is just apparent to everyone we all know ourselves but at the same time the self is that which we

know the least about which could we cannot know anything about the self because the self is pure subjectivity and as eart talks about here um when we have knowledge of things it's all external things coming into to our awareness and leaving an image on the soul uh but the soul has no there's there's nothing external like the soul is not external to the soul right it's just our self our soul and so we can have we can't have that kind of knowledge of ourselves that we have of other things in other words if we Define

knowledge in that sense that we usually do then we know nothing about ourselves we know nothing about our soul and that is what he's saying here although we can also sort of um assume that we do have a kind of we have some sort of knowledge of ourselves that we forget but that's the knowledge we get when we we when we break through back into that ground and which at which point we get a kind of knowledge if we can call it knowledge again of ourselves as United to the ground of the Divine right that

is that is how I read this any anyway um let's continue and you must know too that inwardly the soul is free and void of all means and all images which is why God can free freely Unite with her without form or likeness whatever power you ascribe to any Master you cannot but ascribe that power to God without limit the more skilled and Powerful the master the more immediately is is his work affected and the simpler it is man requires many means for his external works much preparation for the of the material is needed before

he can produce them as he has imagined them but the sun in its Sovereign Mastery performs its task which is to give light very swiftly the instant its Radiance is poured forth the ends of the Earth are full of light more exalted is the Angel who needs still less means for his work and has fewer images the highest Sara has but a single image he seizes as a unity all that his inferiors regard as manifold but God needs no image and he has no image without any means likeness or image God operates in the soul

right in the ground where no image ever got in but only he himself with his own being this no creature can do how does God the Father give birth to a son in the soul like creatures in images and likenesses no by my faith but just as he gives birth to him in eternity no more no less well but how does he give birth to him then now see God the father has a perfect insight into himself profound and thorough knowledge of himself by himself and not through any image and thus God the father gives

birth to his son in the true Unity of the divine nature see it is like this and in no other way that God the father gives birth to the son in the ground and essence of the soul and thus unites himself with her for if any image were present there would be no real Union and in that real Union lies the Soul's whole beatitude so here we get to that central idea of earts of the Union of the ground of the soul and the ground of God right so we see already we see some of

those key features of his thought present in this sermon revolving around you know the theme of Christmas and the birth of the son now you might say there is by nature nothing in the soul but images not at all if that were so the soul could never become blessed for God cannot make any creature from which you can receive perfect blessedness otherwise God would not be the highest blessing and the final goal whereas it is his nature to be this and it is his will to be the Alpha and Omega of all things no creature

can constitute your blessedness nor can it be your Perfection here on Earth for the perfection of this life which is the sum of all the virtues is followed by the Perfection of the life to come therefore you have to be and dwell in the essence and in the ground and there God will touch you with his simple Essence without the intervention of any image no image represents and signifies itself it always aims and points that of which it is the image and since you have no image but of what is outside yourself which is drawn

in through the senses and continually points to that which of of which it is the image therefore it is impossible for you to be beatified by any image whatsoever so I read a kind of platonic uh thing here right any everything is a is an image that that points to that of which it is the image um and and the image themselves can never um you can never be beatified by an image he says you can only be beatified by that of which it is the image and ultimately and I might be reading platonic ideas

and maybe like akbarian ideas into this here but it seems to me at least that ultimately the the the thing of which everything is an image is at the end of the day God right so and that seems to fit into what the point he's making is that only God can accomplish that nothing other than God can do that we continue and therefore there must be a silence and a Stillness and the father must speak in that and give birth birth to his son and perform his Works free from all images the second point is

what must a man contribute by his own actions in order to procure and deserve the occurrence and the consummation of this birth in himself is it better to do something towards this to imagine and think about God or should he keep still and Silent in peace and quiet and let God speak and work in him merely Waiting for God to act so I think the question he's asking is pretty self-explanatory right are we participating in this process of of sort of uniting with the ground so to say or is it rather a sort of complete

passivity where we just fall away from ourselves and let God sort of pour forth his his grace into us or is there some kind of to to to put it in a crude way is there some kind of philosophizing involved here now I say as I said before that these words and this act are only for the good and perfected people who have so absorbed and assimilated the essence of all virtues that these virtues emanate from them naturally without their seeking and above all there must dwell in them the worthy life and lofty teachings of

our Lord Jesus Christ they must know that the very best and noblest attainment in this life is to be silent and let God work and speak within when the powers have been completely withdrawn from all their works and then the word is spoken remember that word and son is synonymous in Christian theology so again this word is the son being born in the soul right therefore he said in the midst of the silence the secret word was spoken unto me again going back to that Bible verse that the whole thing revolves around and so the

