Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age
GA 7
The Friendship with God
[ 1 ] In Johannes Tauler (1300–1361), Heinrich Suso (1295–1366), and Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) one encounters personalities in whose life and work appear in most impressive manner those movements of the soul which a spiritual path such as that of Meister Eckhart causes in profound natures. If Eckhart seems to be a man who, in the blissful experiencing of spiritual rebirth, speaks of the qualities and nature of knowledge as of a picture he has succeeded in painting, then the others appear as wanderers to whom this rebirth has shown a new road which they mean to walk, but the end of which for them has been removed to an infinite distance. Eckhart describes the splendors of his picture, they the difficulties of the new road. One must be quite clear about man's relationship to his higher insights in order to be able to represent to oneself the difference between such personalities as Eckhart and Tauler. Man is entangled in the world of the senses and in the laws of nature, by which the world of the senses is dominated. He himself is a result of this world. He lives because its forces and substances are active in him, and he perceives and judges this world of the senses in accordance with the laws by which it. and he are constructed. When he directs his eye upon an object, not only does the object appear to him as a sum of interacting forces dominated by the laws of nature, but the eye itself is already constructed according to such laws and forces, and the act of seeing takes place in harmony with these laws and forces. If we had attained the utmost limits of natural science, in all likelihood we could pursue this play of natural forces in accordance with natural laws into the highest regions of the formation of thought.—But in doing this we already rise above this play. Do we not stand above all mere conformity to natural laws when we survey how we ourselves are integrated into nature? We see with our eye in accordance with the laws of nature. But we also understand the laws in accordance with which we see. We can stand on a higher elevation and survey simultaneously the external world and ourselves in interplay. Is not then a nature active within us which is higher than the sensory-organic personality which acts according to natural laws and with natural laws? In such activity is there still a partition between our inner world and the external world? That which judges here, which gathers insights, is no longer our individual personality; rather it is the universal essence of the world, which has torn down the barrier between inner world and outer world, and which now embraces both. As it is true that I still remain the same individual in external appearance when I have thus torn down the barrier, so it is true that in essence I am no longer this individual. In me now lives the feeling that the universal nature speaks in my soul, the nature which embraces me and the whole world.—Such feelings live in Tauler when he says: “Man is as if he were three men, an animal man, as he is according to the senses, then a rational man, and finally the highest god-like man ... One is the external, animal sensual man; the other is the internal, rational man, with his rational faculties; the third man is the spirit, the highest part of the soul.” (cf. Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik, History of German Mysticism, Vol. 3, p. 161.) How this third man is superior to the first and second, Eckhart has expressed in the words: “The eye by which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye and one seeing and one knowing and one feeling.” But in Tauler another sentiment lives with this one. He struggles through to a real conception of the spiritual, and does not constantly intermingle the sensory-natural with the spiritual, as do false materialists and false idealists. If Tauler, with his way of thinking, had become a scientist, he would have had to insist that everything natural, including the whole man, the first and the second, was to be explained in entirely natural terms. He would never have transferred “purely” spiritual forces into nature. He would not have spoken of a “functionalism” in nature, imagined in accordance with human examples. He knew that where we perceive with the senses no “creative thoughts” are to be found. Instead, there lived in him the strongest consciousness that man is a merely natural being. And since he felt himself to be a curator of the moral life, not a scientist, he felt the contrast which separates this natural being of man and the seeing of God, which arises in a natural way within the natural, but as something spiritual. It was just in this contrast that the meaning of life appeared before his eyes. Man finds himself to be an individual being, a creature of nature. And no science can reveal anything more to him about this life than that he is such a creature of nature. As a creature of nature he cannot go beyond the state appropriate to a creature of nature. He must remain within it. And yet his inner life leads him beyond it. He must have confidence in something no science of external nature can give and show him. If he calls this nature the existing, he must be able to advance to the view which acknowledges the non-existing as the higher. Tauler does not seek a God who exists in the sense of a natural force; he does not seek a God who has created the world in the sense of human creations. In him lives the recognition that even the concept of creation of the teachers of the Church is only an idealized human creating. It is clear to him that God is not found in the same manner as science finds natural processes and natural laws. Tauler is conscious that we cannot simply add God to nature in our thoughts. He knows that one who thinks God in his sense, does not have any other content in his thoughts than one who has grasped nature in thought. Therefore Tauler does not want to think God; he wants to think divinely. The knowledge of nature is not enriched by knowing God; it is transformed. The knower of God does not know something different from the knower of nature: he knows differently. The knower of God cannot add a single letter to the knowledge of nature, but through his whole knowledge of nature a new light shines.
[ 2 ] What basic sensations dominate the soul of a man who looks at the world from such points of view will depend on how he regards the experience of the soul which spiritual rebirth brings. Within this experience man is wholly a natural being if he looks at himself in interaction with the rest of nature; and he is wholly a spiritual being if he considers the state to which his transformation brings him. One can therefore say with equal justice: The greatest depths of the soul are still natural, and also, They are already divine. Tauler, in conformity with his way of thinking, emphasized the former. No matter how deeply we penetrate into our soul, he said to himself, we always remain individual human beings. But nevertheless, universal nature glows in the depths of the individual soul. Tauler was dominated by the feeling: You cannot detach yourself from individuality, you cannot cleanse yourself of it. Therefore the universal essence cannot appear in you in its purity; it can only shine into the depths of your soul. Thus in these only a reflection, an image of the universal essence appears. You can transform your individual personality in such a way that it gives back the image of the universal essence; this universal essence itself does not shine in you. From such conceptions Tauler came to the idea of a Divinity which never entirely merges with the human world, never flows into it. He even expressly insists upon not being confused with those who declare the interior of man to be something divine in itself. He says that the union with God “is taken by ignorant men to occur in the flesh, and they say that they should be transformed into the divine nature; but this is wrong and a mischievous heresy. For even in the highest and most intimate union with God the divine nature and God's essence are high, indeed higher than all height; this leads into a divine abyss, and no creature will ever partake of it.” Tauler wants to be deservedly called a believing Catholic, in the sense of his time and of his vocation as a priest. He is not intent upon confronting Christianity with another point of view. He simply wants to deepen and spiritualize Christianity through his views. He speaks of the contents of Scripture as a pious priest. But nevertheless, in his world of ideas the Scriptures become a means of expression for the innermost experiences of the soul. “God accomplishes all His works in the soul and gives them to the soul; and the Father brings forth His only-begotten Son in the soul, as truly as He brings Him forth in eternity, neither less, nor more. What is brought forth when one says: God brings forth in the soul? Is it a similitude of God, or is it an image of God, or is it something of God No, it is neither image nor similitude of God, but the same God and the same Son whom the Father brings forth in eternity, and nothing but the lovely divine Word, which is the other Person in the Trinity; this does the Father bring forth in the soul . . . and it is from this that the soul has such a great and special dignity.” (cf. Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik, History of German Mysticism, Vol. 3, p. 219f.)—For Tauler the narratives of the Scriptures become the garment in which he clothes the events of the inner life. “Herod, who drove away the Child and wanted to kill Him, is an image of the world, which still wants to kill this Child in the pious man, wherefore one should and must flee it if one wants to keep the Child alive within oneself, while the Child is the enlightened, believing soul of every man.”
[ 3 ] Because Tauler directs his attention to the natural man, he is less concerned with describing what happens when the higher man enters into the natural man than with finding the paths which the lower faculties of the personality have to take if they are to be translated into the higher life. As a curator of the moral life he wants to show man the ways to the universal essence. He has absolute faith and confidence that the universal essence will begin to shine in man if the latter so arranges his life that there is a place for the divine in him. But this universal essence can never begin to shine if man shuts himself off in his bare, natural, separate personality. Thus isolated within himself, in the language of Tauler, man is only a part of the world, an individual creature. The more man encloses himself within his existence as part of the world, the less can the universal essence find a place within him. “If man is truly to become one with God, all the faculties of the inner man too must die and be silent. The will must be turned away from even the good and from all willing, and must become will-less.” “Man must escape all the senses, turn all his faculties inward, and attain to forgetfulness of all things and of himself.” “For the true and eternal word of God is spoken only in the desert, when man has left his own self and all things behind, and stands alone, deserted, and solitary.”
[ 4 ] When Tauler had reached his highest point the following question came to occupy the center of his mental life: How can man destroy and overcome his individual existence within himself, so that he can take part in life in the sense of the universal life? For one who is in this situation, his feelings toward the universal essence become concentrated in the one thing: reverence for this universal essence, as for that which is inexhaustible and infinite. He says to himself: No matter what level you have attained, there are still higher prospects, still more sublime possibilities. As definite and clear for him as is the direction his steps must take, so clear is it to him that he can never speak of a goal. A new goal is only the beginning of a new road. Through such a new goal man has reached a degree of development; the development itself extends into the immeasurable. And what it will achieve on a more distant level it never knows on the present one. There is no knowing the final goal; there is only a trusting in the road, in the development. There is a knowing of everything man has already achieved. It consists in the penetration of an already existing object by the faculties of our spirit. For the higher inner life such a knowing does not exist. Here the faculties of our spirit must first translate the object itself into existence; they must first create an existence for it which is like the natural existence. Natural science examines the development of living beings from the simplest to man himself, the most perfect. This development lies completed before us. We understand it by penetrating it with our mental faculties. When the development has arrived at man, he does not find a further continuation already existing. He himself accomplishes the further development. He now lives what he only knows for earlier levels. He creates objectively what, for that which precedes, he only re-creates in line with its spiritual nature. That the truth does not coincide with what exists in nature, but embraces both what exists naturally and what does not exist: Tauler is wholly filled by this in all his sentiments. We are told that he was led to this conviction by an enlightened layman, a “Friend of God from the Oberland.” There is a mysterious story in this. There are only conjectures about the place where this Friend of God lived, and about who he was there are not even conjectures. He is said to have heard much about Tauler's manner of preaching, and thereupon to have decided to go to Tauler, who was then a preacher in Strasbourg, in order to fulfill a certain task concerning him. The relationship of Tauler to the Friend of God and the influence which the latter exercised on him are described in a work which is printed together with Tauler's sermons in the oldest editions under the title, Das Buch des Meisters, The Book of the Master. In it a Friend of God, in whom the one who entered into relations with Tauler is said to be recognizable, tells of a “master,” who has been identified with Tauler himself. He tells how a revolution, a spiritual rebirth, has been brought about in a “master,” and how the latter, when he felt his death approaching, called the Friend to him and asked him to write the story of his “enlightenment,” but to take care that no one should ever find out who the book deals with. He asks this because all the insights which proceed from him are yet not of him. “For know that God has performed everything through me, poor worm that I am, and thus it is not mine, but God's.” A scholarly dispute which has developed in connection with this matter is not of the least important as far as its essentials are concerned. On the one side (Denifle, Die Dichtugen des Goltesfreundes im Oberlande, The Writings of the Friend of God in the Oberland) the attempt has been made to prove that the Friend of God never existed, that his existence was invented, and that the books attributed to him originated with someone else (Rulman Merswin). Wilhelm Preger (Geschichte der deutschen Mystik, History of German Mysticism) has endeavored with many reasons to support this existence, the genuineness of the writings, and the correctness of the facts relating to Tauler.—It is not incumbent upon me here to illuminate by obtrusive research a human relationship of which one who knows how to read the relevant writings knows full well that it is to remain a secret. (These relevant writings, among others, are: Von eime eiginwilligen weltwisen manne, der von eime heiligen weltpriestere gewiset wart uffe demuetige gehorsamme, Of a self-willed worldly-wise Man who was shown the Way to Humble Obedience by a holy secular Priest, 1338; Das Buch von den zwei Mannen, The Book of the Two Men; Der gefangene Ritter, The Captured Knight, 1349; Die geistliche stege, The Spiritual Stairs, 1350; Von der geistlichen Leiter, Of the Spiritual Ladder, 1357; Das Meisterbuch, The Book of the Master, 1349; Geschichte von zwei jungen 15jährigen Knaben, Story of Two Young 15-Year-Old Boys.) It is entirely sufficient to say of Tauler that at a certain stage of his life a change such as the one I am about to describe occurred in him. Here Tauler's personality is no longer in question, but rather a personality “in general.” As regards Tauler we are only concerned with the fact that we have to understand the transformation in him from the point of view indicated below. If we compare his later activity with his earlier, the fact of this transformation is immediately evident. I omit all external circumstances and relate the inner soul processes of the “master” under “the influence of the layman.” What my reader imagines the “layman” and the “master” to be, depends entirely upon the disposition of his spirit; I do not know that what I myself imagine them to be is applicable to anyone else.—A master instructs his listeners about the relationship of the soul to the universal essence of things. He speaks of the fact that man no longer feels the natural, limited faculties of the individual personality to be active within him when he descends into the profound depths of his soul. There it is no longer the individual man who speaks; it is God. There man does not see God, or the world; there God sees Himself. Man has become one with God. But the master knows that this teaching has not yet fully come to life within him. He thinks it with the intellect, but he does not yet live within it with every fiber of his personality. Thus he teaches about a state which he has not yet fully experienced within himself. The description of this state corresponds to the truth, but this truth is worth nothing if it does not acquire life, if it does not bring itself forth as existence in the real world. The “layman” or “Friend of God” hears of the master and his teachings. He is not less penetrated with the truth the master utters than is the latter himself. But he does not possess this truth as a thing of the intellect. He possesses it as the whole force of his life. He knows that one can utter this truth when it has come to one from the outside, without living in its sense in the least. In that case one has nothing within oneself beyond the natural understanding of the intellect. One then speaks of this natural understanding as though it were the highest, identical with the action of the universal essence. This is not so, because it was not acquired in a life which, when it approached this knowledge, was already transformed and reborn. What one acquires as a merely natural man remains merely natural, even if later one expresses the main feature of the higher knowledge in words. The transformation must come out of nature itself. Nature, which in living has developed to a certain stage, must be developed further by life; something new must come into being through this further development. Man must not merely look back upon the development which has already taken place, and consider as the highest what is re-formed in his mind concerning this development; he must look forward to what has not yet been created; his knowledge must be the beginning of a new content, not an end of the content of the previous development. Nature advances from worm to mammal, from mammal to man in a real, not in a conceptual process. Man is not merely to repeat this process in spirit. The spiritual repetition is only the beginning of a new real development, which, however, is a spiritual reality. Man then understands not merely what nature has brought forth; he carries nature further; he transforms his understanding into living action. He brings forth the spirit within himself, and from then on this spirit advances from one stage of development to another, just as nature advances. The spirit initiates a natural process on a higher level. When one who has understood this speaks about the God who sees Himself within man, this speaking takes on another character. He attaches little value to the fact that an insight already obtained has led him into the depths of the universal essence, but his spiritual disposition acquires a new character. It continues to develop in the direction determined by the universal essence. Such a man not only looks at the world in a different way from one who is merely rational: he lives his life differently. He does not speak of the sense which life already has through the forces and laws of the world; rather he gives a new sense to this life. No more than the fish has in itself what appears as mammal at a later stage of development, does the rational man already have in himself what is to be born out of him as a higher man. If the fish could understand itself and the things around it, it would regard being a fish as the sense of life. It would say: The universal essence is like the fish; in the fish the universal essence sees itself. Thus the fish might speak as long as it merely holds fast to its intellectual understanding. In reality it does not hold fast to it. In its actions it goes beyond its understanding. It becomes a reptile, and later a mammal. In reality the sense it gives to itself goes beyond the sense which mere reflection suggests to it. Thus must it also be with man. In reality he gives himself a sense; he does not stop at the sense he already has, and which reflection shows him. Understanding leaps beyond itself, if only it understands itself aright. Understanding cannot derive the world from an already completed God; from a germ, it can only develop in a direction toward a God. The man who has understood this does not want to look at God as something that is outside of him; he wants to treat God as a Being that walks with him toward a goal which, at the outset, is as unknown as the nature of the mammal is unknown to the fish. He does not want to be the knower of the hidden or self-revealing, existing God, but the friend of the divine action and operation, which is superior to existence and non-existence. The layman who came to the master was a “Friend of God” in this sense. And through him the master was transformed from a contemplator of the nature of God into “one who lives in the spirit,” who not merely contemplated, but lived in the higher sense. Now the latter no longer brought concepts and ideas of the intellect from within himself; these concepts and ideas sprang from him as living, real spirit. He no longer merely edified his listeners; he moved them deeply. He no longer plunged their souls within themselves; he led them into a new life. This is told us symbolically: through the effect of his sermon about forty people fell down and were as if dead.
