Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age
GA 7
Meister Eckhart
[ 1 ] Wholly irradiated by the feeling that things are reborn as higher entities in the spirit of man, is the conceptual world of Meister Eckhart. He belonged to the Order of the Dominicans, as did the greatest Christian theologian of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1225 to 1274. Eckhart was an admirer of Thomas in the fullest sense. This is altogether understandable when one examines the whole conceptual framework of Meister Eckhart. He considered himself to be as much in harmony with the teachings of the Christian church as he assumed such an agreement for Thomas. Eckhart did not want to take anything away from the content of Christianity, nor to add anything to it. But he wanted to produce this content anew in his way. It is not among the spiritual needs of a personality such as he was to put new truths of various kinds in place of old ones. He was intimately connected with the content which had been transmitted to him. But he wanted to give a new form, a new life to this content. Without doubt he wanted to remain an orthodox Christian. The Christian truths were his truths. Only he wanted to look at them in a different way than had Thomas Aquinas, for instance. The latter assumed two sources of knowledge: revelation for faith, and reason for inquiry. Reason understands the laws of things, that is, the spiritual in nature. It can also raise itself above nature, and in the spirit grasp, from one side, the divine essence which underlies all nature. But in this way it does not achieve an immersion in the full essence of God. A higher truth must meet it halfway. This is given in the Scriptures. It reveals what by himself man cannot attain. The truth of the Scriptures must be taken for granted by man; reason can defend it, can endeavor to understand it as well as possible by means of its powers of cognition, but it can never produce it out of the human spirit. What the spirit sees is not the highest truth, but is a certain cognitive content which has come to the spirit from outside. St. Augustine declares that within himself he is unable to find the source of what he should believe. He says, “I would not believe the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic church did not move me to do so.” This is in the sense of the Evangelist, who refers us to the external testimony: “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life ... that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us.” But Meister Eckhart wishes to impress upon men Christ's words: “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter [in the German version, der heilige Geist, i.e., the Holy Ghost] will not come unto you.” And he explains these words by saying, “It is as if he said: You have taken too much joy in my present image, therefore the perfect joy of the Holy Ghost cannot be in you.” Eckhart thinks that he is speaking of no God other than the one of whom Augustine and the Evangelist and Thomas speak, and yet their testimony of God is not his testimony. “Some people want to look upon God with their eyes, as they look upon a cow, and want to love God as they love a cow. Thus they love God for the sake of external riches and of internal solace; but these people do not love God aright ... Foolish people deem that they should look upon God as though He stood there and they here. It is not thus. God and I are one in the act of knowing.” Such declarations in Eckhart are based on nothing but the experience of the inner sense. And this experience shows things to him in a higher light. He therefore does not think that he needs an external light in order to attain to the highest insights: “A master says, God has become man; through this all mankind is raised and exalted. Let us rejoice that Christ our brother has ascended by his own strength above all the angelic choirs and sits on the right hand of the Father. This master has spoken well, but in truth, I do not set great store by it. What would it avail me if I had a brother who was a rich man, and for my part I were a poor man? What would it avail me if I had a brother who was a wise man, and I were a fool? ... The Heavenly Father brings forth his only-begotten Son in Himself and in me. Why in Himself and in me? I am one with Him, and He cannot shut me out. In the same act the Holy Ghost receives its being, and it arises through me as it does through God. Why? I am in God, and if the Holy Ghost does not take its being from me it does not take it from God either. I am not shut out in any way.” When Eckhart reminds us of the word of Paul: “Clothe yourselves in Jesus Christ,” he wishes to give to this word the following meaning: Become submerged in yourselves, plunge down into self-contemplation, and from the depths of your being God will shine upon you; He will outshine everything for you; you have found Him within yourselves; you have become united with God's essence. “God has become man so that I might become God.” In his treatise Über die Abgeschiedenheit, Concerning Solitude, Eckhart expresses himself on the relationship of external to internal perception: “Here you must know that the masters say that in each man there are two kinds of men: one is called the external man, that is, sensuousness; man is served by five senses, nevertheless he acts through the force of the soul. The other man is called the inner man, that is, the interior of man. Now you must know that every man who loves God does not use the faculties of the soul in the external man any more than is required by the five senses; and the interior does not turn to the five senses except as it is the director and guide of the five senses and watches over them so that, in their strivings, they do not pander to animality.” One who speaks in this way about the inner man can no longer fix his eye upon a nature of things which lies sensorily outside him. For he is aware that this nature cannot confront him in any