Retrain your brain

 'God' = Imagination. I + magi + nation. Oh my God - Oh my Imagination

The outer work can never be small if the inner work is great. And the outer work can never be great if the inner work is small. ~ Meister Eckhart, 14th-century Christian mystic

Psychologist Paul Ekman showed that there are six basic emotions that people of all cultures experience and recognize (happiness, sadness, surprise, anger, fear, and disgust). How and when we express these emotions differs radically by the norms of each of our cultures, the so-called display rules. Our emotions affect not only the way others treat us but our inner sense of well-being. We tend to believe that whether we are experiencing positive or negative emotions reflects forces outside our control, blaming everything from our genes to the weather. However, what many people do not realize is that emotions aren't strictly controlled by your body's physiology the way that reflexes are. You're not stuck for life with the emotional equipment programmed into your DNA.

A sculpture of Meister Eckhart in Germany. Lothar Spurzem, CC BY-SA

The creative power that people address as “God,” he explained, is already present within each individual and is best understood as the very force that infuses all living things.

He believed this divinity to be genderless and completely “other” from humans, accessible not through images or words but through a direct encounter within each person.

The method of direct access to the divine, according to Eckhart, depended on an individual letting go of all desires and images of God and becoming aware of the “divine spark” present within. Seven centuries ago, Eckhart embraced meditation and what is now called mindfulness. Although he never questioned any of the doctrines of the Catholic Church, Eckhart’s preaching eventually resulted in an official investigation and papal condemnation. Significantly, it was not Eckhart’s overall approach to experiencing God that his superiors criticized, but rather his decision to teach his wisdom. His inquisitors believed the “unlearned and simple people” were likely to misunderstand him. Eckhart, on the other hand, insisted that the proper role of a preacher was to preach. He died before his trial was complete, but his writings were subsequently censured by a papal decree.

The modern rediscovery of Eckhart Meister Eckhart thereafter remained relatively little known until his rediscovery by German romantics in the 19th century. Since then, he has attracted many religious and non-religious admirers. Among the latter were the 20th-century philosophers' Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre, who were inspired by Eckhart’s beliefs about the self as the sole basis for action. More recently, Pope John Paul II and the current Dalai Lama have expressed admiration for Eckhart’s portrayal of the intimate relationship between God and the individual soul. During the second half of the 20th century, the overlap of his teachings to many Asian practices played an important role in making him popular with Western spiritual seekers. Thomas Merton, a monk from the Trappist monastic order, for example, who began an exploration of Zen Buddhism later in his life, discovered much of the same wisdom in his own Catholic tradition embodied in Eckhart. He called Eckhart “my life raft,” for opening up the wisdom about developing one’s inner life. Richard Rohr, a friar from the Franciscan order and a contemporary spirituality writer, views Eckhart’s teachings as part of a long and ancient Christian contemplative tradition. Many in the past, not just monks and nuns have sought the internal experience of the divine through contemplation. Among them, as Rohr notes were the apostle Paul, the fifth-century theologian Augustine, and the 12th-century Benedictine abbess and composer Hildegard of Bingen. In the tradition of Eckhart, Rohr has popularized the teaching that Jesus’ death and resurrection represents an individual’s movement from a “false self” to a “true self.” In other words, after stripping away all of the constructed egos, Eckhart guides individuals in finding the divine spark, which is their true identity.

https://theconversation.com/why-a-14th-century-mystic-appeals-to-todays-spiritual-but-not-religious-americans-101656