[ 5 ] A leader into such a new life is represented by a work, the author of which is unknown. Luther first made it known by having it published. The philologist, Franz Pfeiffer recently reprinted it from a manuscript of the year 1497, with a translation in modern German facing the original text. The introduction to the work announces its intention and its goal: “Here the Frankfurter begins and says exceedingly high and beautiful things of a consummate life.” This is followed by “the preface concerning the Frankfurter:” “This booklet the omnipotent, eternal God has uttered through a wise, judicious, truthful, righteous man, his friend, who was formerly a Teutonic Knight, a priest and a custodian in the house of the Teutonic Knights in Frankfurt; it teaches many lovely insights into divine truth, and especially how and by what one can recognize the true and righteous Friends of God, and also the unrighteous, false, free spirits, who do much harm to the holy Church.”—By “free spirits” one is to understand those who live in a world of ideas like that of the “master” described above before his transformation by the “Friend of God,” and by the “true and righteous Friends of God” those with the way of thinking of the “layman.” One can further ascribe to the book the intention of acting upon its readers in the same way as the “Friend of God from the Oberland” acted upon the master. One does not know the author. But what does this mean? One does not know when he was born and when he died, and what he did in the external life. That the author wanted these facts of his outer life to remain forever secret is something which belongs to the way he wanted to act. Not the “self” of this or that man, born at a certain time, is to speak to us, but the selfhood on the basis of which the “particularity of individualities” (in the sense of the words of Paul Asmus, cf. above) first develops. “If God were to take unto himself all men who are now and who have ever been, and were to become man in them, and were they to become God in Him, and if it did not happen in me too, my fall and my estrangement would never be remedied, unless indeed it happened also in me. And in this restoration and improvement I can and should do nothing but merely and purely suffer what is done, so that God alone does and accomplishes everything within me, and I suffer Him and all His works and His divine Will. But if I do not want to suffer this, and possess myself in attributes of the self, that is in My and I, in Me and the like, then God is hindered, so that He cannot, pure and alone and without obstacle, accomplish His work within me. Therefore also my fall and my estrangement remain unremedied.” The “Frankfurter” does not wish to speak as an individual; he wants to let God speak. Of course he knows that he can only do this as an individual, separate personality, but he is a “Friend of God,” that is, a man who does not want to depict the nature of life through contemplation, but who wants to point out, through the living spirit, the beginning of an avenue of development. The discussions in the book represent various instructions on how this road is to be attained. The basic idea always returns: man is to cast off everything connected with the view that makes him appear as an individual, separate personality. This idea seems to be carried out only with respect to the moral life; it must also be applied to the life of higher understanding. One must destroy in oneself what appears as separateness, then the separate existence ceases; the all-life enters into us. We cannot possess ourselves of this all-life by drawing it to us. It comes into us when we silence the separate existence within us. We possess the all-life least just when we regard our individual existence as if the All already reposed within it. The latter only appears in the individual existence when this individual existence does not claim that it is something. The book calls this claim of the individual existence the “assumption” (Annehmen). Through the “assumption” the “self” makes it impossible for the all-life to enter into it. The self then puts itself as a part, as something incomplete, in the place of the whole, of the complete. “The complete is a being which comprises and embraces all beings in itself and in its being, and without and outside which there is no true being, and in which all things have their being; for it is the being of all things and is in itself unchangeable and immovable, and changes and moves all other things. But the divided and incomplete is what has sprung from the complete, or which it becomes, just like a brilliance or a shining which flows from the sun or from a light and appears as something, as this or that. And this is called creature, and none of these divided ones is identical with the complete. And therefore the complete also is not identical with any of the divided ones ... When the complete appears one rejects what is divided. But when does it come? I say: When, insofar as it is possible, it is known, felt, and tasted in the soul; for the lack is wholly in us and not in it. For just as the sun illuminates the whole world and is as close to one man as to another, a blind man nevertheless does not see it. But that is not a defect in the sun, but in the blind man ... If my eye is to see something it must be cleansed of, or freed from, all other things ... One might want to ask: Insofar as it is unknowable and incomprehensible for all creatures, and the soul is a creature, how can it be known in the soul? Answer: Therefore it is that one says that the creature is to be known as a creature.” This is as much as to say that all that is creature is to be regarded as creature-ness and as created, and is not to regard itself as an I and as selfhood, which latter makes this knowing impossible. “For in that creature in which the complete is to be known, creature-ness, being created, I, selfhood and the like must be lost and come to nothing.” (Chapter I of the work of the Frankfurter.) Thus the soul must look into itself; there it will find its I, its selfhood. If it stops at this, it separates itself from the complete. If it regards its selfhood only as something loaned to it, as it were, and destroys it in spirit, it will be seized by the stream of the all-life, of the complete. “If the creature takes on something good, such as being, life, knowledge, insight, capacity, in short all that one should call good, and deems that it itself is this or that this belongs to it, the creature, or is of it: as often and to the extent that this happens, it turns itself away.” There are “two eyes in the created soul of man. One is the possibility of looking into eternity; the other, of looking into time and into the creature.” “Man should thus stand and be free without himself, that is without selfhood, I, Me, My and the like, so that he seeks and purposes himself and what is his as little in all things as if it did not exist; and he should also estimate himself as little as if he did not exist, and as if another had performed all his works.” (Chapter 15.) With relation to the author of these sentences too it must be considered that the conceptual content to which he gives a direction through his higher ideas and feelings is that of a pious priest of his time. Here it is not a matter of the conceptual content, but of the direction; not of the ideas, but of the spiritual disposition. One who does not live in Christian dogmas as this author does, but rather in concepts of natural science, imprints other ideas on his sentences; but with these other ideas he points in the same direction. And this direction is what leads to the overcoming of selfhood through this selfhood itself. It is in his self that the highest light shines for man. But this light only gives the right reflection to his world of ideas when man is aware that it is not the light of his self, but the universal light of the world. Therefore there is no more important knowledge than self-knowledge; and at the same time there is none which so completely leads beyond itself. When the “self” knows itself aright it is already no longer a “self.” In his words the author of the book under discussion expresses this as follows: “For God's nature is without this and without that and without selfhood and I; but the nature and peculiarity of the creature is that it seeks and wills itself and what belongs to it, and the “this” and “that”; and from everything it does or leaves undone it wants to receive profit and advantage. But where the creature or man loses his own being and his selfhood and himself, and goes out of himself, there God enters with His own Being, that is with His Selfhood.” (Chapter 24.) Man ascends from a conception of his “self” in which the latter appears to him as his essence, to one where he sees it as a mere organ in which the universal essence acts upon itself. In line with the ideas of our book it is said: “If man can reach the point where he belongs as much to God as a man's hand belongs to him, then let him rest content and seek no further.” (Chapter 54.) This is not to say that man should stop at a certain point of his development; rather, when he has come as far as is indicated in the words above, he should no longer pursue investigations about the meaning of the hand, but rather use the hand, so that it can serve the body to which it belongs.—
[ 6 ] Heinrich Suso and Jan van Ruysbroeck had a spiritual disposition which can be described as genius of soul. Their feelings are drawn by something resembling instinct to the point to which Eckhart's and Tauler's feelings were led through a higher life of ideas. Suso's heart turns ardently toward a primordial essence which embraces the individual man as well as the whole remaining world, and in which, forgetting himself, he wants to be absorbed like a drop of water in the great ocean. He speaks of this yearning for the universal essence not as of something which he wants to grasp in his thoughts, but he speaks of it as of a natural impulse which makes his soul drunk with the desire for the annihilation of his separate existence and for the rebirth in the all-embracing activity of the infinite essence. “Turn your eyes to the being in its pure and bare simplicity, so that you may abandon this and that partial being. Take only being in itself, which is unmixed with non-being, for all non-being denies all being; thus the being in itself also denies all non-being. A thing which is still to become, or has been, does not exist now in its essential presence. Mixed being or non-being can however be recognized only by the aid of a mark of the universal being. For if one wants to understand a thing the reason is first met by being, and that is a being which effects all things. It is not a divided being of this or that creature, for the divided being is ever mingled with the otherness of a possibility of receiving something. Therefore the nameless divine being must in itself be a universal being, which sustains all divided beings with its presence.” Thus speaks Suso in the autobiography which he composed with the aid of his disciple, Elsbet Stäglin. He too is a pious priest and lives wholly in the Christian realm of ideas. He lives in it as if it were completely unthinkable for someone with his spiritual direction to live in a different spiritual world. But of him too it is true that one can combine another conceptual content with his spiritual direction. This is clearly indicated by the way the content of the Christian doctrine becomes an inner experience for him, while his relationship to Christ becomes one between his spirit and the eternal truth, of a purely conceptual-spiritual kind. He has written a Büchlein von der ewigen Weisheit, Little Book of Eternal Wisdom. In this he lets the “eternal wisdom” speak to its “servant,” that is, presumably, to himself: “Do you not recognize me? How is it you are even sunk down, or has consciousness deserted you because of your great distress, my tender child? It is I, compassionate wisdom, who have opened wide the depths of bottomless compassion, which is even hidden to all the saints, in order to receive you and all repentant hearts in kindness; it is I, the sweet, eternal wisdom, who became poor and miserable in order to bring you back to your dignity; it is I who suffered bitter death in order to bring you back to life! Here I stand, pale and bloody and loving, as I stood by the high gallows of the Cross, between the strict judgment of my Father and you. It is I, your brother; look, it is I, your spouse! Everything you ever did against me I have utterly forgotten, as if it had never happened, if only you now turn completely to me and do not part from me again.” For Suso, everything material-temporal in the Christian conception of the world has, as one can see, become a spiritual-ideal process within his soul.—From some chapters of the above-mentioned autobiography of Suso it might appear as if he had let himself be led not by the mere activity of his own spiritual faculties, but by external revelations, by spirit-like visions. But he clearly expresses his opinion on this. One attains the truth only by exercise of reason, not through some revelation. “The difference between pure truth and doubtful visions in the professing substance ... I shall also tell you. A direct seeing of the bare Divinity is the right, pure truth, without any doubt; and any vision is the nobler the more reasonable and imageless it is, and the more like this bare seeing.”—Meister Eckhart also leaves no doubt that he rejects the view which sees the spiritual in substantial-spatial forms, in apparitions that can be perceived in he same way as sensory ones. Thus spirits like Suso and Eckhart are opponents of a view such as that which expresses itself in the Spiritualism that developed in the 19th century.
