Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go.
Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Spirituality is about finding inner peace and connection to the divine in everyday life, rather than seeking it by withdrawing from the world.
This quote by Meister Eckhart emphasizes that true spirituality does not require one to escape or isolate themselves from the world. Instead, it suggests that individuals can cultivate a deep sense of inner solitude and connection to the divine in any circumstance or environment. This inner discovery allows one to recognize and experience spirituality in the midst of everyday life, highlighting the belief that the divine can be found in all things and situations.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a mindfulness workshop, I shared this quote to illustrate the importance of finding peace within ourselves in a busy world.
More from Meister Eckhart
All quotes →...Where and when God finds you ready, he must act and overflow into you, just as when the air is clear and pure, the sun must overflow into it and cannot refrain from doing that.
What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.
In this breaking-through, I receive that God and I are one. Then I am what I was, and then I neither diminish nor increase, for I am then an immovable cause that moves all things.
Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of God.
If you love yourself, you love everybody else as you do yourself. As long as you love another person less than you love yourself, you will not really succeed in loving yourself but if you love all alike, including yourself, you will love them as one person and that person is both God and man.
Similar quotes
You may not believe in magic but something very strange is happening at this very moment. Your head has dissolved into thin air and I can see the rhododendrons through your stomach. It's not that you are dead or anything dramatic like that, it is simply that you are fading away and I can't even remember your name.
The most dangerous of devotions, in my opinion, is the one endemic to Christianity: I was not born to be of this world. With a second life waiting, suffering can be endured - especially in other people. The natural environment can be used up. Enemies of the faith can be savaged and suicidal martyrdom praised.
The Iraq war was fought by one-half of one percent of us. And unless we were part of that small group or had a relative who was, we went about our lives as usual most of the time: no draft, no new taxes, no changes. Not so for the small group who fought the war and their families.
No man need fear death, he need fear only that he may die without having known his greatest power: the power of his free will to give his life for others
The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
And although it might be best of all to be Socrates satisfied, having both happiness and depth, we would give up some happiness in order to gain the depth.