Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go. - Meister Eckhart

There are people who savour God in one way but not in another, and they want to possess God according to one manner of devotion and not another. I can tolerate this, but it is quite wrong. If we are to take God correctly, then we must take him equally in all things: in tribulation as in prosperity, in tears as in joy. He should always be the same for you. If you believe, without having committed a mortal sin, that you lack both devotion and serious intent and that, not having devotion or serious intent, you do not have God, and if you then grieve over this, this itself becomes your devotion and serious intent. Therefore you should not confine yourself to just one manner of devotion, since God is to be found in no particular way, neither this one nor that. That is why they do him wrong who take God just in one particular way. They take the way rather than God. Remember this then: intend God alone and seek him only. Then whatever kinds of devotional practice come to you, be content with those. For your intention should be directed at God alone and at nothing else.

Listening leads us more inside ourselves whereas seeing leads us more outside — the work of seeing itself, that is. And, therefore, we will be far more blessed with eternal life by the power of listening than by the power of sight. The act of listening allows me to hear the eternal Word spoken with me, whereas sight leads me astray, to what is outside myself. In listening, I suffer (or allow); in seeing, I work.

A question arises regarding the angels who dwell with us, serve us and protect us, whether their joys are equal to those of the angels in heaven, or whether they are diminished by the fact that they protect and serve us. No, they are certainly not; for the work of the angels is the will of God, and the will of God is the work of the angels; their service to us does not hinder their joy nor their working. If God told an angel to go to a tree and pluck caterpillars off it, the angel would be quite ready to do so, and it would be his happiness, if it were the will of God.