[ 7 ] Jan van Ruysbroeck, the Belgian mystic, walked the same paths as Suso. His spiritual road found a spirited opponent in Jean de Gerson (born 1363), who was for some time Chancellor of the University of Paris, and played an important role at the Council of Constance. It throws some light on the nature of the mysticism cultivated by Tauler, Suso, and Ruysbroeck if one compares it with the mystical endeavors of Gerson, whose predecessors were Richard of St. Victor, Bonaventura, and others.—Ruysbroeck himself fought against those whom he counted among the heretical mystics. The latter he considered all who, on the basis of an unconsidered intellectual judgment, hold all things to be the amanation of one primordial essence, and who thus see in the world a diversity only, and in God the unity of this diversity. Ruysbroeck did not count himself among these, for he knew that one cannot reach the primordial essence by a contemplation of things themselves, but only by raising oneself from this lower to a higher way of thinking. Similarly he turned against those who without further ado wanted to see in the individual man, in his separate existence (in his creature-ness), his higher nature also. He much lamented the error which effaces all differences in the world of the senses, and lightly says that things are different only in appearance, while in essence they are all the same. For a way of thinking such as Ruysbroeck's this would be just as if one were to say: That for our eyes the trees of an avenue converge in the distance does not concern us. In reality they are everywhere equally distant, therefore our eyes must accustom themselves to seeing correctly. But our eyes do see correctly. That the trees converge is due to a necessary law of nature, and we should not object to our way of seeing, but rather understand in the mind why we see thus. The mystic too does not turn away from the things of the senses. He accepts them as being sensory, as they are. And it is also clear to him that they cannot become other through any intellectual judgment. But in the spirit he goes beyond the senses and beyond reason, and only then does he find unity. He has an unshakeable belief that he can develop to the point of seeing this unity. Therefore he ascribes to human nature the divine spark which can be made to shine in him, to shine of itself. It is different with spirits of Gerson's kind. They do not believe in this shining of itself. For them what men can see always remains something external, which must come to them externally from one side or another. Ruysbroeck believed that the highest wisdom must become apparent to the mystical seeing; Gerson believed only that the soul could illuminate the content of an external teaching (that of the Church). For Gerson mysticism was nothing but one's having a warm feeling for everything which is revealed in the content of this teaching. For Ruysbroeck it was a belief that all content of this teaching is also born in the soul. Therefore Gerson reproves Ruysbroeck for imagining not only that he possesses the capacity to see the universal essence with clearness, but that an activity of the universal essence manifests itself in this seeing. Ruysbroeck simply could not be understood by Gerson. They were speaking of two totally different things. Ruysbroeck has his eye fixed on that life of the soul which lives its God; Gerson sees only a life of the soul which wants to love a God whom it never will be able to live within itself. Like so many others Gerson too fought against something which was foreign to him only because it could not be fitted into his experience2Addendum II to the 1923 Edition:
In my writings, “mysticism” is spoken of in different ways. The apparent contradiction which some persons have claimed to find in this is elucidated in the annotations to the new edition of my Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung, The Theory of Knowledge in Goethe's Conception of the World.—Addendum II to the 1923 Edition ).
II. Gottesfreundschaft
[ 1 ] In Johannes Tauler (1300-136I), Heinrich Soso (1295-1366) und Johannes Ruysbroeck (1295-1366) lernt man Persönlichkeiten kennen, in deren Leben und Wirken sich auf die eindringlichste Art die Seelenbewegungen zeigen, die ein Geistesweg wie derjenige des Meister Eckhart in tiefangelegten Naturen verursacht. Erscheint Eckhart wie ein Mann, der in seligem Erleben der geistigen Wiedergeburt von der Beschaffenheit und dem Wesen der Erkenntnis wie von einem Bilde spricht, das ihm gelungen ist zu malen: so stellen sich die anderen dar wie Wanderer, denen diese Wiedergeburt einen neuen Weg gezeigt hat, den sie wandeln wollen, dessen Ziel sich ihnen aber in unendliche Ferne rückt. Eckhart schildert mehr die Herrlichkeiten seines Bildes, sie die Schwierigkeiten des neuen Weges. Man muß sich völlig klar machen, wie der Mensch zu seinen höheren Erkenntnissen steht, wenn man den Unterschied von Persönlichkeiten wie Eckhart und Tauler sich vor die Seele treten lassen will. Der Mensch ist eingesponnen in die Sinnenwelt und in die Naturgesetzlichkeit, von welcher die Sinnenwelt beherrscht ist. Er ist selbst ein Ergebnis dieser Welt. Er lebt, indem ihre Kräfte und Stoffe in ihm tätig sind; ja er nimmt diese Sinnenwelt wahr und beurteilt sie nach den Gesetzen, nach denen sie und er aufgebaut sind. Wenn er sein Auge auf einen Gegenstand richtet, so stellt sich ihm nicht nur der Gegenstand als eine Summe von ineinanderwirkenden Kräften dar, die von den Naturgesetzen beherrscht sind, sondern das Auge selbst ist ein nach solchen Gesetzen und von solchen Kräften aufgebauter Körper; und das Sehen geschieht nach solchen Gesetzen und durch solche Kräfte. Wären wir in der Naturwissenschaft an ein Ende gekommen, so könnten wir wohl bis in die höchsten Regionen der Gedankenbildung dieses Spiel der Naturkräfte im Sinne der Naturgesetze verfolgen. - Aber schon, indem wir dies tun, erheben wir uns über dieses Spiel. Stehen wir denn nicht über aller bloßen Naturgesetzmäßigkeit, wenn wir überschauen, wie wir uns selbst in die Natur eingliedern? Wir sehen mit unserem Auge nach den Gesetzen der Natur. Aber wir erkennen auch die Gesetze, nach denen wir sehen. Wir können uns auf eine höhere Warte stellen, und zugleich die Außenwelt und uns selbst in ihrem Zusammenspiel überschauen. Wirkt da nicht eine Wesenheit in uns, die höher ist als die nach Naturgesetzen und mit Naturkräften tätige sinnlich-organische Persönlichkeit? Ist in solchem Wirken noch eine Scheidewand zwischen unserem Innern und der Außenwelt? Was da urteilt, was sich Aufklärung verschafft, ist nicht mehr unsere Einzelpersönlichkeit; es ist vielmehr die allgemeine Weltwesenheit, welche die Schranke niedergerissen hat zwischen Innenwelt und Außenwelt, und die nunmehr beide umspannt. So wahr es ist, daß ich noch immer derselbe Einzelne der äußeren Erscheinung nach bleibe, wenn ich in dieser Art die Schranke niedergerissen habe, so wahr ist es auch, daß ich dem Wesen nach nicht mehr dieser Einzelne bin. In mir lebt nunmehr die Empfindung, daß in meiner Seele das Allwesen spricht, das mich und alle Welt umfaßt. - Solche Empfindungen leben in Tauler, wenn er sagt: «Der Mensch ist recht, als ob er drei Menschen sei, sein tierischer Mensch, wie er nach den Sinnen ist, dann sein vernünftiger Mensch, und endlich sein oberster gottförmiger, gottgebildeter Mensch... Der eine ist der auswendige, tierische, sinnliche Mensch; der andere ist der inwendige, vernünftige Mensch, mit seinen Vernünftigen Kräften; der dritte Mensch ist das Gemüt, der alleroberste Teil der Seele» (vgl. W. Preger, «Geschichte der deutschen Mystik»,3. Bd., S. 161). Wie dieser dritte Mensch erhaben ist über den ersten und zweiten, das hat Eckhart in den Worten gesagt: «Das Auge, durch das ich Gott sehe, das ist das gleiche Auge, mit dem Gott mich sieht. Mein Auge und Gottes Auge das ist ein Auge und ein Sehen und ein Erkennen und ein Empfinden.» Aber in Tauler lebt zugleich mit dieser eine andere Empfindung. Er ringt sich durch zu einer wirklichen Anschauung vom Geistigen und vermengt nicht fortwährend, wie die falschen Materialisten und die falschen Idealisten, das Sinnlich-Natürliche mit dem Geistigen. Wäre Tauler, mit seiner Gesinnung, Naturforscher geworden: er hätte darauf bestehen müssen, alles Natürliche, mit Einschluß des ganzen Menschen, des ersten und zweiten, rein naturgemäß zu erklären. Er hätte niemals «rein» geistige Kräfte in die Natur selbst versetzt. Er hätte nicht von einer nach Menschenmuster gedachten «Zweckmäßigkeit» in der Natur gesprochen. Er wußte, daß da, wo wir mit den Sinnen wahrnehmen, keine «Schöpfungsgedanken» zu finden sind. In ihm lebte vielmehr das allerstärkste Bewußtsein davon, daß der Mensch ein bloß natürliches Wesen ist. Und da er sich nicht als Naturforscher, sondern als Pfleger des sittlichen Lebens fühlte, so empfand er den Gegensatz, der sich auftut zwischen diesem natürlichen Wesen des Menschen und dem Gottschauen, das inmitten der Natürlichkeit, auf natürliche Weise, aber als Geistigkeit entspringt. Eben in diesem Gegensatz trat ihm der Sinn des Lebens vor Augen. Als Einzelwesen, als Naturgeschöpf findet sich der Mensch. Und keine Wissenschaft kann ihm etwas anderes über dieses Leben eröffnen, als daß er ein solches Naturgeschöpf ist. Er kann als Naturgeschöpf nicht über die Naturgeschöpflichkeit hinaus. Er muß in ihr bleiben. Und doch führt ihn sein inneres Leben darüber hinaus. Er muß Vertrauen haben zu dem, was ihm keine Wissenschaft der äußeren Natur geben und zeigen kann. Nennt er diese Natur das Da-Seiende, so muß er vordringen können zu der Anschauung, die das Nicht-Seiende als das Höhere anerkennt. Tauler sucht keinen Gott, der im Sinne einer Naturkraft vorhanden ist; er sucht keinen Gott, der im Sinne der Menschenschöpfungen die Welt geschaffen hätte. In ihm lebt die Erkenntnis, daß selbst der Schöpfungsbegriff der Kirchenlehrer nur idealisiertes Menschenschaffen ist. Ihm ist klar, daß Gott nicht gefunden wird, wie von der Wissenschaft Naturwirken und Naturgesetzlichkeit gefunden werden. Tauler ist sich dessen bewußt, daß wir zu der Natur als Gott nichts hinzu denken dürfen. Er weiß, daß wer, in seinem Sinne, Gott denkt, nicht mehr Gedankeninhalt denkt, als wer die Natur in Gedanken gefaßt hat. Tauler will deshalb nicht Gott denken, sondern er will göttlich denken. Nicht bereichert wird die Naturerkenntnis durch das Gotteswissen, sondern verwandelt. Nicht anderes weiß der Gotteserkenner als der Naturerkenner, sondern er weiß anders. Nicht einen Buchstaben kann der Gotteserkenner zu dem Naturerkennen hinzufügen; aber durch sein ganzes Naturerkennen leuchtet ein neues Licht.
[ 2 ] Welche Grundempfindungen sich der Seele eines Menschen bemächtigen, der die Welt von solchen Gesichtspunkten aus betrachtet, das wird davon abhängen, wie er das Erlebnis der Seele betrachtet, das die geistige Wiedergeburt bringt. Innerhalb dieses Erlebnisses ist der Mensch ganz Naturwesen, wenn er sich im Zusammenspiel mit der übrigen Natur betrachtet; und er ist ganz Geistwesen, wenn er auf den Zustand sieht, den ihm seine Verwandlung bringt. Man kann deshalb mit gleichem Rechte sagen: der tiefste Grund der Seele ist noch natürlich, wie auch, er ist schon göttlich. Tauler betonte, seiner Sinnesweise gemäß, das erstere. Wir mögen noch so tief in unsere Seele dringen, wir bleiben immer Einzelmenschen, sagte er sich. Aber doch leuchtet in dem Seelengrunde des Einzelmenschen das Allwesen auf. Tauler war beherrscht von dem Gefühle: du kannst dich von der Einzelheit nicht loslösen, dich von ihr nicht reinigen. Deshalb kann das Allwesen auch nicht in seiner Reinheit in dir zum Vorschein kommen, sondern es kann nur deinen Seelengrund bescheinen. In diesem kommt also doch nur ein Abglanz, ein Bild des Allwesens zustande. Du kannst deine Einzelpersönlichkeit so verwandeln, daß sie im Bilde das Allwesen wiedergibt; aber dieses Allwesen selbst leuchtet nicht in dir. Von solchen Vorstellungen aus kam Tauler doch zu dem Gedanken einer nie in der menschlichen Welt ganz aufgehenden, nie in sie einfließenden Gottheit. Ja, er legt Wert darauf, nicht mit denen verwechselt zu werden, die das Innere des Menschen selbst als ein Göttliches erklären. Er sagt, die Vereinigung mit Gott «nehmen unverständige Menschen fleischlich und sprechen, sie sollten in göttliche Natur verwandelt werden; das ist aber zumal falsch und böse Ketzerei. Denn auch bei der allerhöchsten, nächsten, innigsten Einigung mit Gott ist doch göttliche Natur und Gottes Wesen hoch, ja höher als alle Höhe; das gehet in einen göttlichen Abgrund, was da nimmer keiner Kreatur wird.» Tauler will, im Sinne seiner Zeit und im Sinne seines Priesterberufs gläubiger Katholik mit Recht genannt werden. Es liegt ihm nicht daran, dem Christentum eine andere Anschauung entgegenzusetzen. Er will dieses Christentum durch seine Anschauung nur vertiefen, vergeistigen. Er spricht wie ein frommer Priester von dem Inhalte der Schrift. Aber diese Schrift wird in seiner Vorstellungswelt doch zu einem Ausdrucksmittel für die innersten Erlebnisse seiner Seele. «Gott wirket alle seine Werke in der Seele und gibt sie der Seele, und der Vater gebiert seinen eingeborenen Sohn in der Seele, so wahrlich er ihn in der Ewigkeit gebiert, weder minder noch mehr. Was wird geboren, wenn man spricht: Gott gebiert in der Seele? Ist es ein Gleichnis Gottes, oder ist es ein Bild Gottes, oder ist es etwas Gottes? Nein, es ist weder Bild, noch Gleichnis Gottes, sondern derselbe Gott und derselbe Sohn, den der Vater in der Ewigkeit gebiert und nichts anderes, denn das minnigliche göttliche Wort, das die andere Person in der Dreifaltigkeit ist, den gebiert der Vater in der Seele... und hievon hat die Seele also große und sonderliche Würdigkeit» (vgl. Preger, «Geschichte der deutschen Mystik», 3. Bd., S. 219 f). €“ Die Erzählungen der Schrift werden für Tauler das Kleid, in das er Vorgänge des inneren Lebens hüllt. «Herodes, der das Kind verjagte und töten wollte, ist ein Vorbild der Welt, welche noch dieses Kind in einem gläubigen Menschen töten will, darum soll und muß man sie fliehen, wollen wir anders das Kind in uns lebendig erhalten, das Kind aber ist die erleuchtete gläubige Seele eines jeglichen Menschen.»
