Intending and discrimination

If the soul were able to know God wholly as the angels do, she would never have entered the body. If she could know God without the world the world would not have been made for her sake. The world was created on her account for training and bracing the eye of the soul to endure the divine light.

St. Augustine says the soul is so noble and is created so superior to all creatures that nothing transient and destined to perish at the latter day can speak to the soul or affect her save by means and messengers. These are the eyes and ears and the five senses: these are the soul's ways out into the world, and by these ways the world gets back into the soul. A master says, 'the powers of the soul return to the soul laden with great fruits': they never go out without bringing something back.

Therefore a man should pay good heed lest his eyes bring back anything hurtful to his soul. I am sure of this: whatever a good man sees is to his benefit. If he sees anything evil, he thanks God for preserving him from it and prays God to convert him in whom the evil is. If he sees anything good, he desires it to be realized in himself.

This seeing should be twofold: we should get rid of what is harmful, and remedy what we lack.

 Excerpt taken from the complete mystical works, Meister Eckhart, page 275.