Entering the Void with the Eyes Open

The more perfect and pure the powers of the soul are, the more perfectly and comprehensively they can receive the object of their perception, embracing and experiencing a greater bliss, and the more they become one with that which they perceive, to such a degree indeed that the highest power of the soul, which is free of all things and which has nothing in common with anything else at all, perceives nothing less than God Himself and the breadth and fullness of His being. And the Masters prove that nothing can be compared in terms of bliss and delight with this union, this interpenetration and ecstasy.

Therefore our Lord says: Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3). They are poor who have nothing. ‘Poor in spirit’ means this: just as the eye is poor and bereft of color, and is thus receptive to all colors, so to those who are poor in spirit are receptive to all spirit, and the spirit of all spirits is God.

Love, joy and peace are the fruits of the spirit. Possessing nothing, being naked, poor and empty, transforms nature. Emptiness draws water uphill and causes many other miracles of which we cannot speak here.

—Meister Eckhart, The Book of Divine Consolation

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