The May Online Satsang with Swami Nirmalananda Giri (Abbot George Burke) will be held on Saturday, May 3rd, at 12 noon EST. You can sign up using this link or by using the form below (the form will not show in emails). When registering, you can submit any questions you would like discussed during the satsang.
This summer we plan to publish a new book by Swami Nirmalananda: Christian Non-Dualism–A Commentary on Theologia Germanica. Theologia Germanica is a mystical treatise written by a priest and a member of the Teutonic Order living in Frankfurt, Germany in the later fourteenth century.
Below is a short excerpt from Swamiji’s commentary.
The Perfect and Perfection
(From Chapter One in Theologia Germanica)
St. Paul says, “When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” (I Corinthians 13:10). Now mark what is “that which is perfect,” and “that which is in part.”
The author is going to define “perfect” for us, but first a look at the Biblical text is appropriate. The Greek word in the New Testament translated “perfect” is teleios, which means something that is complete, lacking nothing, with the implication of being beyond improvement, the state of ultimate completion. Beyond it there is nothing.
It is the end, the pinnacle of a journey or a process such as evolution. It is Unity Absolute. It is exactly what is meant by the Sanskrit word Purna–total, full, complete, which is what our English term “perfect” used to mean, rather than just “without fault.” When something is purna, it is the whole thing. There is nothing else beside it.
“That which is perfect” is a Being, who has comprehended and included all things in Himself and His own Substance, and without whom, and beside whom, there is no true Substance, and in whom all things have their Substance.
God is absolutely perfect and is the perfection of all that (truly) exists, just as God alone is the absolute good, and the goodness of all that exists according to the Lord Jesus himself: “There is none good but one, that is, God” (Matthew 19:17). But it is necessary to consider what is implied as well as what is directly stated.
This is especially true in Eastern texts, and the Frankfurter is centered in the same non-dual vision as the sages of India. This sentence sets forth the following fundamental truths about God and existence itself:
- God encompasses and includes all things in himself, in his very being.
- Everything that exists consists of the very substance of God.
(These two statements can be restated as: God is everything and everything is God.) - Nothing exists beside God.
- Nothing exists outside God.
- God is self-existent.
- Everything draws its existence from God.
- God is eternal.
- All things are eternal in their essence or substance which is God.
- The manifested form of all things is non-eternal, having a beginning and an end.
For he is the Substance of all things, and is in himself unchangeable and immoveable, and changes and moves all things else.
Therefore everything that takes place is the action of God, either directly or through power borrowed or drawn from him. Consequently God is the sole Actor in the final analysis.
This is why the Bhagavad Gita teaches that the man of wisdom knows that he never does anything of himself. “‘I do not do anything;’ thus thinks the steadfast knower of truth while seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, walking, sleeping, breathing, speaking, releasing, and holding, opening and closing his eyes” (5:8-9).