tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post113726163549761212..comments2024-03-28T20:04:20.286-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Weekend Sermon: What's Before the Beginning & After the End?Gagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1137943644734689942006-01-22T07:27:00.000-08:002006-01-22T07:27:00.000-08:00"Could it be that the human mind is a membrane thr..."Could it be that the human mind is a membrane through which the infinite passes through the finite, the meeting place of time and eternity, the interior of the cosmos contemplating its outward aspect? Is divinity so thoroughly entangled in the cosmos that the outside is in and the inside is out?"<BR/><BR/>In the realm of particle physics we come to a point where matter dissolves and the best the physicist can come up with is 'point' without matter. Yet in this infinitely tiny world of which all that we know of is composed, we can pluck one of the super-tiny guys, the quark, and attempt to grasp that inside our very cells, inside the atoms that compose those very cells, are the little guys, the quarks. And stars are composed of quarks, air is composed of quarks, you and I are composed of quarks, rocks and mountains and bears and wolves and whales and turnips and windshield wipers are all composed of quarks. So I think it is at this level of the tiny guys that we begin to understand the oneness of all that God created.Bro. Bartlebyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15980379263844521557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1137350192601445282006-01-15T10:36:00.000-08:002006-01-15T10:36:00.000-08:00John--Yes, to a certain extent. I only recently d...John--<BR/><BR/>Yes, to a certain extent. I only recently discovered that Eckhart's conceptual schema is very close to my own. Much of his language is designed to jolt the hearer out of his familiar conceptions, in recognition of the fact that God is beyond the limits of language. <BR/><BR/>Like me, Eckhart believed that we had the equivalent of a "horizontal" or "frontal" personality that is more or less the product of its enviornment and conditioning. In order to advancxe spiritually ("vertically"), we must free ourselves of all that is "accidental" in us, including internalized mind parasites. When we leave behind these contingent aspects of ourselves. we are "separated from nothing," and only God remains. <BR/><BR/>A typical statement by Eckhart in this regard is "You must know that to be empty of all created things is to be full of God, and to be full of created things is to be empty of God." Do not take this completely literally--again, Eckhart is using language to try to jolt you. When he talks about "created things," he's essentailly talking about the parts of ourselves that are not really US at all--about what I call "mind parasites." What mainly separates us from God is the local not-me. What unites us with God is the nonlocal Self that is behind and above the not-me.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1137347244907120642006-01-15T09:47:00.000-08:002006-01-15T09:47:00.000-08:00For Eckhart, then if not pantheistic, this "knowi...For Eckhart, then if not pantheistic, this "knowing" experience was the beginnings of the unitive experience with all creation and that it must begin with the experiencer?<BR/><BR/>Or,<BR/><BR/>was Eckhart referring to the insightful knowing about our personal "mind parasites" which you describe so well in your book which understanding will ultimately predispose us or propel us into knowing HIM?<BR/><BR/>What I really want to ask is about the relationship between mystical knowledge of God and insightful knowledge of the origin and construction of our own personalities. Is that perhaps what Eckhart might have been hinting about when he wrote ". . . no one can know God who does not first know himself."?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1137342164258139662006-01-15T08:22:00.000-08:002006-01-15T08:22:00.000-08:00Meister Eckhart has been accused of pantheism, but...Meister Eckhart has been accused of pantheism, but this would be a misunderstanding of his teaching. For Eckhart, God is the reality of all things, but also infinitely surpasses all things. In short, God is both immanent and transcendent. Although Eckhart goes beyond customary Christian understanding, his ideas are grounded in biblical texts such as Jesus' prayer "that all might be one, as you, Father, in me, and I in you, that they may be one in us." (John 17:21)Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1137336232681510372006-01-15T06:43:00.000-08:002006-01-15T06:43:00.000-08:00"If anyone wishes to come into God's ground and hi..."If anyone wishes to come into God's ground and his innermost, he must first come into his own ground and his innermost, for no one can know God who does not first know himself. Here, the eye with which I see God is the same eye by which he sees me."<BR/> -- Meister Eckhart<BR/> Profound yes, but be we all pantheistic heretics?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com