kind of sensory outside world. To him one might object, What have the things in the outside world to do with what you add to them out of your spirit. Trust your senses. They alone give you intelligence of the outside world. Do not falsify with a spiritual trimming what your senses give you in purity, without decoration, as a picture of the external world. Your eye tells you what a color is like; nothing that your spirit apprehends concerning the color is in the color. From the point of view of Meister Eckhart one would have to answer: the senses are physical devices. Their communications about things therefore can concern only the physical aspect of things. And this physical aspect of things communicates itself to me by the excitation of a physical process within myself. Color as a physical process of the outside world gives rise to a physical process in my eye and in my brain. Through this I perceive the color. But in this way I can perceive in the color only what is physical, sensory. Sensory perception excludes all those aspects of things which are not sensory. It divests things of all that is not sensory in them. If I then proceed to the spiritual, the idea-content, I only re-establish that aspect of things which sensory perception has effaced. Hence sensory perception does not show me the deepest nature of things; rather it separates me from this nature. Spiritual comprehension, comprehension by the idea, again connects me with this nature. It shows me that within themselves things are of exactly the same spiritual nature as I myself. The boundary between me and the external world is abolished by the spiritual comprehension of the world. I am separated from the external world insofar as I am a sensory thing among sensory things. My eye and the color are two different entities. My brain and the plant are two. But the idea-content of the plant and of the color, together with the idea-content of my brain and of the eye, belong to a unified idea-entity.—This view must not be confused with the widespread anthropomorphizing world view which thinks that it comprehends the things of the external world by ascribing to them qualities of a psychical nature, which are supposed to be similar to the qualities of the human soul. This view says: When he confronts us externally, we perceive only sensory features in another man. I cannot look into the interior of my fellow man. From what I see and hear of him I make inferences as to his interior, his soul. Thus the soul is never something I perceive directly. A soul I perceive only within myself. No man sees my thoughts, my imaginings, my feelings. And just as I have such an inner life beside the one which can be perceived externally, so all other beings must have one too. This is the conclusion of one who takes the position of the anthropomorphizing world view. That part of a plant which I perceive externally must in the same way be only the outside of an interior, of a soul, which in my thoughts I must add to what I perceive. And since there exists for me only a single inner world, namely my own, I can only imagine the inner world of other beings to be similar to my own. Thus one reaches a sort of universal animation of all nature (panpsychism). This view rests on a misunderstanding of what the developed inner sense really offers. The spiritual content of an external thing, which appears to me within myself, is not something added in thought to the external perception. It is no more this than is the spirit of another man. I perceive this spiritual content through the inner sense, just as I perceive the physical content through the external senses. And what I call my inner life, in the sense indicated above, is by no means my spirit in the higher sense. This inner life is only the result of purely sensory processes; it belongs to me only as a totally individual personality, which is nothing but the result of its physical organization. When I transfer this interior to external things, I am in fact indulging in idle fancy. My personal inner life, my thoughts, memories, and feelings are in me because I am a creature of nature with such and such an organization, with a certain sensory apparatus, with a certain nervous system. I cannot transfer this human soul of mine to things. I could do this only if somewhere I found a similarly organized nervous system. But my individual soul is not the highest spiritual part in me. This highest spiritual part must first be awakened in me by the inner sense. And this spiritual part which is awakened in me is at the same time one and the same with the spiritual in all things. Before this spiritual part the plant appears directly in its own spirituality. I need not endow it with a spirituality similar to my own. For this world view all talk about the unknown “thing in itself” becomes devoid of meaning. For it is precisely the “thing in itself” which reveals itself to the inner sense. All talk about the unknown “thing in itself” is only due to the fact that those who speak in this way are incapable of recognizing the “things in themselves” in the spiritual contents within them. They think that within themselves they recognize only unsubstantial shadows and phantoms, “mere concepts and ideas” of things. But nevertheless since they have an intimation of the “thing in itself” they think that this “thing in itself” conceals itself, and that limits are set to the human powers of cognition. One cannot prove to those who labor under this belief that they must seize the “thing in itself” within themselves, for they never would acknowledge this “thing in itself” if one showed it to them. And it is just a matter of this acknowledgment.