True love says, 'I must stay with you, for I am eternal. That our sisters should stay without is meet, for they are our servants and have accompanied you to the actual true knowledge of eternal bliss.' Now comes the highest intellect, that which receives all things barely from God, and says, 'I have apprehended the highest good wherein naught can stand but unity.' Understanding says, 'I shall remain, you must let me stay with you.' Intellect says, 'Understanding and love, you must remain behind.' Understanding says, 'I claim the reward for having known.' Love says, 'I claim the reward for having loved.' The highest intellect says, 'He to whom you have led me, and whom I have hitherto known, He knows Himself now in me, and He whom I have loved, He loves Himself in me. Thus I realize that I need no one any more. All created things must remain behind and all that was ever made. I stand before my source.'
…Now you are to understand the woman as understanding, the son as intellect, the husband as the man in the soul. You must also understand, when the man in the soul begins to rise up, the masters say it is another man. You should not take this as being another soul: it is another being of the soul, for the old habits are all gone and dead. The soul has assumed her true being and stands in her primal innocence. The man in the soul, transcending angelic being and guided by intellect, pierces to the source whence the soul flowed. There, intellect must remain outside, with all named things. There the soul is merged in pure unity. This we call the man in the soul, and you should understand it thus: the man in the soul is he who has accomplished all this, so that he needs no further help. What he did hitherto, God now works in him. God knows him as he knew Him, God loves him as he loved Him. Thus God performs all works, and the man in the soul is bare and empty of all things.
…Note Christ's words, "Where two are gathered together in my name I will be with them" (Matt. 18:20). You should understand it thus: Christ means the soul and the body in a true unity, so that the body wants nothing but what the soul wants. Know that God would be with these, for they are the people we have just spoken about. When the man of the soul is in true possession of his eternal bliss, when the powers are cut off, then that man meets with no opposition from anything. But note, you must pay good heed, for such people are very hard to recognize. When others fast, they eat, when others watch, they sleep, when others pray, they are silent - in short, all their words and acts are unknown to other people; because whatever good people practice while on their way to eternal bliss, all that is quite foreign to such perfected ones. They need absolutely nothing, for they are in possession of the city of their true birthright. I can call that my own which will eternally remain to me, and which none can take from me. You should know that these people perform the most valuable work. You should understand it thus: they practice inwardly in the man of the soul. Indeed that kingdom is blessed in which one such person dwells! They do more eternal good in an instant than all outward works that were ever performed externally. See to it that you withhold nothing that is theirs.
That we may come to recognize such people and, loving God in them, may enter into possession of the city they have won, so help us God. Amen.
~ Meister Eckhart, Sermon 37