[ 3 ] Tauler kommt es deshalb, weil er den Blick auf den natürlichen Menschen richtet, weniger darauf an, zu sagen, was wird, wenn der höhere Mensch in den natürlichen einzieht, als vielmehr, die Wege zu finden, welche die niederen Kräfte der Persönlichkeit einzuschlagen haben, wenn sie in das höhere Leben übergeführt werden sollen. Als Pfleger des sittlichen Lebens will er dem Menschen die Wege zum Allwesen zeigen. Er hat den unbedingten Glauben und das Vertrauen, daß das Allwesen in dem Menschen aufleuchtet, wenn dieser sein Leben so einrichtet, daß für das Göttliche in ihm eine Stätte ist. Niemals aber kann dieses Allwesen aufleuchten, wenn der Mensch in seiner bloßen, natürlichen, einzelnen Persönlichkeit sich abschließt. Dieser in sich abgesonderte Mensch ist in der Sprache Taulers nur ein Glied der Welt; eine einzelne Kreatur. Je mehr sich der Mensch in dieses sein Dasein als Glied der Welt einschließt, desto weniger kann das Allwesen in ihm Platz finden. «Soll der Mensch in der Wahrheit mit Gott eins werden, so müssen alle Kräfte auch des inwendigen Menschen sterben und schweigen. Der Wille muß selbst des Guten und alles Willens entbildet und willenlos werden.» «Der Mensch soll entweichen allen Sinnen und einkehren alle seine Kräfte, und kommen in ein Vergessen aller Dinge und seiner selbst.» «Denn das wahrhafte und ewige Wort Gottes wird allein in der Wüste gesprochen, wenn der Mensch von sich selbst und von allen Dingen ausgegangen ist, und ganz ledig, wüst und einsam steht.»
[ 4 ] Als Tauler auf seiner Höhe stand, da trat die Frage in den Mittelpunkt seines Vorstellungslebens: wie kann der Mensch sein Einzeldasein in sich vernichten, überwinden, damit er im Sinne des All-Lebens mitlebe? Wer in dieser Lage ist, dem drängen sich die Gefühle gegenüber dem Allwesen in das eine zusammen: Ehrfurcht vor diesem Allwesen, als dem, was unerschöpflich, unendlich ist. Er sagt sich: hast du welche Stufe immer erreicht; es gibt noch höhere Ausblicke, noch erhabenere Möglichkeiten. So bestimmt und klar ihm die Richtung ist, in der er seine Schritte zu bewegen hat, so klar ist ihm auch, daß er von einem Ziele nie sprechen kann. Ein neues Ziel ist nur der Anfang zu einem neuen Wege. Durch ein solches neues Ziel hat der Mensch einen Entwicklungsgrad erreicht; die Entwicklung selbst bewegt sich ins Unermeßliche. Und was sie auf einer ferneren Stufe erreichen wird, weiß sie in der gegenwärtigen nie. Ein Erkennen des letzten Zieles gibt es nicht; nur ein Vertrauen in den Weg, in die Entwicklung. Für alles, was der Mensch schon erreicht hat, gibt es ein Erkennen. Es besteht in dem Durchdringen eines schon vorhandenen Gegenstandes durch die Kräfte unseres Geistes. Für das höhere Leben des Innern gibt es ein solches Erkennen nicht. Hier müssen sich die Kräfte unseres Geistes den Gegenstand selbst erst in das Vorhandensein versetzen; sie müssen ihm ein Dasein, das so ist, wie das natürliche Dasein, erst schaffen. Die Naturwissenschaft verfolgt die Entwicklung der Wesen von dem einfachsten bis zu dem vollkommensten, dem Menschen selbst. Diese Entwicklung liegt als abgeschossene vor uns. Wir erkennen sie, indem wir sie mit unseren Geisteskräften durchdringen. Ist die Entwicklung beim Menschen angekommen, dann findet er keine weitere Fortsetzung vorhanden vor. Er vollzieht selbst die Weiterentwicklung. Er lebt nunmehr, was er für frühere Stufen bloß erkennt. Er schafft dem Gegenstande nach, was er für das vorhergehende nur dem geistigen Wesen gemäß nachschafft. Daß die Wahrheit nicht eins ist mit dem Vorhandenen in der Natur, sondern natürlich Vorhandenes und Nicht-Vorhandenes umspannt: davon ist Tauler ganz erfüllt in allen seinen Empfindungen. Es ist uns überliefert, daß er zu dieser Erfüllung durch einen erleuchteten Laien, einen «Gottesfreund vom Oberland» geführt worden ist. Es liegt hier eine geheimnisvolle Geschichte vor. Darüber, wo dieser Gottesfreund gelebt hat, gibt es nur Vermutungen; darüber, wer er gewesen ist, nicht einmal solche. Er soll viel von Taulers Art, zu predigen, gehört haben, und sich nach diesen Mitteilungen entschlossen haben, zu Tauler, der als Prediger in Straßburg wirkte, zu reisen, um an ihm eine Aufgabe zu erfüllen. Das Verhältnis Taulers zum Gottesfreund und den Einfluß, den dieser auf jenen ausgeübt hat, finden wir in einer Schrift dargestellt, die den ältesten Ausgaben von Taulers Predigten unter dem Titel «Das Buch des Meisters» beigedruckt ist. Darin erzählt ein Gottesfreund, in dem man den erkennen will, der zu Tauler in Beziehungen getreten ist, von einem «Meister», als den man Tauler selbst erkennen will. Er erzählt, wie ein Umschwung, eine geistige Wiedergeburt in einem «Meister» bewirkt worden ist, und wie dieser, als er seinen Tod herankommen fühlte, den Freund zu sich rief und ihn bat, die Geschichte seiner «Erleuchtung» zu schreiben, jedoch dafür zu sorgen, daß niemals jemand erfährt, von wem in dem Buche die Rede ist. Er bittet darum aus dem Grunde, weil alle die Erkenntnisse, die von ihm ausgehen, doch nicht von ihm sind. «Denn wisset, Gott hat alles durch mich armen Wurm gewirkt, das ist es auch, es ist nicht mein, es ist Gottes.» Ein wissenschaftlicher Streit, der sich an die Angelegenheit geknüpft hat, ist für das Wesen der Sache nicht von der allergeringsten Bedeutung. Es wurde von einer Seite (Denifle, «Die Dichtungen des Gottesfreundes im Oberlande») zu beweisen versucht, daß der Gottesfreund niemals existiert habe, sondern daß seine Existenz erdichtet sei, und die ihm zugeschriebenen Bücher von einem anderen (Rulman Merswin) herrühren. Mit vielen Gründen hat Wilhelm Preger («Geschichte der deutschen Mystik») die Existenz, die Echtheit der Schriften und die Richtigkeit der Tatsachen, die sich auf Tauler beziehen, zu stützen gesucht. - Mir obliegt es hier nicht, mit aufdringlicher Forschung ein menschliches Verhältnis zu beleuchten, von dem derjenige, welcher die in Betracht kommenden Schriften zu lesen versteht, ganz gut weiß, daß es Geheimnis bleiben soll. (Diese in Betracht kommenden Schriften sind u. a.: «Von eime eiginwilligen weltwisen manne, der von eime heiligen weltpriestere gewiset wart uffe demuetige gehorsamme», 1338; «Das Buch von den zwei Mannen»; «Der gefangene Ritter», 1349; «Die geistliche stege», 1350; «Von der geistlichen Leiter», 1357; «Das Meisterbuch», 1369; «Geschichte von zwei jungen 15 jährigen Knaben».) Wenn von Tauler gesagt wird, daß mit ihm auf einer gewissen Stufe seines Lebens eine Wandlung sich vollzogen habe, wie diejenige ist, die ich nunmehr schildern will, so genügt das vollkommen. Taulers Persönlichkeit kommt dabei gar nicht mehr in Betracht, sondern eine Persönlichkeit «im allgemeinen». Was Tauler betrifft, so geht uns nur an, daß wir seine Wandlung unter dem durch das Folgende angegebenen Gesichtspunkte zu verstehen haben. Vergleichen wir sein späteres Wirken mit seinem vorhergehenden, so ist, ohne weiteres, die Tatsache dieser Wandlung gegeben. Ich lasse alle äußeren Tatsachen weg und erzähle die inneren Seelenvorgänge des «Meisters» unter «dem Einflusse des Laien». Was sich mein Leser unter dem «Laien» und unter dem «Meister» denkt, hängt ganz von seiner Geistesart ab; was ich mir selbst darunter vorstelle, davon kann ich nicht wissen, für wen es noch in Betracht kommt. - Ein Meister belehrt seine Zuhörer über das Verhältnis der Seele zum Allwesen der Dinge. Er spricht davon, daß der Mensch nicht mehr die natürlichen, beschränkten Kräfte der Einzelpersönlichkeit in sich wirken fühlt, wenn er in den Abgrund seiner Seelentiefen hinuntersteigt. Dort spricht nicht mehr der einzelne Mensch, dort spricht Gott. Dort sieht nicht der Mensch Gott, oder die Welt; dort sieht Gott sich selbst. Der Mensch ist mit Gott eins geworden. Aber der Meister weiß, daß diese Lehre noch nicht völlig lebendig in ihm geworden ist. Er denkt sie mit dem Verstande; aber er lebt noch nicht in ihr mit jeder Faser seiner Persönlichkeit. Er lehrt also von einem Zustande, den er in sich noch nicht vollkommen durchgemacht hat. Die Schilderung des Zustandes entspricht der Wahrheit; doch ist diese Wahrheit nichts wert, wenn sie nicht Leben gewinnt, wenn sie sich nicht in der Wirklichkeit als Dasein hervorbringt. Der «Laie» oder «Gottesfreund» hört von dem Meister und seinen Lehren. Er ist von der Wahrheit, die der Meister ausspricht, nicht minder durchdrungen als dieser selbst. Aber er hat diese Wahrheit nicht als Verstandessache. Er hat sie als ganze Kraft seines Lebens. Er weiß, daß man diese Wahrheit, wenn sie von außen angeflogen ist, selbst aussprechen kann, ohne auch nur im geringsten in ihrem Sinne zu leben. Man hat dann doch nichts anderes als die natürliche Erkenntnis des Verstandes in sich. Man spricht von dieser natürlichen Erkenntnis dann so, als ob sie die höchste, mit dem Wirken des Allwesens gleiche, wäre. Sie ist es nicht, weil sie nicht in einem Leben erworben ist, das schon als ein verwandeltes, als ein wiedergeborenes an diese Erkenntnis herangetreten ist. Was man als bloß natürlicher Mensch erwirbt, das bleibt bloß natürlich, auch wenn man hinterher den Grundzug der höheren Erkenntnis in Worten ausspricht. Aus der Natur selbst heraus muß die Verwandlung vollzogen werden. Die Natur, die lebend sich bis zu einer gewissen Stufe entwickelt hat, muß durch das Leben weiterentwickelt werden; neues muß durch diese Weiterentwicklung entstehen. Nicht bloß zurückschauen auf die schon vorliegende Entwicklung darf der Mensch und das, was sich in seinem Geiste über diese Entwicklung nachbildet, als das höchste ansprechen; sondern vorschauen muß er auf Ungeschaffenes; ein Anfang eines neuen Inhalts muß seine Erkenntnis sein, nicht ein Ende des vor ihr liegenden Entwicklungsinhalts. Die Natur schreitet vom Wurm zum Säugetier, vom Säugetier zum Menschen nicht in einem begrifflichen, sondern in einem wirklichen Prozeß. Der Mensch soll diesen Prozeß im Geiste nicht bloß wiederholen. Die geistige Wiederholung ist nur der Anfang einer neuen wirklichen Entwicklung, die aber eine geistige Wirklichkeit ist. Der Mensch erkennt dann nicht bloß, was die Natur hervorgebracht hat; er setzt die Natur fort; er setzt seine Erkenntnis in lebendiges Tun um. Er gebiert in sich den Geist; und dieser Geist schreitet von da an fort von Entwicklungsstufe zu Entwicklungsstufe, wie die Natur fortschreitet. Der Geist beginnt einen Naturprozeß auf höherer Stufe. Das Sprechen über den Gott, der sich im Innern des Menschen selbst schaut, nimmt bei dem, der solches erkannt hat, einen anderen Charakter an. Er legt wenig Wert darauf, daß eine schon erlangte Erkenntnis ihn in die Tiefen des Allwesens geführt hat; dafür gewinnt seine Geistesart ein neues Gepräge. Sie entwickelt sich in der Richtung, die durch das Allwesen bestimmt ist, weiter. Ein solcher Mensch betrachtet nicht allein die Welt anders als der bloß Verständige; er lebt das Leben anders. Er spricht nicht von dem Sinn, den das Leben schon hat durch die Kräfte und Gesetze der Welt; sondern er gibt erst diesem Leben einen neuen Sinn. So wenig der Fisch das in sich hat, was auf späterer Entwicklungsstufe als Säugetier zum Vorschein kommt, so wenig hat der verständige Mensch das schon in sich, was aus ihm als höherer Mensch geboren werden soll. Könnte der Fisch sich und die Dinge um sich her erkennen: er betrachtete das Fisch-Sein als den Sinn des Lebens. Er würde sagen: Das Allwesen ist gleich dem Fisch; im Fisch sieht das Allwesen sich selbst. So mag der Fisch sprechen, solange er bloß an sein verstandesmäßiges Erkennen sich hält. In Wirklichkeit hält er sich nicht daran. Er geht mit seinem Wirken über sein Erkennen hinaus. Er wird zum Kriechtier und später zum Säugetier. Der Sinn, den er sich in Wirklichkeit gibt, geht über den Sinn, den ihm das bloße Betrachten eingibt, hinaus. Auch beim Menschen muß es so sein. Er gibt sich einen Sinn in der Wirklichkeit; er bleibt nicht stehen bei dem Sinne, den er schon hat, und den ihm seine Betrachtung zeigt. Das Erkennen springt über sich selbst hinaus, wenn es sich nur recht versteht. Die Erkenntnis kann nicht aus einem fertigen Gotte die Welt ableiten; sie kann nur aus einem Keime sich in der Richtung nach einem Gotte entwickeln. Der Mensch, der das begriffen hat, will nicht Gott betrachten wie etwas, das außer ihm ist; er will Gott behandeln wie ein Wesen, welches mit ihm wandelt zu einem Ziel, das im Anfange so unbekannt ist, wie dem Fisch die Natur des Säugetiers unbekannt ist. Nicht Erkenner des verborgenen, oder sich offenbarenden, seienden Gottes will er sein, sondern Freund des göttlichen, über Sein und Nicht-Sein erhabenen göttlichen Tuns und Wirkens. Ein «Gottesfreund» in diesem Sinne war der Laie, der zu dem Meister kam. Und durch ihn wurde der Meister aus einem Betrachter der Wesenheit Gottes ein «Lebendiger im Geiste», der nicht bloß betrachtete, sondern lebte im höheren Sinn. Dieser holte nun nicht mehr Begriffe und Ideen des Verstandes aus seinem Innern, sondern diese Begriffe und Ideen drangen aus ihm hervor als lebendiger, wesenhafter Geist. Er erbaute nicht mehr bloß seine Zuhörer; er erschütterte sie. Er versenkte ihre Seelen nicht mehr in ihr Inneres; er führte sie in ein neues Leben. Symbolisch wird uns das erzählt: etwa vierzig Menschen fielen durch seine Predigt hin und waren wie tot.
