Thursday November 9, 2017
Jesus chased the buyers and sellers out of the Temple. “He does so still,” commented Eckhart. “This Temple, in which God would rule with authority, according to his will, is the human soul, which he has made exactly like himself.... So like himself has God made the human soul that nothing else in heaven or on earth, of all the splendid creatures that God has so joyously created, resembles God so much as the human soul.” It is for this reason that God wants to cast out the buyers and sellers from there. Who are they? They are people who want “to barter with our Lord,” said Eckhart. There is to be no buying and selling at that deep level of the soul. The soul or spirit is the holiest place on earth, where there is only giving and receiving. It is like breathing: a perpetual giving and receiving. Breathing is spirit (spirare, in Latin, means ‘to breathe’). Spirituality is inscribed not only in our soul but in our very body; by following the breath, we learn all we need to learn. (See August 23, where I quoted a text from Meister Eckhart)
