Meister Eckhart And Mysticism



This article was written by an anonymous author, probably translated
from German. It is public domain, but if the writer will contact me,
I would like to add his name to the article.

(After about five years of use, I finally made contact with the
author. See notice at end of this article.)



I Introduction

It is a sad but also telling fact that this greatest of all Western mystics, the German Meister Eck(e)hart of Hochheim, was for almost seven centuries condemned by the Roman Catholic Church for expressing heretical views concerning theology. Only in this century has the bull in agro domini, in which Eckhart was severely attacked on a number of mystical issues expressed in his sermons, been officially withdrawn. This blunder is to be considered worse than the fault of condemning Galileo, because (to phrase it boldly) if there is to be a church in the next century, it will be the result of the writings of Eckhart and it will be Eckhart who will provide us with its theology. In the course of history it will be Eckhart, who (among others of course) will save Christianity. For in him we find religion expressed in its purest form, a form which goes back in its spiritual experience to the mystical roots of early Christianity. The church in his days had failed to see this. They should have read him more carefully and they should have compared him more with the writings of the early church Fathers, especially with the Alexandrian Fathers. But on closer look it seems they have condemned Eckhart because his mysticism was a threat to the church. In him religion became too personal. They felt that Eckhart's mysticism could alienate the believer from the hierarchy of the church, because salvation was not dependent anymore on church membership and church rituals, but on the will of the believer to get into a close relationship with the god inside.

But Eckhart himself did not want the pious believer to become estranged from the church, because he saw the church as the Mother of all believers. Indeed he only wanted to teach within the church. The church was needed as a place of gathering and as a place of worship. It played a vital role in the religious Bildung of the ordinary man. He therefore never attacked the hierarchy of the church and never did he have the intention of creating a new religion, but he adhered strongly to the age old dogmata. In fact he considered his teachings as being the inner dogma of Christianity (which in fact it is!) and to be wholly in tune with the teachings of Christ. And like St. Francis Eckhart must get the credit of having restored the ancient wisdom of Christ, which became obliterated through the centuries. For it's my strong conviction that Christ was like Eckhart a mystic by nature, who wanted men to find the god in themselves. Everyone who will realise this god will become a Son of God.

Let's study the mysticism of Eckhart in four chapters. The first one will deal with the problem of the relationship between the god and its creation, the second one discusses the relationship between the god and the human soul, the thirth one is about Eckhart's views on the relationship of the mystic with yhe outside world and the last one will deal with the birth of the god in the human soul.

II The God and His Creation

Like Vedanta philosophy in the East the mysticism of Eckhart tries to define the relationship between the god/Brahman as a mixture of emanation and immanence. The god of Eckhart in its purity and all by itself remains free from creation. It nevertheless is so overpowerful and rich in itself that it is, as it were, full to the brim and spills something over. It emanates its power, its intelligence and its beauty into creation, because it cannot do otherwise. It knows everything, even how to change. It's the Word that must be Spoken. The god/Brahman must create itself. But at itself it stays apart from creation. Because it is forever One and changeless.

It's such a wonder that something can emanate and nevertheless stay inside. That the Word emanates and yet remains, is such a great wonder. That all creatures emanate ( from the god) and yet remain (within the god), is very wonderful indeed. .... God is in all things. The more he is within, the more he remains without. The more he is inside, the more outside. (sermon on St. Dominicus day)

This is mysticism in its purest form. It offers a paradox that is greatly bewildering classical trained Western minds, who are brought up with the logic of Aristotle that one proposition always excludes another. It is an and....and instead of an or....or that reminds one of the insoluble problems of Zen Buddhism. But nevertheless it is the pure mystic experience. The mystic feels the god inside to be still, pure, blissful, apart from all and unsullied. But he feels the god also to be part of his body. For the god lives in the depth of his soul, a soul which cannot be free from body, because it is so closely connected to it. Firstly this is a personal experience in the mystic his own consciousness about the relationship between his body and his soul. But then he sees this same relationship in all creatures and in all creation, because he sees that all things are a combination of 'body and soul', of matter and intelligence. He now deduces the same conclusions as before in the case of his own body and soul: because the whole of creation is a relationship between soul and matter, the god, just as it lies at the root of his own soul and his own matter (his body), lies also at the basis of all material and spiritual things in the universe.