[ 5 ] Als Führer zu einem solchen neuen Leben stellt sich eine Schrift dar, über deren Verfasser nichts bekannt ist. Luther hat sie zuerst durch den Druck bekanntgemacht. Der Sprachforscher Franz Pfeiffer hat sie nach einer aus dem Jahre 1497 stammenden Handschrift neuerdings gedruckt, und zwar mit einer dem Urtext gegenüberstehenden neu-deutschen Ãœbersetzung. Was der Schrift vorgeschickt ist, gibt ihre Absicht und ihr Ziel an: «Hier hebet der Frankfurter an und sagt gar hohe und gar schöne Dinge von einem vollkommenen Leben.» Es schließt sich daran «die Vorrede über den Frankfurter»: «Dies Büchlein hat der allmächtige, ewige Gott ausgesprochen durch einen weisen, verständigen, wahrhaftigen, gerechten Menschen, seinen Freund, der vor Zeiten ein deutscher Herr gewesen ist, ein Priester und ein Custos in der deutschen Herren Haus zu Frankfurt; es lehret gar manche liebliche Erkenntnis göttlicher Wahrheit, und besonders, wie und wodurch man erkennen mag die wahrhaften, gerechten Gottesfreunde, und auch die ungerechten, falschen, freien Geister, die der heiligen Kirche gar schädlich sind.» - Man darf unter «freien Geistern» diejenigen verstehen, welche in einer Vorstellungswelt leben, wie der oben beschriebene «Meister» vor seiner Verwandlung durch den «Gottesfreund», und unter den «wahrhaften, gerechten Gottesfreunden» solche mit der Gesinnung des «Laien». Man darf ferner dem Buch die Absicht zuschreiben, auf seine Leser so zu wirken, wie der «Gottesfreund im Oberland» auf den Meister gewirkt hat. Man kennt den Verfasser nicht. Was heißt das aber? Man weiß nicht, wann er geboren und gestorben ist, und was er innerhalb des äußerlichen Lebens getrieben hat. Daß der Verfasser über diese Tatsachen seines äußeren Lebens ein ewiges Geheimnis erstrebt hat, gehört schon zu der Art, in der er wirken wollte. Nicht das in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte geborene «Ich» dieses oder jenes Menschen soll zu uns sprechen, sondern die Ichheit, auf deren Grund sich «die Besonderheit der Individualitäten» (im Sinne des Ausspruches Paul Asmus', vgl. oben S. 27 f.) erst entwickelt. «Wenn Gott alle Menschen an sich nähme, die da sind und je waren, und in ihnen vermenscht würde, und sie in ihm vergottet, und geschähe es nicht auch an mir, so würden mein Fall und mein Abkehren nimmer gebessert, es geschähe denn auch in mir. Und in dieser Wiederherstellung und Besserung kann und mag und soll ich nichts dazu tun, als ein bloßes lauteres Leiden, also daß Gott allein alle Dinge in mir tue und wirke, und ich leide ihn und alle seine Werke und seinen göttlichen Willen. Aber so ich das nicht leiden will, sondern mich besitze mit Eigenschaft, d. i. mit Mein und Ich, Mir, Mich und dergleichen, das hindert Gott, daß er nicht lauterlich allein und ohne Hindernis in mir sein Werk wirken kann. Darum so bleibt auch mein Fall und mein Abkehren ungebessert.» Der «Frankfurter» will nicht als Einzelner sprechen; er will Gott sprechen lassen. Daß er das doch nur als einzelne, besondere Persönlichkeit kann, weiß er natürlich; aber er ist «Gottesfreund», das heißt, ein Mensch, der nicht durch Betrachten das Wesen des Lebens darstellen, sondern durch den lebendigen Geist den Anfang einer Entwicklungsrichtung weisen will. Die Auseinandersetzungen der Schrift sind verschiedene Unterweisungen, wie man zu diesem Wege kommt. Der Grundgedanke kehrt immer wieder: Der Mensch soll abstreifen alles, was mit derjenigen Anschauung zusammenhängt, die ihn als eine einzelne, besondere Persönlichkeit erscheinen läßt. Dieser Gedanke scheint nur im Hinblick auf das sittliche Leben ausgeführt; er ist, ohne weiteres, auch auf das höhere Erkenntnisleben zu übertragen. Man soll in sich vernichten, was als Besonderheit erscheint: dann hört das Sonderdasein auf; das All-Leben zieht in uns ein. Wir können uns nicht dadurch dieses All-Lebens bemächtigen, daß wir es an uns heranziehen. Es kommt in uns, wenn wir das Einzel-Sein in uns zum Schweigen bringen. Wir haben gerade dann das All-Leben am allerwenigsten, wenn wir unser Einzeldasein so betrachten, als wenn in ihm schon das All ruhte. Dies geht erst dann in dem Einzeldasein auf, wenn dieses Einzeldasein nicht für sich in Anspruch nimmt, etwas zu sein. Dieses Beanspruchen des Einzeldaseins nennt die Schrift das «Annehmen». Durch das «Annehmen» macht es sich das «Ich» unmöglich, daß das All-Ich in es einzieht. Das Ich setzt sich dann als Teil, als Unvollkommenes an die Stelle des Ganzen, des Vollkommenen. «Das Vollkommene ist ein Wesen, das in sich und in seinem Wesen alle Wesen begriffen und beschlossen hat, und ohne das und außer dem kein wahres Wesen ist, und in dem alle Dinge ihr Wesen haben; denn es ist aller Dinge Wesen und ist in sich selber unwandelbar und unbeweglich, und verwandelt und bewegt alle anderen Dinge. Aber das Geteilte und Unvollkommene ist das, was aus diesem Vollkommenen entsprungen ist, oder wird, recht wie ein Glanz oder ein Schein, der da ausfließt aus der Sonne oder aus einem Lichte und scheint etwas, dies oder das. Und das heißt Kreatur, und dieser Geteilten aller ist keins das Vollkommene. Also ist auch das Vollkommene der Geteilten keins... Wenn das Vollkommene kommt, so verschmäht man das Geteilte. Wann kommt es aber? Ich spreche: wenn es, sofern es möglich ist, erkannt, empfunden und geschmeckt wird in der Seele; denn der Mangel liegt gänzlich in uns und nicht in ihm. Denn gleich wie die Sonne die ganze Welt erleuchtet und dem einen ebenso nahe ist wie dem anderen, so sieht sie doch ein Blinder nicht. Aber das ist kein Gebrechen der Sonne, sondern des Blinden... Soll mein Auge etwas sehen, so muß es gereinigt werden, oder sein von allen anderen Dingen... Nun möchte man sprechen: sofern es nun unerkenntlich und unbegreiflich ist von allen Kreaturen, und die Seele nun eine Kreatur ist, wie mag es dann in der Seele erkannt werden?» Antwort: darum spricht man, die Kreatur soll als Kreatur erkannt werden. Das heißt so viel, als alle Kreatur soll als Kreatürlichkeit und Geschaffenheit angesehen werden, und nicht, wodurch dies Erkennen unmöglich ist, als Ichheit und Selbstheit sich betrachten. «Denn in welcher Kreatur dies Vollkommene erkannt werden soll, da muß Kreatürlichkeit, Geschaffenheit, Ichheit, Selbstheit und dergleichen alles verloren und zu nichte werden.» (1. Kapitel der Schrift des Frankfurters.) Die Seele muß also in sich sehen, da findet sie ihre Ichheit, ihre Selbstheit. Bleibt sie dabei stehen, so scheidet sie sich von dem Vollkommenen ab. Betrachtet sie ihre Ichheit nur als eine ihr gleichsam geliehene und vernichtet sie im Geiste dieselbe, so wird sie von dem Strom des All-Lebens, der Vollkommenheit, erfaßt. «Wenn sich die Kreatur etwas Gutes annimmt, als Wesens, Lebens, Wissens, Erkennens, Vermögens, kürzlich alles dessen, das man gut nennen soll, und meint, daß sie das sei oder daß es das Ihre sei oder ihr zugehöre oder daß es von ihr sei: so oft und viel das geschieht, so kehrt sie sich ab.» Es hat «die geschaffene Seele des Menschen zwei Augen. Das eine ist die Möglichkeit, zu sehen in die Ewigkeit; das andere, zu sehen in die Zeit und in die Kreatur.» «Der Mensch sollte also gar frei ohne sich selbst stehen und sein, das ist ohne Selbstheit, Ichheit, Mir, Mein, Mich und desgleichen, also daß er sich und des Seinen so wenig suchte und meinte in allen Dingen, als ob es nicht wäre; und sollte auch also wenig von sich selber halten, als ob er nicht wäre, und als ob ein anderer alle seine Werke getan hätte.» (5. Kapitel.) Auch bei dem Verfasser dieser Sätze muß man damit rechnen, daß der Vorstellungsgehalt, dem er durch seine höheren Ideen und Empfindungen eine Richtung gibt, derjenige eines gläubigen Priesters im Sinne seiner Zeit ist. Hier handelt es sich nicht um den Vorstellungsinhalt, sondern um die Richtung, nicht um die Gedanken, sondern um die Geistesart. Wer nicht wie er in christlichen Dogmen, sondern in Vorstellungen der Naturwissenschaft lebt, prägt andere Gedanken seinen Sätzen ein; aber er weist mit diesen anderen Gedanken nach derselben Richtung hin. Und diese Richtung ist die, welche zur Ãœberwindung der Selbstheit durch diese Selbstheit selber führt. Dem Menschen leuchtet in seinem Ich das höchste Licht. Aber dieses Licht gibt seiner Vorstellungswelt nur den rechten Widerschein, wenn er gewahr wird, daß es nicht sein Selbstlicht ist, sondern das allgemeine Weltlicht. Es gibt daher keine wichtigere Erkenntnis als die Selbsterkenntnis; und es gibt zugleich keine, die so vollkommen über sich selbst hinausführt. Wenn das «Ich» sich recht erkennt, so ist es schon kein «Ich» mehr. In seiner Sprache drückt das der Verfasser der in Rede stehenden Schrift so aus: «Denn Gottes Eigenschaft ist ohne dies und ohne das und ohne Selbstheit und Ichheit; aber der Kreatur Natur und Eigen ist, daß sie sich selber und das Ihre, und das dies und das sucht und will; und in all dem, was sie tut oder läßt, will sie ihren Frommen und Nutzen empfangen. Wo nun die Kreatur oder der Mensch sein Eigen und seine Selbstheit und sich selbst verliert, und von sich selbst ausgeht, da geht Gott ein mit seinem Eigen, das ist mit seiner Selbstheit.» (24. Kapitel.) Der Mensch steigt von einer Anschauung über sein «Ich», die ihm dieses als sein Wesen erscheinen läßt, zu einer solchen empor, die es ihm als bloßes Organ zeigt, in dem das Allwesen auf sich wirkt. Innerhalb des Vorstellungskreises unserer Schrift heißt das: «Kann der Mensch dazu gelangen, daß er Gottes ebenso zugehörig ist, wie die Hand des Menschen diesem zugehörig ist, dann lasse er sich genügen und suche nicht weiter.» (54. Kapitel.) Das soll nicht heißen, der Mensch soll in einem gewissen Punkte seiner Entwicklung stehen bleiben, sondern er soll, wenn er soweit ist, wie in obigen Worten angedeutet ist, nicht weiter Untersuchungen über die Bedeutung der Hand anstellen, sondern vielmehr die Hand gebrauchen, auf daß sie dem Körper, dem sie gehört, Dienste leiste.
