The Lamb on the mountain: Eckhart on becoming the mountain yourself

St John saw in a vision a lamb standing on Mount Sion and with him stood forty-four who were not of this world and did not have wifely names. These were all virgins who stood next to the lamb, and when the lamb bowed they bowed with him, singing with the lamb a new song and having their names and the name of their Father written on their foreheads.

John says, 'I looked and there, a lamb stood on the mountain.' I say, John himself was that mountain on which he saw the lamb, and whoever sees the Lamb of God must himself be the mountain, climbing up to his highest, purest part.

Again. He says he saw a lamb standing on a mountain: when one thing stands on another, its lowest point touches the other's highest. God touches all things and remains untouched. God is above all things, standing in himself, and his stability sustains all creatures. Creatures have a highest point and a lowest point, God has neither. God is over everything and is not touched by anything. All creatures look outside themselves, in one another, for what they lack. God does not. God does not look outside himself: everything that creatures have, God has whole in himself; he is the floor and the roof of creatures. It is true that one creature comes before another, down to the very last, one being born before another: though the creature does not give any of her being to him, she still keeps some of his. God is a simple presence, one who stays at home in himself. With any creature, as far as her noble nature goes, the more she stays at home the more of herself she gives out. A common stone, like limestone for example, gives itself out as a stone and nothing more. But a precious stone has great power because of something within it, some inner stronghold where it lifts up its head and, so to speak, looks out. According to the masters, no creature stays as much at home as body and soul do, and none ranges as far abroad as the highest part of the soul.

He says, 'I saw a lamb standing.' From this we learn four things. First, the lamb is fed and clothed, and clothed well, which to my mind suggests that we, having received so much from God and so generously, are bound to seek in everything we do only his honour and his glory. Again, the lamb stood. It is good for friend to stand by friend. God stands by us, is standing by us, steady and unmoved. He says: 'There stood with him a multitude, each having written on his forehead his own name and the name of his Father.' Let God's name at least be written in us. We must carry God's image in us, and his light must light us up, if we want to be John.