more completely you were able to draw in your powers to a unity and forget all those things and their images which you have absorbed and the further further you can get from creatures and their images the nearer you are to this and the reer to receive it if only you could suddenly be unaware of all things then you could pass into an oblivion of your own body as St Paul did when he said whether in the body I cannot tell or out of the body I cannot tell God knows it so this is interesting we

go back to that idea of Unknowing right um this knowing that we're trying to reach of our of our true selves as the you know the union of the ground of God and the Soul can only be done by detaching from all other things or from all things really everything that is a thing needs to be detached from whether that is creatures or images or or idea of ourselves our soul even our idea of God right this is a recurring thing in in eart right we should get rid of all of our thoughts our ideas

all the knowledge we think we have until we just everything is just complete nothingness and silence only then he says here right only then can God speak the word and the Soul this very a key key thing to understand about eart and very profound right in this case the spirit had so entirely absorbed the powers that it had forgotten the body memory no longer function nor understanding nor the senses nor the powers that should function so as to govern and Grace the body vital warmth and body heat were suspended so that the body did not

waste during the 3 days when he neither ate nor drank thus too Moses fared when he fasted for 40 days in the mountain and was none the worse for it for on the last day he was as strong as on the first in this way a man should flee his senses turn his powers Inward and sink into an oblivion of all things and himself concerning this a master dressed the soul thus with the draw from the unrest of external activities then flee away and hide from the turmoil of inward thoughts for they but create Discord

so this is the kind of image or the the kind of imagery that we all love about eart right which he gets of course from people like pudus but still this idea of he says turn his powers Inward and sink into an oblivion of all things in himself this is such powerful language to me right this idea of just and and he is unique like this is a common thing we find in mysticism generally defined right of sort of turning away from ourselves of of of annihilating the ego and so on but um few people

use this kind of such strong and powerful imagery as people like eart and pudus where we're to sort of just sink into an oblivion of all things and of ourselves I just love this kind of language and so if God is to speak his word in the soul she must be at rest and at peace and then he will speak his word and himself in the soul no image but himself dianus and there he shows up of course dianus says God has no image or likeness of himself for he's intrinsically all goodness truth and being

God performs all his Works whether within himself or outside himself in a flashh do not imagine that God when he made Heaven and Earth and all things made one thing one day and another the next Moses describes it like that but he really knew better he did so for the sake of people who could not conceive or grasp it any other way all God did was this he willed he spoke and they were so here of course the classic sort of abrahamic thing of God speaking the word into existence we are reminded of of you

know the first words of Genesis uh God says you know let there be light and there was light and so on or even in the Quran where where it says um right so God only has to says be and it is this very similar to what art is saying here we continue God works without means and without images and the Freer you are from images the more receptive you are for his inward working and the more introverted and self forgetful the nearer you are to this dianus exhorted his pupil Timothy in this sense saying Dear

Son Timothy do you with untroubled mind soar above yourself and all your powers above R ration and reasoning above Works above all modes and existence into the secret still darkness that you may come to the knowledge of the Unknown super Divine God there must be a withdrawal from all things God scorns to work through images now you might say what does does God do without images in the ground and Essence that I cannot know because my sole Powers receive only in images they have to know when lay hold of each thing in its appropriate image

they cannot recognize a horse when presented with the image of a man and since all these enter from without that knowledge is hidden from my soul which is to her great Advantage this not knowing makes her wonder and leads her to eager Pursuit for she perceives clearly that it is but does not know how or what it is whenever a man knows the causes of things then he at once tires of them and seeks to know something different always clamoring to know things is forever Inc constant and so this unknown knowing keeps the soul constant

and yet Spurs her on to Pursuit this is also a very interesting and profound section here and it reminds me of another one of Art's famous sermons it's one that my friend Justin Sledge and I often talk about um and it's this sermon where he talks about Hunger of this kind of that that and you know not literally hunger of course but this kind of hunger where the more you eat the hungrier you get that this is the case with with with God right the the more you eat of of I can't remember the exact

thing he talks about in that sermon but just to paraphrase right the more you eat of of of this this Divine path or this ground the hunger you get right so as opposed to all other kinds of knowledge when you when you when you're curious about something you want to know something when you find out how things work in this case he says the cause of things then you you're kind of done seeking that thing out you're not imagine if you knew so in my case imagine if I just suddenly learned everything about religion or

religious studies just every I just had all the answers now suddenly there would be very little reason for me to keep seeking for you know keep studying I would probably have to just go you know study something else that that's that's more interesting in that case because you know I know everything so then suddenly you know it becomes uninteresting and and he's saying here that um when it comes to to to knowing your soul in a true sense like this this is not the case um he says and I re I will reread the last