[ 6 ] Heinrich Suso und Johannes Ruysbroek hatten eine Geistesart, die man als Genialität des Gemüts bezeichnen darf. Ihr Gefühl wird von etwas Instinktartigem dahin gezogen, wohin Eckharts und Taulers Gefühle durch höheres Vorstellungsleben geführt worden sind. Inbrünstig wendet sich Susos Herz nach einem Urwesen, das den einzelnen Menschen ebenso umfaßt wie die ganze übrige Welt, und in dem er, sich selbst vergessend, aufgehen will wie ein Wassertropfen in dem großen Ozean. Er redet von diesem seinem Sehnen nach dem Allwesen nicht wie von etwas, das er mit Gedanken umspannen will; er redet davon wie von einem Naturtrieb, der seine Seele trunken macht nach Vernichtung ihres Sonderdaseins und nach dem Wiederaufleben in der Allwirksamkeit des unendlichen Wesens. «Zu dem Wesen kehre deine Augen in seiner lauteren bloßen Einfältigkeit, daß du fallen lassest dies und das teilhaftige Wesen. Nimm allein Wesen an sich selbst, das unvermischt sei mit Nichtwesen; denn alles Nichtwesen leugnet alles Wesen; ebenso tut das Wesen an sich selbst, das leugnet alles Nichtwesen. Ein Ding, das noch werden soll, oder gewesen ist, das ist jetzt nicht in wesentlicher Gegenwärtigkeit. Nun kann man vermischtes Wesen oder Nichtwesen nicht erkennen, denn mit einem Gemerk des alligen Wesens. Denn so man ein Ding will verstehen, so begegnet der Vernunft zuerst Wesen, und das ist ein alle Dinge wirkendes Wesen. Es ist nicht ein zerteiltes Wesen dieser oder der Kreatur; denn das geteilte Wesen ist alles vermischt mit etwas Anderheit einer Möglichkeit, etwas zu empfangen. Darum, so muß das namenlose göttliche Wesen in sich selbst ein alliges Wesen sein, das alle zerteilte Wesen erhält mit seiner Gegenwärtigkeit.» So spricht Suso in der Selbstbiographie, die er im Verein mit seiner Schülerin Elsbet Stäglin niedergeschrieben hat. Auch er ist ein frommer Priester und lebt ganz in dem christlichen Vorstellungskreis. Er lebt so darin, als ob es ganz undenkbar wäre, daß man mit seiner Geistesrichtung in einer anderen Geisteswelt leben könnte. Aber auch von ihm gilt, daß man doch mit seiner Geistesrichtung einen anderen Vorstellungsinhalt verbinden kann. Es spricht dafür deutlich, wie für ihn der Inhalt der christlichen Lehre zum inneren Erlebnis, sein Verhältnis zu Christus zu einem solchen zwischen seinem Geiste und der ewigen Wahrheit in rein ideellgeistiger Weise wird. Er hat ein «Büchlein von der ewigen Weisheit» verfaßt. In diesem läßt er die «ewige Weisheit» zu ihrem «Diener», also wohl zu ihm selbst, sprechen: «Erkennest du mich nicht? Wie bist du sogar niedergesunken, oder ist dir von Herzenleid die Besinnung geschwunden, mein zartes Kind? Ich bin es doch, die barmherzige Weisheit, die da den Abgrund der grundlosen Barmherzigkeit, welcher allen Heiligen dennoch verborgen ist, weit aufgeschlossen hat, dich und alle reuige Herzen gütlich zu empfangen; ich bin es, die süße, ewige Weisheit, die da arm und elend ward, daß ich dich zu deiner Würde wiederbrächte; ich bin es, die den bittern Tod erlitt, daß ich dich wieder lebendig machte! Ich stehe hier bleich und blutig und minniglich, als ich stand an dem hohen Galgen des Kreuzes, zwischen dem strengen Gerichte meines Vaters und dir. Ich bin es, dein Bruder; lug, ich bin es, dein Gemahl! Ich habe also gar vergessen alles, das du je wider mich tatest, als ob es nie geschehen wäre, so du dich nun gänzlich zu mir kehrest und dich nicht mehr von mir scheidest.» Alles Körperlich-Zeitliche in der christlichen Weltvorstellung ist für Suso, wie man sieht, zu einem geistig-idealischen Prozeß im Innern seiner Seele geworden. - Aus einigen Kapiteln der erwähnten Lebensbeschreibung Susos könnte es scheinen, als ob er nicht durch die bloße Betätigung der eigenen Geisteskraft, sondern durch äußerliche Offenbarungen, durch geisthafte Visionen sich hätte leiten lassen. Doch spricht er auch seine Meinung darüber ganz klar aus. Zur Wahrheit gelangt man nur durch Vernünftigkeit, nicht durch irgend welche Offenbarung. «Den Unterschied zwischen lauterer Wahrheit und zweifeligen Visionen in bekennender Materie... will ich dir auch sagen. Ein mittelloses Schauen der bloßen Gottheit, das ist rechte lautere Wahrheit, ohne allen Zweifel; und eine jede Vision, je vernünftiger und bildloser sie ist, und derselben bloßen Schauung je gleicher, um so edler ist sie.» - Auch der Meister Eckhart läßt darüber keinen Zweifel, daß er die Anschauung ablehnt, die in körperlich-räumlichen Gebilden, in Erscheinungen, die man wie sinnliche wahrnehmen kann, das Geistige schauen will. Geister von der Art Susos und Eckharts sind somit Gegner einer Auffassung, wie sie sich in dem im 19. Jahrhundert zur Entwicklung gekommenen Spiritismus zum Ausdruck bringt.
[ 7 ] Johannes Ruysbroek, der belgische Mystiker, ging die gleichen Wege wie Suso. Sein geistiger Weg fand einen lebhaften Angreifer in Johannes Gerson (geb. 1363), der eine Zeitlang Kanzler der Pariser Universität war und eine bedeutsame Rolle beim Konstanzer Konzil spielte. Es wirft einiges Licht auf das Wesen derjenigen Mystik, die in Tauler, Suso und Ruysbroek ihre Pfleger fand, wenn man sie vergleicht mit den mystischen Bestrebungen Gersons, der in Richard v. St. Viktor, Bonaventura u. a. Vorgänger hatte. - Ruysbroek selbst kämpfte gegen diejenigen, die er zu den ketzerischen Mystikern zählte. Als solche galten ihm alle die, welche durch ein leichtfertiges Verstandesurteil alle Dinge für den Ausfluß eines Urwesens halten, die also in der Welt nur eine Mannigfaltigkeit sehen und in Gott die Einheit dieser Mannigfaltigkeit. Zu ihnen rechnete sich Ruysbroek nicht, denn er wußte, daß man nicht durch Betrachtung der Dinge selbst zum Urwesen kommen könne, sondern nur dadurch, daß man sich von dieser niederen zu einer höheren Betrachtungsweise erhebe. Ebenso wandte er sich gegen diejenigen, welche in dem einzelnen Menschen, in seinem Sonderdasein (in seiner Kreatürlichkeit), ohne weiteres auch seine höhere Natur sehen wollten. Nicht wenig beklagte er auch den Irrtum, der alle Unterschiede in der Sinnenwelt verwischt, und leichten Sinnes sagt, nur dem Scheine nach seien die Dinge verschieden, dem Wesen nach seien sie alle gleich. Das wäre für eine Denkweise, wie diejenige Ruysbroeks ist, gerade so, als wenn man sagte: Daß die Bäume einer Allee für unser Sehen in der Entfernung zusammenlaufen, ginge uns nichts an. Sie seien in Wirklichkeit überall gleich weit entfernt, deshalb müßten unsere Augen sich gewöhnen, richtig zu sehen. Aber unsere Augen sehen richtig. Daß die Bäume zusammenlaufen, beruht auf einem notwendigen Naturgesetz; und wir haben nichts gegen unser Sehen einzuwenden, sondern im Geiste zu erkennen, warum wir so sehen. Auch der Mystiker wendet sich nicht ab von den sinnlichen Dingen. Als sinnliche nimmt er sie hin, wie sie sind. Und ihm ist auch klar, daß sie durch kein Verstandesurteil anders werden können. Aber er geht im Geiste über Sinne und Verstand hinaus, und dann erst findet er die Einheit. Sein Glaube ist ein unerschütterlicher, daß er sich zum Schauen dieser Einheit entwickeln kann. Deshalb schreibt er der menschlichen Natur den göttlichen Funken zu, der in ihm zum Leuchten, zum Selbstleuchten gebracht werden kann. Anders Geister von der Art Gersons. Sie glauben nicht an dieses Selbstleuchten. Für sie bleibt das, was der Mensch schauen kann, immer ein Äußeres, das von irgendeiner Seite auch äußerlich an sie heran kommen muß. Ruysbroek glaubte, daß die höchste Weisheit dem mystischen Schauen aufleuchten müsse; Gerson glaubte nur, daß die Seele einen äußeren Lehrgehalt (den der Kirche) beleuchten könne. Für Gerson war Mystik nichts anderes, als ein warmes Gefühl haben für alles, was in diesem Lehrgehalt geoffenbart ist. Für Ruysbroek war sie ein Glaube, daß aller Lehrgehalt in der Seele auch geboren wird. Deshalb tadelt Gerson an Ruysbroek, daß dieser sich einbilde, er besitze nicht bloß das Vermögen mit Klarheit das Allwesen zu schauen, sondern in diesem Schauen drücke sich selbst eine Tätigkeit des Allwesens aus. Ruysbroek konnte von Gerson eben nicht verstanden werden. Beide sprachen von zwei ganz verschiedenen Dingen. Ruysbroek hat das Seelenleben im Auge, das sich in seinen Gott einlebt; Gerson nur ein Seelenleben, das den Gott lieben will, den es in sich selbst nimmer zu leben vermag. Wieso viele, kämpfte auch Gerson gegen etwas, das ihm nur fremd war, weil er es in der Erfahrung nicht fassen konnte. 1In meinen Schriften wird man verschiedener Art über «Mystik» gesprochen finden. Man wird den scheinbaren Widerspruch, den manche Persönlichkeiten darin finden wollen, aufgeklärt finden in den Anmerkungen zur Neuauflage meiner »Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung», S. 139f.
