"A master says, 'To achieve the interior act, one must assemble all one's powers, as it were,

into
one corner of one's soul, where, secreted from images and forms, one is able to work. We must
sink into oblivion and ignorance. In this silence, this quiet, the Word is heard. There is no better
method of approaching this Word than in silence, in quiet: we hear it and know it aright in
unknowing. To one who knows nothing, it is clearly revealed.'
You may perhaps object: 'Sir, you place our salvation in ignorance. That seems mistaken. God
made man to know, as the prophet says, "Lord, make them know." Where ignorance remains,
there is defect and illusion; one remains brutish, an ape, a fool, as long as one is ignorant.'
But I am speaking of transformed knowledge, not ignorance that comes from lack of knowing; it
is by knowing that we get to this unknowing. Then we know with divine knowing, then our
ignorance is ennobled and adorned with supernatural knowledge. Then in our passion we are
more perfect than in action. According to one authority, the sense of hearing is much nobler than
the sense of sight. For we learn wisdom more through the ear than the eye, and live this life more
wisely.
We read about a heathen philosopher who was lying at death's door while his pupils were
discussing some noble science in his presence. Lifting up his dying head to hear, he exclaimed,
'O teach me even now this art, that I may practise it eternally!'
Hearing draws in more, seeing leads out more. In eternal life we are far more happy in our ability
to hear than in our power to see, because the act of hearing the eternal Word is in me, whereas
the act of seeing goes out from me. Hearing, I am receptive; seeing, I am active. Yet our bliss
does not consist in being active but in being receptive to God. As God excels his creatures, so
God's work excels mine. It was out of love that God set our happiness in suffering, for we
undergo far more than we do, and receive incomparably more than we give in return. Each divine
gift is a preparation for some new and richer gift, each gift increasing our capacity and desire to
receive one greater still. Some theologians say that the soul is symmetrical with God in this
respect. For as God is infinite in giving, so the soul is infinite in receiving or conceiving. The
soul can suffer profoundly, just as God can act omnipotently, and so the soul is transformed by
God into God. God must act and the soul must suffer, for him to know and love himself in her,
and for her to know with his knowledge, love with his love. Since she is far happier in his than
hers, it follows that her happiness depends upon his work more than on her own."
--Meister Eckhart, The Best of Meister Eckhart, The Birth of Jesus