section here and so this unknown knowing keeps the soul constant and yet Spurs her on to Pursuit so this path is is unending in a certain sense uh which also reminds us of uh one of the key early church fathers Gregory of Nissa who also talks about this Union with God which is not this idea of no you go on the path and then you you become United with God and then you're just you you're done right you're United with God that is not the case to be United with God is to travel eternally it's

a sort of Eternal traveling that never stops because God after all is infinite than Eternal so that even when you're United with God that sort of that journey within God is eternal in itself I'm not sure that's exactly what he's referring to here but that certainly comes to mind uh let's continue about this the wise man said in the middle of the night when all things were in a quiet silence there was spoken to me a hidden word it came like a thief by stealth why does he call it a word when it was hidden

the nature of a word is to reveal what is hidden it revealed itself to me and Shone forth before me declaring something to me and making God known to me and therefore it is called a word yet what it was remained hidden from me that was its stealthy coming in a whispering Stillness to reveal itself see just because it is hidden one must and should always pursue it it Shone forth and yet was hidden we're meant to yearn and sigh for it St Paul exhorts us to pursue this until we aspy it and not to

stop until we grasp it after we had been caught up into the third heaven where God was made known to him and he beheld all things when he returned he had forgotten nothing but it was so deep down in his ground that his intellect could not reach it it was veiled from him so core feature of mysticism here right in this case St Paul reaches the depths of the soul in this case right he has this mystical experience he has insight into the nature of of God and or reality when he comes back he has

not forgotten anything right he that that truth is as clear as it ever was but he cannot put it into words right the intellect cannot grasp those things so he cannot really you know there is no way to put it into images and and if anything is characteristic of mysticism it would probably be this right it's this idea that that reason and words are limited especially when it comes to to talking about these kinds of these kinds of experiences RI in the beginning of his mavi says you know that love cannot be explained I cannot

explain these things and then he goes on for six books to to explain it anyway in po but um so that's the Paradox of mysticism um that these are experiences that cannot be explained and yet we have these beautiful expressions like this sermon or the masnavi or whatever it is that that try in some way to if not capture at least sort of point the way to to those realities right we continue he therefore had to pursue it and search for it in himself and not outside it is all within not outside but wholly within

and knowing this full well he said for I am persuaded that neither death nor any Affliction can separate me from what I find within me there is a fine saying of one Pagan Master according to the footnotes we don't know who he's referring to here sadly but um there's a fine saying of one Pagan Master to another about this he said I am aware of something in me which shines in my understanding I can clearly perceive that it is something but what it may be I cannot grasp yet I think if I could only seize

it I should know all truth to which the other Master replied follow it boldly for if you could seize it you would possess the sum total of all good and have eternal life St Augustine spoke in the same sense quote I am aware of something within me that gleams and flashes before my soul with this perfected and fully established in me that would surely be eternal life it hides yet shows itself it comes but like a thief with intent to take and steal all things from the soul but by emerging and showing itself a little

it aims to lure the soul and draw her toward itself to rob her and deprive her of herself about this the prophet says Lord take from them their spirit and give them instead thy spirit this too was meant by the loving soul when she said my soul dissolved and melted away when love SP spoke his word when he entered I had to fall away and Christ meant this by his words whoever abandons anything for my sake shall be repaid H hundredfold and whoever would possess me must deny himself in all things and whoever will serve

me must follow me and not go anymore after his own just to go back there for a second he says when he entered I had to fall away right so to again I'm using Sufi imagery here because that's what I'm most comfortable with as you know but there's this famous Sufi story where the Sufi poet in this case imagine it might be room actually imagine himself going up to the door of God by knocking and God asks who's there and he says you know it is II or whatever and God says uh go away you

have no place here and he does this a couple of times and he s of um bewildered he's never LED inside the store until finally and I'm I'm I'm butchering the story but at the end he comes to L again he knocks and God asks again who is there he says no one and it says now you have now you have earned yourself the right to enter right um in God in Union there cannot be any I right there is only God in the ground of the Soul there is no speaking of myself but there's

in the ground of the Soul there is no FIP there there's there's nothing there is only God in this in this sense this is how I read it he said when he entered I had to fall away this is very again another one of those themes that we find not only in Christian mysticism or in Sufism but all across these Traditions that we sometimes refer to as mysticism this idea of the mystical Union and this mystical Union uh presupposes that the self the eye has to disappear in order for that Union to be accomplished so

let's continue here but now you might say but good sir you want to change the natural course of the soul and go against her nature it is her nature to take things in through the senses and images would you upset this ordering no but how do you know what nobility God has bestowed upon human nature not yet fully described and still unrevealed for those who have written of the Soul's nobility have gone nor further than their natural intelligence could carry them they had never entered her ground so that much remained obscure and unknown to them