To realise this god (ie. to make the god inside prominent and to infuse by an act of will soul and body with godliness) is the mystic's goal. Because all things strive, according to Eckhart, to become the god. All things come from god and want to come back again to their source. In his famous candour Eckhart says:
...... if you like it or not, if you know it or not: secretly, from inside, the whole of nature reaches after God.
So Eckhart defines creation as a circle movement: creation comes from the god and has the god as its telos. The ultimate goal of all creation is to rest again in the arms of the god.

Concerning the ultimate substance of Reality Eckhart makes a distinction between Got and Gotheit: Got is this ultimate Reality as it is known to us and as it makes itself known in history through the human soul. But behind this living Got there remains the forever unknown Reality, which is beyond grasp and image, the dark Urgrund of things.

III The God and the Human Soul

The glory of mysticism and the tremendous comfort it gives to the person who makes the fusion with the god his goal, rests on the fact that the human soul is also part of creation and therefore comes from the god and has the god as its most inner kernel. Eckhart repeats this again and again: God is to be found deep in the heart of man. The metaphor he uses is one of light and of fire, a familiar image within the history of mysticism: he calls the part of the human soul where the god is prominent and alive and where god can be known the Divine Spark (Funk). The task of man therefore is not to go outside if he reaches for happiness but to go inside where this Spark lives. So Eckhart wants man to leave his senses behind and go towards the Divine Stillness, the source of all goodness and happiness.

But for Eckhart's Christianity God and the soul are not all together identical as they are eg. in Vedanta. In the abyss of the soul God and the Divine Spark rest within each other, they fuse into each other, but they are never completely identical. Here Eckhart speaks as the true Christian he was: it would in his days have been blasphemy (and very dangerous indeed!) to call man God. But we can also see his point: there is no complete identification between the Gotheit and the soul, simply because the Gotheit is wholly transcendent and stays apart from creation. It is only as a deduction that Got is known in the soul, but never in its own Gotlichkeit.

The human soul is the most glorious part of creation in as far as it is conscious of the fact that God rests within it. We have seen that for Eckhart the whole of creation reaches for God, but, my God, to be conscious of it! That's something to marvel at. To know that this powerful, this very intelligent and this all blissful force is residing in your own heart and not only to know it, but to feel it and experience it! This can only be because at the innermost kernel God and the soul are the same. But at this point, at this 'little stronghold' of the soul as Eckhart calls it, God has lost all its predicaments. It's lying in for ever unknowable darkness. It has shaken off all its modes of being. There it is the One without names. If you read Eckhart closely his train of thought leads to an astonishing conclusion: in the depth of the soul's being God has lost its own Christianity.

IV Separateness (Abgeschiedenheit)

In order to do its beneficial work in the soul the god must find no obstacles on its way. It can only grow from the Spark into an ecstatic Fire and set the whole soul into a divine glow, if the soul is entirely free and unconditioned. Because only the like can meet the like. So the Unconditioned One must meet an unconditioned soul in order to blend together and be one. Now the soul can only be free and unconditioned if it is not enslaved by the senses and the outside world. In its spiritual growth the soul must become detached from all outward conditions. It does so by its spiritual exercises, which train the soul in becoming more introvert. This does not mean that the soul can block from now on all external impressions and stimuli (it cannot do so, out of its natural condition), but it learns to be unmoved and unshaken by them. After every external impression the soul, which is becoming centred in godliness, will sink back in its divine calmness. So it becomes invulnerable and unconquerable by the outside world. Nothing from outside can harm the soul anymore, because contact with its divine roots is supplying regenerative energy all the time. Its centre is divine calmness, so it will regain this calmness every time. Every insult, every sign of hate or lovelessness, every meant injury or evil is running from the soul like water from an oiled body. It never sticks or clings to it. It never touches the core. Because the god is now taking hold of the soul and not the outside world of becoming.

