Deutsche Predigten und Traktate Quotes

“But many people want to look upon God with the eyes with which they look upon a cow; they want to love God the way they love a cow that you love because it gives you milk and cheese. This is how people behave who want to love God because of external wealth or inner comfort; but they do not love God properly: rather, they love their self interest.”
― Meister Eckhart, Deutsche Predigten und Traktate

“For this innermost reason you should perform all of your deeds without whys and wherefores. I say in truth, as long as you perform your deeds for the sake of the kingdom of heaven or God or your eternal salvation, in other words for an external reason, things are not truly well with you. You may he well accepted, but it is certainly not the best way. For verily, if someone imagines that they will receive more in warmth, devotion, sweet rapture, and in the special grace of God than by the hearth or in a stable, all you are doing is taking God, placing a coat around his head, and pushing him under a bench. Because the person who seeks for God in a particular way, takes that way and misses God. But the person who seeks for God without a way will find Him, as He is, in Himself; and such a son lives with the Son and He is life itself. The person who for a thousand years asks the question of life, "Why do you live?" could provide the answer, the only answer, "I live because I am alive." The reason for this is that life is lived for its own sake and emanates from its Own sources; hence it is lived entirely without whys or wherefores, because it lives for itself.”
― Meister Eckhart, Deutsche Predigten und Traktate