Eckhart, Meister Books

Watch For The Light: Readings For Advent And Christmas

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Donne, Meister Eckhart, T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, C. S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Archbishop Romero, Henri J.M. Nouwen, Philip Yancey

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Loved it!! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I love that this series, including "Bread and Wine:Readings for Lent and Easter," because it challeneges our complacent culture-dictated experience of Advent and Easter. This is not a feel-good book, it is a faith-building book. Be prepared to be shaken up and for God to meet you in a new way.

I bought copies for my friends and family. Everyone loved it!

The diversity of authors come together in surprising unity. This broadened my perspective and made me want to find books written by the individual authors. I also loved that the authors are from all points in history and geography. An experience like this is what all of us in the US need.

Company on the Journey 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Like a kid counting down the days until Christmas, I took a spiritual journey by reading the days until Christmas. My guide, Watch for the
light. Cheaper than a real journey...no stops for gas , no waiting in line. Pop open the book's cover and begin to read. Some funny stories, some poetry, some known authors and some not so well known, all leading the way to Christmas. When Christmas comes, you will be ready.

Selected Writings (Penguin Classics)

Meister Eckhart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The best single volume I have seen 5 out of 5 stars.
65 of 66 people found this review helpful.

There are a lot of Meister Eckart books around, but this is the best I have seen. The introduction is especially illuminating. Oliver Davies dispenses with scholastic writings and materials related to the heresy charges, focusing, chronologically, on instructional works and sermons. The Meister Eckhart that emerges from these pages is one who, while taking good works and devotional practices for granted, is so immersed in the Christianized, Neo-Platonic inner life, that he appears, at times, totally unorthodox, at other times, wholly traditional. Reading him is a mind altering experience not to be missed. The translations are very good, and puzzling passages are annotated. References to ancient authors are likewise noted. As a side issue, several of the sermons contain glimpses of medieval scientific theory.

Editorial Review:

Composed during a critical time in the evolution of European intellectual life, the works of Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-1327) are some of the most powerful medieval attempts to achieve a synthesis between ancient Greek thought and the Christian faith. Writing with great rhetorical brilliance, Eckhart combines the neoplatonic concept of oneness - the idea that the ultimate principle of the universe is single and undivided - with his Christian belief in the Trinity, and considers the struggle to describe a perfect God through the imperfect medium of language. Fusing philosophy and religion with vivid originality and metaphysical passion, these works have intrigued and inspired philosophers and theologians from Hegel to Heidegger and beyond.

Meister Eckhart: The celebrated 14th Century mystic and scholastic: A central source and inspiration of dominant currents in philosophy and theology since Aquinas, w/the text of his historic Defense

Meister Eckhart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

good introduction, but dated 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful.

Worth it if you're new to Eckhart and want a primary text. But if you're looking for the best introduction, you want Bernard McGinn's text: Meister Eckhart, the Man from whom God hid Nothing.

Yes, this translation is dated, which makes some passages harder than necessary; but this little classic is still being used even in places like Yale, where I first read it three years ago.

If The Only Prayer I Ever Prayed Was 'Thanks'....It Would Be Enough 5 out of 5 stars.
15 of 21 people found this review helpful.

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice."

Wow.

I love that. I really, really love that because it really allows me to know, to feel, to sense at such a deep and centered level of my being, that really, God has given me everything that I could possibly want or need or desire; it's always right where I am because the Holy (the Whole of) Spirit is within me and around me now.

And because this is True of me, I know this to be True of you, as well.

This is such a great read. It's heavy duty stuff. It's passionate, it's alive, it's filled with vibrancy and Light...but what do you expect from a man who also said that "The eye with which I see God, is the same eye with which God sees me."

People didn't get Meister Eckhart. People still don't get Meister Eckhart. But then again, people don't get people who really know and feel and sense God with every breath in...and with every breath out. It's funny how we make it okay to believe in God, but the moment you claim to say that God is within you and you are within God, people begin to get a little weirded out.

Why? Because we have this invested interest in somehow thinking we're separate from the Divine. We can't begin to think that everyone is an incarnation of the Spirit, can we? Afterall, man is a "sinner"...

Yes, we are sinners...but to sin means to make a mistake in judgment, to err, to miss the mark and we have made the biggest mistake of them all by thinking we are only human.

"The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge."

God is right where we are! Always! We must abandon these ideas that we are "worms of the dust" that God is displeased with us, that God is always ready to condemn us. Jesus said, "God is Love". God is Love...think about that for the next twenty years of your life...if God is Love, then it must mean we are Love, too, for it clearly states in Genesis, "Let us them make him in our Image and Likeness..."