II Friendship with God
[ 1 ] In Johannes Tauler (1300-136I), Heinrich Soso (1295-1366) and Johannes Ruysbroeck (1295-1366) we get to know personalities in whose life and work the movements of the soul are revealed in the most vivid way, which a spiritual path such as that of Meister Eckhart causes in deep-seated natures. If Eckhart appears like a man who, in the blissful experience of spiritual rebirth, speaks of the nature and essence of knowledge as of a picture that he has succeeded in painting, the others present themselves as wanderers to whom this rebirth has shown a new path that they want to walk, but whose goal seems infinitely distant to them. Eckhart describes more the glories of his image, they the difficulties of the new path. One must be completely clear about man's attitude to his higher knowledge if one wants to understand the difference between personalities like Eckhart and Tauler. The human being is caught up in the world of the senses and in the laws of nature by which the world of the senses is governed. He is himself a result of this world. He lives in that its forces and substances are active in him; indeed, he perceives this world of the senses and judges it according to the laws by which it and he are constructed. When he directs his eye towards an object, not only does the object present itself to him as a sum of interacting forces governed by the laws of nature, but the eye itself is a body constructed according to such laws and by such forces; and seeing takes place according to such laws and through such forces. If we had come to an end in natural science, we could probably follow this play of natural forces in the sense of the laws of nature up to the highest regions of thought formation. - But in doing so, we are already rising above this play. Do we not stand above all mere natural lawfulness when we overlook how we integrate ourselves into nature? We see with our eyes according to the laws of nature. But we also recognize the laws by which we see. We can place ourselves on a higher level and at the same time see the outside world and ourselves in their interplay. Is there not an entity at work in us that is higher than the sensual-organic personality that works according to natural laws and with natural forces? Is there still a dividing wall between our inner being and the outside world in such activity? That which judges, that which enlightens, is no longer our individual personality; it is rather the general world entity which has torn down the barrier between the inner world and the outer world, and which now embraces both. As true as it is that I still remain the same individual in outward appearance when I have torn down the barrier in this way, it is also true that I am in essence no longer this individual. The feeling now lives in me that the All-Being speaks in my soul, which embraces me and all the world. - Such feelings live in Tauler when he says: "Man is right, as if he were three men, his animal man, as he is according to the senses, then his rational man, and finally his supreme God-shaped, God-formed man... The one is the outward, animal, sensual man; the other is the inward, rational man, with his rational powers; the third man is the mind, the supreme part of the soul" (cf. W. Preger, "Geschichte der deutschen Mystik", 3rd vol., p. 161). Eckhart explained how this third person is superior to the first and second in the following words: "The eye through which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye are one eye and one seeing and one recognizing and one feeling." But in Tauler, another perception lives alongside this one. He struggles through to a real view of the spiritual and does not continually, like the false materialists and the false idealists, mix the sensual-natural with the spiritual. If Tauler, with his mindset, had become a naturalist, he would have had to insist on explaining everything natural, including the whole human being, the first and the second, in purely natural terms. He would never have put "purely" spiritual forces into nature itself. He would not have spoken of an "expediency" in nature conceived according to the human pattern. He knew that where we perceive with our senses, there are no "thoughts of creation" to be found. Rather, he had the strongest possible awareness of the fact that man is a purely natural being. And since he did not feel himself to be a natural scientist, but rather a nurturer of moral life, he felt the contrast that arose between this natural being of man and the vision of God that arises in the midst of naturalness, in a natural way, but as spirituality. It was precisely in this contrast that the meaning of life became apparent to him. Man finds himself as an individual being, as a natural creature. And no science can reveal to him anything else about this life than that he is such a creature of nature. As a creature of nature, he cannot transcend the creatureliness of nature. He must remain within it. And yet his inner life leads him beyond it. He must have confidence in that which no science of external nature can give and show him. If he calls this nature that which exists, he must be able to penetrate to the view that recognizes the non-existent as the higher. Tauler does not seek a God who exists in the sense of a natural force; he does not seek a God who would have created the world in the sense of human creations. In him lives the realization that even the concept of creation of the Doctors of the Church is only idealized human creation. It is clear to him that God cannot be found in the same way that science finds the workings of nature and the laws of nature. Tauler is aware that we must not think of anything in addition to nature as God. He knows that whoever, in his sense, thinks God, thinks no more thought content than whoever has conceived nature in thought. Tauler therefore does not want to think God, but he wants to think divinely. Knowledge of nature is not enriched by knowledge of God, but transformed. The knower of God does not know differently from the knower of nature, but knows differently. The knower of God cannot add one letter to the knowledge of nature; but a new light shines through his entire knowledge of nature.
[ 2 ] Which basic feelings take possession of the soul of a person who looks at the world from such points of view will depend on how he looks at the experience of the soul that spiritual rebirth brings. Within this experience man is entirely a natural being when he looks at himself in interaction with the rest of nature; and he is entirely a spiritual being when he looks at the state which his transformation brings him. One can therefore say with equal justification that the deepest ground of the soul is still natural, just as it is already divine. Tauler, in accordance with his way of thinking, emphasized the former. No matter how deeply we penetrate our souls, we always remain individuals, he said to himself. But the universal being nevertheless shines forth in the soul of the individual. Tauler was dominated by the feeling: you cannot detach yourself from the individual, you cannot purify yourself from it. That is why the all-being cannot emerge in you in its purity, but can only shine on the ground of your soul. In this only a reflection, an image of the All Being comes into being. You can transform your individual personality in such a way that it reflects the All-Being in the image; but this All-Being itself does not shine in you. From such ideas, Tauler arrived at the thought of a deity that never completely merges into the human world, never flows into it. Indeed, he makes a point of not being confused with those who declare the inner being of man himself to be divine. He says that the union with God "is taken carnally by unintelligent men, who say that it should be transformed into divine nature; but this is especially false and wicked heresy. For even in the highest, closest, most intimate union with God, divine nature and God's essence are high, indeed higher than all heights; that which never becomes a creature goes into a divine abyss." In the spirit of his time and in the spirit of his priestly profession, Tauler rightly wants to be called a devout Catholic. He was not interested in opposing Christianity with a different view. He only wants to deepen and spiritualize this Christianity through his view. Like a pious priest, he speaks of the content of Scripture. But in his imagination, this scripture becomes a means of expression for the innermost experiences of his soul. "God works all his works in the soul and gives them to the soul, and the Father gives birth to his only begotten Son in the soul, just as he gives birth to him in eternity, neither less nor more. What is born when one says: God gives birth in the soul? Is it a likeness of God, or is it an image of God, or is it something of God? No, it is neither an image nor a likeness of God, but the same God and the same Son whom the Father gives birth to in eternity, and nothing else, for the mincible divine Word, who is the other Person in the Trinity, is born of the Father in the soul... and from this the soul thus has great and special worthiness" (cf. Preger, "Geschichte der deutschen Mystik", 3rd vol., p. 219 f). €" For Tauler, the stories of Scripture become the garment in which he wraps the processes of inner life. "Herod, who chased away the child and wanted to kill it, is an example of the world that still wants to kill this child in a believing person, which is why we should and must flee from it if we want to keep the child alive in us, but the child is the enlightened believing soul of every human being."
[ 3 ] Tauler, because he focuses on the natural man, is less concerned with saying what will happen when the higher man enters the natural man than with finding the paths that the lower powers of the personality must take if they are to be transferred to the higher life. As the caretaker of the moral life, he wants to show man the ways to the universal being. He has the unconditional faith and trust that the All-being will light up in man if he arranges his life in such a way that there is a place for the divine in him. But this all-being can never shine forth if man closes himself off in his mere, natural, individual personality. In Tauler's language, this self-contained man is only a member of the world, a single creature. The more man encloses himself in this existence as a member of the world, the less room there is for the universal being within him. "If man is to become one with God in truth, then all the powers of the inner man must also die and be silent. The will itself must be stripped of goodness and all will and become will-less." "Man must withdraw from all his senses and relinquish all his powers, and come to forget all things and himself." "For the true and eternal word of God is spoken only in the wilderness, when man has gone out from himself and from all things, and stands completely alone, desolate and lonely."
[ 4 ] When Tauler was at his height, the question became the focus of his imaginative life: how can man destroy and overcome his individual existence within himself so that he can live in the spirit of all-life? Whoever finds himself in this situation, his feelings towards the All-being merge into one: Reverence for this All-being, as that which is inexhaustible, infinite. He says to himself: whatever level you have reached, there are still higher vistas, still more sublime possibilities. As definite and clear to him is the direction in which he has to move his steps, so clear is it to him that he can never speak of a goal. A new goal is only the beginning of a new path. Through such a new goal man has reached a degree of development; the development itself moves into the immeasurable. And what it will achieve at a more distant stage, it never knows in the present. There is no recognition of the final goal; only confidence in the path, in development. There is a recognition for everything that man has already achieved. It consists in penetrating an already existing object through the powers of our spirit. There is no such recognition for the higher life of the inner being. Here the powers of our spirit must first bring the object itself into existence; they must first create an existence for it that is like natural existence. Natural science traces the development of beings from the simplest to the most perfect, man himself. This development lies before us as a completed one. We recognize it by penetrating it with our spiritual powers. Once the development has reached man, he finds no further continuation. He carries out the further development himself. He now lives what he merely recognizes for earlier stages. He creates after the object what he creates for the preceding only according to the spiritual being. That truth is not one with what exists in nature, but that it naturally embraces what exists and what does not exist: Tauler is completely filled with this in all his sentiments. It has been handed down to us that he was led to this fulfillment by an enlightened layman, a "friend of God from the Oberland". There is a mysterious story here. There is only conjecture about where this friend of God lived; not even about who he was. He is said to have heard a lot about Tauler's way of preaching and, after hearing this, decided to travel to Tauler, who was working as a preacher in Strasbourg, in order to fulfill a task for him. Tauler's relationship with his friend of God and the influence he exerted on him are described in a booklet that is included in the oldest editions of Tauler's sermons under the title "The Master's Book". In it, a friend of God, in whom one wants to recognize the one who has entered into a relationship with Tauler, tells of a "master" as whom one wants to recognize Tauler himself. He tells how a turnaround, a spiritual rebirth was brought about in a "master", and how this master, when he felt his death approaching, called the friend to him and asked him to write the story of his "enlightenment", but to ensure that no one would ever know who was mentioned in the book. He asked for this because all the insights that emanate from him are not from him. "For know that God has wrought all things through me poor worm, it is not mine, it is God's." A scientific dispute that has arisen over the matter is not of the slightest significance for the essence of the matter. One side (Denifle, "Die Dichtungen des Gottesfreundes im Oberlande") has attempted to prove that the God's Friend never existed, but that his existence was invented, and that the books attributed to him were written by someone else (Rulman Merswin). Wilhelm Preger ("Geschichte der deutschen Mystik") has tried to support the existence, the authenticity of the writings and the accuracy of the facts relating to Tauler with many reasons. - It is not for me here to shed light with intrusive research on a human relationship which those who know how to read the writings in question know quite well should remain a secret. (These writings in question are, among others: "Von eime eiginwilligen weltwisen manne, der von eime heiligen weltpriestere gewiset war uffe demuetige gehorsamme", 1338; "Das Buch von den zwei Mannen"; "Der gefangene Ritter", 1349; "Die geistliche stege", 1350; "Von der geistlichen Leiter", 1357; "Das Meisterbuch", 1369; "Geschichte von zwei jungen 15 jährigen Knaben"). If it is said of Tauler that he underwent a transformation at a certain stage of his life, such as the one I will now describe, that is quite sufficient. Tauler's personality no longer comes into consideration, but a personality "in general". As far as Tauler is concerned, we are only concerned with understanding his transformation from the point of view indicated by the following. If we compare his later work with his earlier one, the fact of this transformation is given without further ado. I omit all external facts and relate the inner soul processes of the "Master" under "the influence of the layman". What my reader thinks of under the "layman" and under the "master" depends entirely on his way of thinking; what I think of it myself, I cannot know for whom else it comes into consideration. - A master teaches his listeners about the relationship of the soul to the all-being of things. He speaks of the fact that man no longer feels the natural, limited powers of the individual personality at work in him when he descends into the abyss of the depths of his soul. It is no longer the individual human being who speaks there, it is God who speaks. There man does not see God or the world; there God sees Himself. Man has become one with God. But the Master knows that this teaching has not yet become fully alive in him. He thinks it with his mind; but he does not yet live in it with every fiber of his personality. He therefore teaches from a state which he has not yet fully undergone within himself. The description of the state corresponds to the truth; but this truth is worth nothing if it does not gain life, if it does not bring itself forth in reality as existence. The "layman" or "friend of God" hears about the Master and his teachings. He is no less imbued with the truth spoken by the master than the master himself. But he does not have this truth as a matter of the intellect. He has it as the whole force of his life. He knows that when this truth has flown in from outside, he can speak it himself without living in the slightest sense of it. One then has nothing but the natural knowledge of the intellect within oneself. This natural knowledge is then spoken of as if it were the highest knowledge, the same as the working of the All-being. It is not, because it is not acquired in a life that has already approached this knowledge as a transformed, as a reborn one. That which one acquires as a mere natural human being remains mere natural, even if one subsequently expresses the basic trait of higher knowledge in words. The transformation must be accomplished out of nature itself. Nature, which has developed to a certain stage when alive, must be further developed through life; new things must arise through this further development. Man must not merely look back to the already existing development and address that which replicates itself in his spirit through this development as the highest; but he must look forward to the uncreated; his cognition must be a beginning of a new content, not an end of the developmental content lying before it. Nature progresses from worm to mammal, from mammal to man, not in a conceptual but in a real process. Man should not merely repeat this process in spirit. The spiritual repetition is only the beginning of a new real development, which is, however, a spiritual reality. Man then does not merely recognize what nature has produced; he continues nature; he transforms his knowledge into living action. He gives birth to the spirit within himself; and this spirit progresses from then on from stage to stage of development, just as nature progresses. The spirit begins a natural process at a higher level. Speaking about the God who sees Himself within man takes on a different character with him who has recognized this. He attaches little importance to the fact that an already attained knowledge has led him into the depths of the universal being; instead his way of thinking acquires a new character. It develops further in the direction determined by the All Being. Such a person not only looks at the world differently than the merely intelligent; he also lives life differently. He does not speak of the sense that life already has through the forces and laws of the world; rather, he first gives this life a new meaning. Just as little as the fish has within itself that which will emerge as a mammal at a later stage of development, so little does the intelligent human being already have within himself that which is to be born of him as a higher human being. If the fish could recognize itself and the things around it, it would regard being a fish as the meaning of life. It would say: The All-being is like the fish; in the fish the All-being sees itself. The fish may speak in this way as long as it merely adheres to its intellectual cognition. In reality, it does not adhere to this. It goes beyond its cognition with its actions. It becomes a crawling animal and later a mammal. The meaning that he gives himself in reality goes beyond the meaning that mere observation gives him. It must be the same with man. He gives himself a meaning in reality; he does not stop at the meaning he already has and which his contemplation shows him. Cognition leaps beyond itself, if only it understands itself correctly. Cognition cannot derive the world from a finished God; it can only develop from a germ in the direction of a God. Man who has grasped this does not want to regard God as something that is outside him; he wants to treat God as a being that walks with him towards a goal that is as unknown in the beginning as the nature of the mammal is unknown to the fish. He does not want to be a recognizer of the hidden, or revealing, existing God, but a friend of the divine action and activity that is elevated above being and non-being. A "friend of God" in this sense was the layman who came to the Master. And through him, the master turned from an observer of the essence of God into a "living being in the spirit" who not only observed, but lived in a higher sense. He no longer drew concepts and ideas of the intellect from within himself, but these concepts and ideas emerged from him as a living, essential spirit. He no longer merely edified his listeners; he shook them. He no longer sank their souls into their inner being; he led them into a new life. We are told this symbolically: around forty people fell down as a result of his sermon and were as if dead.
