Because in the school of the Spirit man learns wisdom through humility, knowledge by forgetting, how to speak by silence, how to live by dying.
Interpretation
True wisdom comes from humility and understanding the importance of silence and letting go.
In this quote, Johannes Tauler emphasizes that the path to spiritual growth and enlightenment is paradoxical. He suggests that one must embrace humility to gain true wisdom, recognize that often we learn by forgetting preconceived notions, communicate effectively through silence, and understand the essence of living fully requires an acceptance of mortality and letting go of attachments. This reflects a deeper philosophical understanding of life and spirituality.
In practice
During a meditation session, one might reflect on the wisdom of humility and silence as taught by Tauler.
Often when He comes, He finds the soul occupied. Other guests are there, and He has to turn away. He cannot gain entry, for we love and desire other things; therefore, His gifts, which He is offering to everyone unceasingly, must remain outside.
Every one should find some suitable time, day or night, to sink into his depths, each according to his own fashion. Not every one is able to engage in contemplative prayer.
As a good wine must be kept in a good cask, so a wholesome body is the proper foundation for a well-appointed inner ground.
If you fall seventy times a day, rise seventy times and return to God so that you will not fall too often.
If we really want to achieve true prayer, we must turn our backs upon everything temporal, everything external, everything that is not divine.
If ye keep watch over your hearts, and listen for the Voice of God and learn of Him, in one short hour ye can learn more from Him than ye could learn from Man in a thousand years.
It's only words... unless they're true.
making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.
From this point of view, to avoid your strengths and to focus on your weaknesses isn't a sign of diligent humility. It is almost irresponsible. By contrast the most responsible, the most challenging, and, in the sense of being true to yourself, the most honorable thing to do is face up to the strength potential inherent in your talents and then find ways to realize it.
To strive with an equal is dangerous; with a superior, mad; with an inferior, degrading.
Through the grace of the Almighty Power, it is sure to manifest itself in time.
God does not judge us by the multitude of works we perform, but how well we do the work that is ours to do. The happiness of too many days is often destroyed by trying to accomplish too much in one day. We would do well to follow a common rule for our daily lives--DO LESS, AND DO IT BETTER.
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