The religionists do not want you to hear things like this. They will tell you it is blasphemy. They will tell you it is propaganda. They will quote all sorts of verses to you from scripture telling you that you are wrong.

Go with the peace you came in with and peacefully and quietly shake the dust from your sandals and move onward. Leave their church and their overcrowded parking lots. The only reason why their message is heard is because FEAR sells; it always did and sadly, it always will.

Meister Eckhart was almost tried for heresy. Fortunately, he died before he was tried. Fortunately, some of his writings survived. You can kill a person, but you cannot kill the truth because the Truth is forever and it will forever assert itself. Not out of brute force, but from a quiet and still place.

If you are ready to know that God is really for you, and could never be against you, I suggest getting this book. Like one reader suggested, he takes one reading a day and meditates upon it. I promise you, if you are open to God, God will open Itself to you in ways too wondrous to even try to explain.

"A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there."

Go into the depths of your being and begin to know the Living God that knows you only as It knows Itself.

Peace and Blessings...

Editorial Review:

1941. The author translates about one-half of Eckhart's works in this volume and presents a background into Eckhart's life and work. Contents: Meister Eckhart's talks of instruction; Book of Divine Comfort; Aristocrat; About Disinterest; 28 sermons; fragments; legends; the defense; a short bibliography.

The Wisdom of Meister Eckhart (Great Works of Christian Spirituality Series, Volume 1)

Meister Eckhart

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Deutsche Predigten. Mittelhochdeutsch/ Neuhochdeutsch.

Meister Eckhart, Uta Störmer-Caysa

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Meister Eckhart's Sermons

Meister Eckhart

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Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, Volume 1 (Meister Eckhart Vol. 1)

Meister Eckhart

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The Sermons And Collations of Meister Eckhart

Franz Pfeiffer, Meister Eckhart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The Spiritual Telephone Book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This Kessinger Reprint must be the ugliest book I've ever bought, perhaps the ugliest I've ever seen. Like a huge stack of oversized glossy photocopies held together by a yellow cover. It's like my mental image of the phone book for Mumbai or Shanghai.
These translations were first published in 1924. Eckhart's ebullient, darting mediaeval German has become pompous old-fashioned English with frequent archaisms, "ghostly" for spiritual, "self-naughting" for abolishing the ego.

So how come it gets five stars?

Meister Eckhart is the greatest spiritual teacher Western Christianity ever produced. St. Thomas Aquinas, near the end of his life, underwent a spiritual experience that made him to abandon his masterwork the Summa Theologica, which now appeared "nothing but straw". Eckhart must have undergone a similar experience earlier on, and spent the rest of his life trying to explain.

He seldom bothers with peripheral subjects. Every word goes straight to the heart of things. This book contains all his sermons, essays and fragmentary sayings; all but the Latin works that he wrote as a theologian for his fellow theologians.

It's a mistake to think of Eckhart as a Zen Master in disguise, deftly dodging the obstacles and pitfalls of theology so as to look like a Christian. He was a mediaeval Catholic through and through: he thinks entirely in those terms. Yet you constantly catch echoes of the Sufis, Vedanta or Buddhism: all, of course, unknown to him.

Which tends to support the "different paths up the same mountain" hypothesis: and those nearest to the top are the closest together. Zen is often mentioned because when Eckhart is puzzling no amount of thinking helps: an unprovoked shift of mental perspective occurs and you suddenly "get it".

If you want to dip into Eckhart, try the little book "Meister Eckhart, From Whom God Hid Nothing". Avoid Raymond Blakney's "Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation" (see my review of that for more detail.)If you want to go deeper, this is the best source of Eckhart's precious words until some benefactor of mankind brings out a readable modern translation of the vernacular sermons.

Editorial Review:

The most complete collection of Eckhart's writings: Sermons and Collations; Tractates; Sayings; Liber Positionum; In Collationibus; The Book of Benedictus; Bibliography.

Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises

Meister Eckhart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Best Integration of East and West 5 out of 5 stars.
19 of 20 people found this review helpful.

I met Meister Eckhart as if for the first time this weekend at a Zenkai, a short meditation retreat, in Seattle. The teacher gave a talk comparing the thoughts of Dogen, Bankei, and other Zen Masters with Eckhart's. Her reference was this marvelous translation by M.O. Walshe. When she teaches in Germany she says that her students recommend the Walshe edition over all others for the its accurate translation and best integration of the essence of spiritual practice. I am glad to find this book is still in print, making Eckhart of real use after all this time.

