QuoteProject
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.
Meister Eckhart
ShareWTF𝕏

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

SpiritualityInner SolitudeWisdomPresenceDivinity

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

Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go.
Meister EckhartRead
...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.
Meister EckhartRead
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.
Meister EckhartRead
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.
Meister EckhartRead
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.
Meister EckhartRead
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.
Meister EckhartRead

Similar quotes

A conservative young man has wound up his life before it was unreeled. We expect old men to be conservative but when a nation's young men are so, its funeral bell is already rung.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.
E. O. WilsonRead
The compass of compassion asks not what is good for me? but what is good? Not what is best for me but what is best. Not what is right for me but what is right. Not how much can we take? but How much ought we leave? and how much might we give? Not what is easy but what is worthy. Not what is practical but what is moral.
Carl SafinaRead
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.
AristotleRead
Perhaps the most significant moral characteristic of a nation is its hypocrisy.
Reinhold NiebuhrRead
Our great thoughts, our great affections, the truths of our life, never leave us. Surely they can not separate from our consciousness, shall follow it whithersoever that shall go, and are of their nature divine and immortal.
William Makepeace ThackerayRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.