German theologian
Johannes Tauler (c.1300 – 1361), also known as John Tauler, was a priest and German mystic of the Catholic Church, born in Strasbourg. He belonged to the Dominican order and was a prolific preacher. Along with his friend and contemporary Henry Suso he was one of a triumvirate of thinkers belonging to the Rhineland school, also called The Rheno-Flemish school, of which Meister Eckhart was the founder and supreme proponent. Blessed John Ruysbroeck is also sometimes held to be a mystical teacher of this school and Tauler once travelled to Groenendaal for a meeting with Ruysbroeck.
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Next the soul must go out. It must travel away from itself, above itself…. There must be nothing left in us but a pure intention towards God; no will to be or become or obtain anything for ourselves. We must exist only to make a place for God, the highest innermost place, where He may do His work; there, when we are no longer putting ourselves in His way, He can he born in us.
It is certain that if God is to be born in the soul it must turn back to eternity…. It must turn in toward itself with all is might, must recall itself, and concentrate all its faculties within itself, the lowest as well as the highest. All its dissipated powers must be gathered up into one, because unity is strength.
The soul has a hidden abyss, untouched by time and space, which is far superior to anything that gives life and movement to the body. Into this noble and wondrous ground, this secret realm, there descends that bliss of which we have spoken. Here the soul has its eternal abode. Here a man becomes so still and essential, so single-minded and withdrawn, so raised up in purity, and more and more removed from all things. . . . This state of the soul cannot be compared to what it has been before, for now it is granted to share in the divine life itself.
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