In the Christian words of Eckhart this means that man must be free from the world in order to live in the City of God. Man must be a stranger to this world. His conversation must be with God alone. He must live a life of holy separateness. In the beginning the mystical aspirant is feeling pain when he tries to tear himself away from it, because he is so conditioned by it. But at the end of the mystical path he is like a rock unshaken by the raging blasts of the stormy ocean.

But it is not only the world which must be given up. Probably the most difficult thing for the soul to separate itself from is its own I-consciousness. Eckhart says that spiritual perfection can only be reached by surrendering the small self to God. This is the most important step to take. This is the true separateness.

Truly human we can only be if we lay our will into the hands of God. If we don't renounce our will in all things, we will accomplish nothing. Only after surrendering our own will completely to God have we done all. Not before. (From: Reden der Unterwaisung)

V The Birth of the God in the Soul

If we let the god be born in our soul (and it is only a question of letting it be born, because, according to Eckhart, the god itself wants nothing more than being born in us, even more than we want it to be born, out of its unsurpassed love for all), so if we let it be born in us, than the great undescribable glory of the One Without Comparison fills our whole being. We start to laugh with joy. We feel complete and satisfied. We know that now at last we know. We have finally reached our destiny, because now we are what we always were. Now we are there again from were we came.

God is giving birth constantly. Not only physical in nature surrounding us, but also spiritual, in the inner soul of everything alive. God does not stop being the creator after physical birth. It goes on and on in giving birth. So the soul that has its roots in the god, is being born constantly, is like a new born baby constantly, as innocent and fresh as the One in the cradle of Bethlehem. For Eckhart is very explicit about this, even though it was very dangerous for him to write it down: every human soul wherein the god is born is Jesus. That Jesus is born in Bethlehem won't avail you the least, if he is not at the same time born in your heart. Every man must become a Jesus to fulfil the mission of Jesus, who was sent from God.

In the innermost part of the soul the Father is giving birth to the Son. He is giving birth to me also, together with the Son. If I am to be his Son, than it will be a Son in the same nature as God himself is Son and in no other.
(From Predigten: 'Von Gott und Mensch')

VI Epilogue

What surprises us the most in the mystical writings of Eckhart is the almost Eastern concept of a god, who is without names and who lies at the basis of everything in the universe. He is the forever Unknown Reality. He is not the God of ecclesiastical Christianity, who has made Himself known to his people in history. The Gotheit for Eckhart is a non historical force residing in the heart of the universe and is so transcendent that it can never be defined in our modes of thinking and perceiving. It is like the Brahman of eastern mysticism. But for Eckhart this Gotheit also has a living dynamic counterpart which evolves in history and lets itself be known in the human soul. This Got the Son is more like the Atman of Brahamanism, the godliness of all souls. In Vedanta this Brahman and Atman are one. Eckhart seems sometimes to conclude otherwise, though other passages read again as Vedanta philosophy.

Perhaps we may conclude that the parallels between the mysticism of Eckhart and the mysticism in the Eastern religions are not a coincident. Mysticism offers the same knowledge everywhere, a knowledge not affected by time, place and culture. It is my strong believe that this is one of the strongest arguments for the truth of mysticism.


Five years ago I was looking for information on Meister Eckart on various search engines. I was trying to prepare a page on this Mystic for our web site. Suddenly, I ran across exactly what I wanted. It was floating around the internet with no author and not attached to any web site. I decided to use it with a notice that I was looking for the author/owner of the article. It took five years, but finally I received an e-mail from the owner. He has a Mysticism web site in Holland. He authorized that I could continue using the article; didn't want his name on the article, only a banner for his site on the page. I complied with his request until I later found that there was an illustrated article on his site that was "unsuitable" for a site on Mysticism. I immediately removed the banner as I did not want to link to his site. His article on Meister Eckart was excellent, but his other article was not. After careful deliberation on the matter, I decided to keep the Eckhard article with this appended notice, restricting it's use for educational purposes only, not to be copied for any other purpose.
 
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Serafine Anthony Lemos - Hayward, CA, USA

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