[ 5 ] The guide to such a new life is a writing about whose author nothing is known. Luther first made it known through print. The linguist Franz Pfeiffer has recently printed it from a manuscript dating back to 1497, with a new German translation of the original text. What precedes the text indicates its intention and purpose: "Here the Frankfurter begins and says very high and beautiful things about a perfect life." This is followed by "the preface about the Frankfurter": "This little book has been spoken by the almighty, eternal God through a wise, understanding, truthful, righteous man, his friend, who was a German gentleman, a priest and a custos in the German gentlemen's house in Frankfurt; it teaches many a lovely insight into divine truth, and especially how and by what means one may recognize the true, righteous friends of God, and also the unrighteous, false, free spirits, who are quite harmful to the holy church." - By "free spirits" we may understand those who live in a world of imagination, like the "master" described above before his transformation by the "friend of God", and by the "true, righteous friends of God" those with the attitude of the "layman". One may also ascribe to the book the intention of having the same effect on its readers as the "God's friend in the Oberland" had on the Master. We do not know the author. But what does that mean? We do not know when he was born and died, or what he did in his outward life. The fact that the author strove for an eternal mystery about these facts of his external life is already part of the way in which he wanted to work. It is not the "I" of this or that person born at a certain point in time that should speak to us, but the "I-ness" on the basis of which "the particularity of individualities" (in the sense of Paul Asmus' saying, cf. p. 27 f. above) first develops. "If God were to take all human beings who are and ever were, and were to humanize them, and were to deify them in him, and if this were not also to happen to me, then my fall and my turning away would never be improved, for it would also happen in me. And in this restoration and improvement I can and may and should do nothing but a mere pure suffering, so that God alone does and works all things in me, and I suffer him and all his works and his divine will. But if I do not want to suffer this, but possess myself with attribute, i.e. with My and I, Me, Myself and the like, this prevents God from working His work in me honestly alone and without hindrance. That is why my fall and my turning away remain unimproved." The "Frankfurter" does not want to speak as an individual; he wants to let God speak. Of course, he knows that he can only do this as an individual, special personality; but he is a "friend of God", that is, a person who does not want to represent the essence of life through contemplation, but who wants to show the beginning of a direction of development through the living spirit. The disputes in Scripture are various instructions on how to arrive at this path. The basic idea recurs again and again: man should cast off everything that is connected with the view that makes him appear as a single, special personality. This thought only seems to be applied to the moral life; it can also easily be transferred to the higher life of knowledge. One should destroy in oneself what appears to be special: then the special existence ceases; the all-life moves into us. We cannot take possession of this all-life by drawing it towards us. It comes into us when we silence the individual being within us. We have the All-life least of all when we regard our individual existence as if the All already rested in it. This only merges into the individual existence when this individual existence does not claim to be something. Scripture calls this claiming of individual existence "acceptance". By "accepting", the "I" makes it impossible for the All-I to move into it. The ego then replaces the whole, the perfect, as a part, as the imperfect. "The perfect is a being which in itself and in its being has comprehended and determined all beings, and without which and apart from which there is no true being, and in which all things have their being; for it is the being of all things and is in itself immutable and immovable, and transforms and moves all other things. But that which is divided and imperfect is that which has sprung, or becomes, from this perfection, just like a radiance or a glow that flows out of the sun or out of a light and shines something, this or that. And this is called a creature, and none of these divided things is perfect. So also the perfect of the divided is none... When the perfect comes, the divided is spurned. But when does it come? I say: when it is recognized, felt and tasted in the soul, if it is possible; for the lack is entirely in us and not in it. For just as the sun illuminates the whole world and is as close to one person as to another, so a blind person does not see it. But this is not a defect of the sun, but of the blind man... If my eye is to see anything, it must be purified, or be purified from all other things... Now one would like to say: if it is now unrecognizable and incomprehensible by all creatures, and the soul is now a creature, how can it then be recognized in the soul?" Answer: therefore one speaks, the creature is to be recognized as a creature. This means that all creatures should be regarded as creatureliness and nature, and not, whereby this recognition is impossible, as ego and selfhood. "For in whichever creature this perfection is to be recognized, creatureliness, nature, ego, selfhood and the like must all be lost and come to nothing." (Chapter 1 of Frankfurter's writing.) The soul must therefore look within itself, there it finds its ego, its selfhood. If it stops there, it separates itself from perfection. If it regards its I-ness only as one lent to it, as it were, and destroys it in the spirit, it is seized by the stream of all-life, of perfection. "When the creature assumes something good, as being, life, knowledge, cognition, ability, recently everything that should be called good, and thinks that it is this, or that it is its own, or that it belongs to it, or that it is from it: as often and as much as this happens, it turns away." "The created soul of man has two eyes. One is the ability to see into eternity; the other is the ability to see into time and into the creature." "Man should therefore stand and be quite free without himself, that is, without selfhood, I-ness, Me, Mine, Me and the like, so that he should seek and think so little of himself and his own in all things as if it were not; and should also think so little of himself as if he were not, and as if another had done all his works." (Chapter 5) In the case of the author of these sentences, too, one must reckon with the fact that the conceptual content to which he gives direction through his higher ideas and feelings is that of a believing priest in the sense of his time. Here it is not a question of the conceptual content, but of the direction, not of the thoughts, but of the way of thinking. He who does not live, as he does, in Christian dogmas, but in ideas of natural science, imprints other thoughts on his propositions; but with these other thoughts he points in the same direction. And this direction is the one that leads to the overcoming of selfhood through this selfhood itself. The highest light shines for man in his ego. But this light only gives the right reflection to his imaginary world when he realizes that it is not his self-light, but the general world-light. There is therefore no more important knowledge than self-knowledge; and at the same time there is none that leads so completely beyond itself. If the "I" recognizes itself correctly, it is no longer an "I". The author of the scripture in question expresses this in his own language: "For God's attribute is without this and without that and without selfhood and ego; but the nature and property of the creature is that it seeks and wants itself and its own, and this and that; and in all that it does or leaves undone, it wants to receive its piety and benefit. Now where the creature or man loses his own and his selfhood and himself, and goes out from himself, there God enters in with his own, that is, with his selfhood." (Chapter 24.) Man rises from a view of his "I" which makes it appear to him as his essence, to one which shows it to him as a mere organ in which the All-being acts upon itself. Within the conceptual circle of our Scripture this means: "If man can come to the conclusion that he belongs to God just as much as the hand of man belongs to God, then let him be content and seek no further." (Chapter 54.) This is not to say that man should stop at a certain point in his development, but that when he has reached the point indicated in the above words, he should make no further inquiry into the meaning of the hand, but rather use the hand so that it may render service to the body to which it belongs.
[ 6 ] Heinrich Suso and Johannes Ruysbroek had a way of thinking that can be described as genius of the mind. Their feelings are drawn by something instinctive, where Eckhart's and Tauler's feelings were led by higher imagination. Suso's heart turns fervently towards a primordial being that embraces the individual as much as the rest of the world, and in which he, forgetting himself, wants to merge like a drop of water in the great ocean. He does not speak of this longing of his for the All-Being as something he wants to encompass with thoughts; he speaks of it as a natural instinct that makes his soul drunk with the desire for the annihilation of its special existence and for resurrection in the all-effectiveness of the infinite Being. "Turn your eyes to the being in its pure and simple simplicity, so that you drop this and that partaking being. Take only being in itself, which is unmixed with non-being; for all non-being denies all being; so does being in itself, which denies all non-being. A thing that is yet to become, or has been, is not now in essential presence. Now one cannot recognize mixed essence or non-essence except by means of a sign of all essence. For if one wants to understand a thing, reason first encounters essence, and that is an essence that affects all things. It is not a divided essence of this or that creature; for the divided essence is everything mixed with something other than a possibility of receiving something. Therefore, the nameless divine being must be in itself an all-being that sustains all divided beings with its presence." This is what Suso says in his self-biography, which he wrote down together with his student Elsbet Stäglin. He, too, is a pious priest and lives entirely within the Christian concept. He lives in it as if it were quite unthinkable that one could live with his spiritual direction in another spiritual world. But it is also true of him that one can connect a different conceptual content with his spiritual direction. The way in which the content of Christian doctrine becomes an inner experience for him and his relationship to Christ becomes one between his spirit and eternal truth in a purely ideal-spiritual way speaks clearly for this. He wrote a "booklet on eternal wisdom". In it, he lets the "eternal wisdom" speak to its "servant", i.e. probably to himself: "Do you not recognize me? How have you even sunk down, or have you lost your senses from the sorrow of your heart, my tender child? It is I, the merciful Wisdom, who have opened wide the abyss of causeless mercy, which is nevertheless hidden from all saints, to receive you and all repentant hearts graciously; it is I, the sweet, eternal Wisdom, who became poor and miserable, that I might restore you to your dignity; it is I, who suffered bitter death, that I might make you alive again! I stand here, pale and bloody and mincing, as I stood on the high gallows of the cross, between the severe judgment of my Father and you. It is I, your brother; lug, it is I, your spouse! I have forgotten everything that you ever did against me, as if it had never happened, if you now turn to me completely and no longer part from me." For Suso, as we can see, everything physical and temporal in the Christian conception of the world has become a spiritual and ideal process within his soul. - From some chapters of the above-mentioned description of Suso's life, it might seem as if he was not guided by the mere activity of his own spiritual power, but by external revelations, by spiritual visions. Yet he also expresses his opinion on this quite clearly. Truth can only be attained through reason, not through any kind of revelation. "The difference between pure truth and doubtful visions in professed matter... I will also tell you. An unmediated vision of the mere Godhead, that is right pure truth, without all doubt; and every vision, the more reasonable and imageless it is, and the more like the same mere vision, the nobler it is." - Master Eckhart also leaves no doubt that he rejects the view that wants to see the spiritual in physical-spatial formations, in phenomena that can be perceived like sensual ones. Spirits of the kind of Suso and Eckhart are thus opponents of a view as expressed in the spiritualism that developed in the 19th century.
[ 7 ] Johannes Ruysbroek, the Belgian mystic, followed the same path as Suso. His spiritual path found a lively opponent in Johannes Gerson (born 1363), who was chancellor of the University of Paris for a time and played a significant role at the Council of Constance. It sheds some light on the nature of the mysticism that found its fosterers in Tauler, Suso and Ruysbroek when compared with the mystical endeavors of Gerson, who had predecessors in Richard of St. Victor, Bonaventure and others. - Ruysbroek himself fought against those whom he counted as heretical mystics. He regarded as such all those who, through a frivolous intellectual judgment, consider all things to be the outflow of a primordial being, who thus see in the world only a multiplicity and in God the unity of this multiplicity. Ruysbroek did not count himself among them, for he knew that one could not arrive at the primordial being by looking at things themselves, but only by rising from this lower to a higher way of looking at things. In the same way he turned against those who wanted to see in the individual human being, in his special existence (in his creatureliness), his higher nature without further ado. He also deplored the error that blurs all differences in the world of the senses and easily says that things are only different in appearance, but are all the same in essence. For a way of thinking such as Ruysbroek's, this would be just like saying that it is none of our business that the trees of an avenue converge in the distance for our vision. They are in reality the same distance apart everywhere, so our eyes have to get used to seeing correctly. But our eyes see correctly. The fact that the trees converge is based on a necessary law of nature; and we have no objection to our seeing, but to recognize in the spirit why we see that way. The mystic also does not turn away from sensual things. He accepts them as sensual, as they are. And he is also aware that they cannot be changed by any intellectual judgment. But he goes beyond the senses and the intellect in spirit, and only then does he find unity. His faith is unshakeable, that he can develop into seeing this unity. That is why he ascribes to human nature the divine spark that can be made to shine in him, to self-illuminate. Spirits of Gerson's kind are different. They do not believe in this self-luminosity. For them, what man can see always remains an external thing that must also come to them externally from some side. Ruysbroek believed that the highest wisdom must illuminate mystical vision; Gerson only believed that the soul could illuminate an external doctrinal content (that of the church). For Gerson, mysticism was nothing other than having a warm feeling for all that is revealed in this doctrinal content. For Ruysbroek it was a belief that all doctrinal content is also born in the soul. That is why Gerson criticizes Ruysbroek for imagining that he not only possesses the ability to see the All-being with clarity, but that in this seeing he himself expresses an activity of the All-being. Ruysbroek could not be understood by Gerson. Both spoke of two quite different things. Ruysbroek had in mind the life of the soul that lives into its God; Gerson only a life of the soul that wants to love the God that it is never able to live in itself. Why many, Gerson also fought against something that was only alien to him because he could not grasp it in experience. 1In my writings you will find various kinds of talk about "mysticism". One will find the apparent contradiction that some personalities want to find in it clarified in the notes to the new edition of my "Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung", p. 139f.