so the prophet said I will sit in silence and hearken to what God speaks within me because it is so secret this word came in the night and in darkness St John says the light Shone in the darkness it came into its own and as many as received it became in Authority sons of God to them was given power to become God's Sons now observe the use and the fruits of this secret word and this Darkness the son of the heavenly father is not born born alone in this darkness which is his own you too

can be born a child of the same heavenly father and of none other and to you he will give power now observe how great the use is for all the truth learned by all the Masters by their own intellect and understanding or ever to be learned till doomsday they never had the slatest inkling of this knowledge and this ground though it may be called a nence an unknowing yet there is in it more than in all knowing and understanding without it for this unknowing lurs in a racts you from all understood things and from yourself

as well this is what Christ meant when he said whoever will not deny himself and will not leave his father and mother and is not estranged from all these is not worthy of me as though he were to say he who does not abandon creaturely externals can be neither conceived nor born in this Divine birth so again that same theme that we just discussed but divesting yourself of yourself and of everything external does not truly give it to you and in very truth I believe nay I am sure that the man who is established in

this cannot in any way ever be separated from God I see he can in no way lapse into mortal sin he would rather suffer the most shameful death as the Saints have done before him than commit the least of mortal sins I say such people cannot willingly commit or consent to even a venial sin in themselves or in others if they can stop it and here we come to another one of those famous themes in cart's thought which is this um at least how I read it is this idea of the Living Without A why

that the person who becomes United in this way who reaches the ground and and realizes the union of of the ground so to say um his will becomes United with the will of God we find this both in aard very clearly but also famously in margar pet in the mirror of simple Souls um the will of the person of the soul and the will of God becomes one will and so that person cannot sin in that case um pet this is one of those things where both of these figures were most sort of controversial mostly

criticized for it seems that they they you could read this as as they stating that you know once you reach this state you don't have to perform the the obligations of the religion you don't have to pray you don't have to give the Char you don't have to do all these things um or that you cannot commit a sin that you're sort of of immune to sinning and but that is not what they're saying this is not what eart is saying here he's saying that when when you realize the Oneness of the ground your will

becomes the will of God and so in a certain sance God acts through you right because your will is United to the will of God so your will is God's will and if your will is God's will then of course you cannot sin because God would never sin and you're so you know to use modern terminology you're so in tune with God that there's no possibility of you making a sinful choice in your life right so that that is that is the theme that he's taking up here so again like I said in the beginning

so many of the the core themes of Art's thought is is present here and again that is that is one of them we finish here so strongly are they lured and drawn and accustomed to that that they can never turn to any other way to this way are directed all their senses all their powers May The God Who has been born again as man assist us to this birth eternally helping us weak men to be born in him again as God Amen so that that was the first sermon of the amazing me eart for the

Christmas season the first Advent sermon I hope you enjoy that um I think the sermon is absolutely amazing uh it's so clear sometimes reading people like they can be you know dense and difficult this sermon I don't feel is that dense at least you know relatively right and also because it's summarizes so well so many aspects of his of his thought like we've said and I hope you could also notice that as we went through it um so that was the first one next week um we're going to read the second sermon and that is

a sermon that we already read a few years ago so you know that's going to be a a sort of a prise rerun for some of you but um it's it's also a very beautiful sermon so I don't think I think most of you won't mind experiencing that one again um yeah so um I hope the Christmas season so far is is treating you well that it's it's meaningful in different ways whether you are you know Christian yourself if you're a Muslim whatever is your worldview and your identity um you know you either celebrate the

Christmas season or you don't but regardless I hope um I hope life is treating you well that you find a lot of meaning and and Beauty in life uh because there is there is all of that out there sometimes it can be hard to see especially with all the things happening in the world but there is certainly Beauty uh and goodness out there for if you know if you can um if you if you know how and where to look and uh reading some of these uh philosophers and Mystics at least to me it helps

us sometimes sort of tune into that um way of looking at things where where Beauty becomes a little more more apparent even in in in very dark times and I think that can be especially a powerful message especially in the Christmas season and especially like in a very sort of literal and and kind of surface level way in in a in Scandinavia for example here it's very dark in December right and so any kind of lights that that um any light that we can we can sort of uh um find is something very beautiful and

useful so I hope you enjoyed this reading let me know what you thought let me know if you think this um uh this format of of stopping and commenting on things is good or if you think I should just read through it and then we can I don't know we can discuss the details in the comments or something um but I look forward to reading some more eart for you in the coming weeks um again hope the season is treating you well and uh I'll see you in the next video [Music]