The definitive Full-length version. 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

It is pleasure to see this full length translation of Eckhart's 'Sermons & Treatises' - based on the monumental Kohlhammer edition - 'Meister Eckhart: die deutschen Werke' incorporating years of research by Josef Quint, to ensure that the sources were authentic. Moreover, nobody could have been more worthy of undertaking this translation - than M. O'C Walshe. By nature, a modest man, quiet and unassuming, diffident about his abilities, he was nevertheless the ideal person to take on this translation. Before his retirement, he had been Reader in German and Deputy Director of the Germanic Institute at the University of London. He was an authority on Medieval German Literature and Middle High German, nurtured by years of study at the Universities of Berlin, Gottingen, Vienna and Freiburg. No less important, is the fact that the translator possessed distinct spiritual qualities, not always found in academic groves. Besides his facility with German, Maurice Walshe also had a skilful and sympathetic command of Pali which grew out of his affinity with Buddhism, marked by a lifelong commitment to The English Sangha Trust, bringing him in touch with leading Theravadin teachers in the West. No mere bookworm then, Walshe sought to understand Buddhism as a spiritual discipline,undertaking various periods of 'retreat' in Theravadin Buddhist centres. This undoubtedly had bearing on his approach to Eckhart, as regards spiritual sensitivities.

The material presented here constitutes the bulk of Eckhart's
Sermons & Treatises in German - ninety-seven in all. For those who may require it, Walshe has cross-referenced the entries in the Kolhammer edition with those of Pfeiffer/Evans. Nevertheless, such references have been kept to a minimum, leaving the reader free to savour Eckhart's wisdom without impediment. Volume 1 has a preface and introduction, giving something of the background to Eckhart's life and thought. This thoughtfully included a mystical poem, possibily Eckhart's - 'The Grain of Mustard-Seed' - which, whether by the 'Meister' himself - or a follower, conveys in pithy form, the sort of intuitions at work in Eckhart's mind. Part of the introduction touches on the unfortunate circumstances which led to Eckhart being accused of heresy. A supplementary note lists the 'Articles Condemned In the Bull of John XXII' (In Agro Dominico), 27th March, 1379. On an ironic note, Walshe adds that the Pope who had condemned Eckhart - was later accused of holding heretical views, himself. Readers interested in this matter can find Eckhart's 'Defense' in the Blakney translation. For his own part, Walshe avoids overburdening commentaries.
He observes:

"Meister Eckhart remains a great, and for many a
perplexing figure. Attempts at interpreting his
thought are legion. The first task, however, is
to try to present as clearly as possible what he
said, not forgetting the context of his historical
situation. Only when this has been done, can we
hope to understand his message . . .Apart from one
or two technical notes, the translator has nothing
further to say, but simply and humbly to offer
this version. "


Still, as Walshe says in this introduction, paraphrasing Eckhart:

"This birth of Christ that Eckhart speaks of is
not a historical event that occurred in Bethlehem
on a particular date, once and for all - it is the
Eternal Now. God begets His Son in the soul
continually and without interruption. It is possible
for Christ to be born in any man's soul because
human nature is one, and is therefore the same in
Christ as in every man. Of course this birth of
Christ does not in fact occur in every human soul,
but the potentiality is there. It is only necessary
to create the right conditions.

What, then, is the essential prerequisite for
the birth of Christ in my soul? It is detachment,
self abandonment (galazenheit, abgescheidenheit).
Thus Eckhart "The Eternal Word never put on a
person. Therefore, leave whatever is personal in
you and whatever you are, and just take your bare
human nature, then you will be to the Eternal Word
just what his human nature is to him. For your
human nature and his are not different: it is one
nature, for what is in Christ, that it is in you."
(No. 94).


In one way or another, Eckhart's thought revolves around this essential identity. Perhaps 'identity' is the wrong term, because for Eckhart, what we are in actuality, is inseparable from the uncreated spiritual 'ground' (grunt) of the soul. He refers to it as an interior 'castle' (burgelin), not that it is alien to the world of forms, but because it constitutes the true ground of all things. Hence, Eckhart refers to this inner turn as a homecoming, to be 'self-contained' or rooted in our true nature (Inne Sein, Inne Bleiben). But anyway, savour Eckhart's words for their own worth. Walshe's translation gives you the best of Eckhart.

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