—Everything Meister Eckhart says is penetrated by this acknowledgment. “Consider a simile for this. A door opens and closes on a hinge. If I compare the outer boards of the door to the external man, then I shall compare the hinge to the inner man. Now when the door opens and closes the outer boards move back and forth, while the hinge remains constantly immobile, and in no way is changed thereby. And here it is the same.” As an individual creature of the senses I can investigate things in all directions—the door opens and closes—; if I do not let the perceptions of the senses arise within me spiritually I shall know nothing of their essence—the hinge does not move—. The illumination mediated by the inner sense is, in Eckhart's conception, the entry of God into the soul. He calls the light of knowledge which is lit by this entry, the “spark of the soul.” The place within the human being where this “spark” is lighted is “so pure, and so high, and so noble in itself, that no creature can be in it, but only God alone dwells therein in His pure divine nature.” one who has let this “spark” light up within himself, no longer sees merely as man sees with the external senses, and with the logical intellect, which orders and classifies the impressions of the senses; rather he sees how things are in themselves. The external senses and the ordering intellect separate the individual human being from other things; they make of him an individual in space and in time, who also perceives other things in space and in time. The man illuminated by the “spark” ceases to be an individual being. He annihilates his isolation. Everything which causes the difference between him and things, ceases. That it is he as an individual being who perceives, no longer can even be taken into consideration. The things and he are no longer separated. The things, and thus also God, see themselves in him. “This spark is God, in such a way that it is an united one, and carries within itself the image of all creatures, image without image, and image above image.” In the most magnificent words does Eckhart speak of the extinction of the individual being: “It must therefore be known that to know God and to be known by God is the same. We know God and see Him in that He makes us to see and to know. And as the air which illuminates is nothing but what it illuminates, for it shines through this, that it is illuminated: thus do we know that we are known and that He causes Himself to know us.”
[ 2 ] It is on this foundation that Meister Eckhart builds Up his relationship to God. It is a purely spiritual relationship, and it cannot be formed in an image borrowed from the individual life of man. God cannot love His creation as one individual man loves another; God cannot have created the world as a masterbuilder constructs a house. All such thoughts disappear in face of the inner vision. It is in the nature of God that He loves the world. A god who could love and also not love is formed in the image of the individual man. “I say in good truth and in eternal truth and in everlasting truth that into every man who has gone within himself God must pour Himself out to the limits of His ability, utterly and completely, so that He retains nothing in His life and in His being, in His nature and in His divinity; everything must He pour out in fruitful fashion.” And the inner illumination is something which the soul necessarily must find when it goes down into its depths. From this it already becomes evident that the communication of God to mankind cannot be thought of in the image of the revelation of one man to another. The latter communication can also be left unmade. One man can close himself off from another. God must communicate Himself, in conformity with His nature. “It is a certain truth that God must needs seek us, as if all His divinity depended upon it. God can no more do without us than we can do without Him. Although we may turn away from God, yet God can never turn away from us.” Consequently the relationship of man to God cannot be understood as containing anything figurative, borrowed from what is individually human. Eckhart realizes that part of the accomplishment of the primordial nature of the world is that it should find itself in the human soul. This primordial nature would be imperfect, even unfinished, if it lacked that component of its frame which appears in the human soul. What takes place in man belongs to the primordial nature; and if it did not take place the primordial nature would be only a part of itself. In this sense man can feel himself to be a necessary part of the nature of the world. Eckhart expresses this by describing his feelings toward God as follows: “I do not thank God for loving me, for He cannot keep from doing so, whether He wants to or not, His nature compels him to it ... Therefore I shall not beg God that He should give me something, nor shall I praise Him for what He has given me ... ”
[ 3 ] But this relationship of the human soul to the primordial nature must not be understood to mean that the soul in its individual character is declared to be one with this primordial nature. The soul which is entangled in the world of the senses, and therewith in the finite, does not as such already have the content of the primordial nature within itself. It must first develop it in itself. It must annihilate itself as an individual being. Meister Eckhart has aptly characterized this annihilation as an “un-becoming” (“Entwerdung”). “When I reach the depths of divinity no one asks me whence I come and where I have been, and no one misses me, for here there is an un-becoming.” This relationship is also clearly expressed in the sentence: “I take a basin of water and place a mirror in it and put it under the wheel of the sun. The sun casts its luminous radiance upon the mirror, and yet it is not diminished. The reflection of the mirror in the sun is sun in the sun, and yet the mirror is what it is. Thus it is with God. God is in the soul with His nature and in His being and His divinity, and yet He is not the soul. The reflection of the soul in God is God in God, and yet the soul is what it is.”
[ 4 ] The soul which gives itself over to the inner illumination recognizes in itself not only what it was before the illumination; it also recognizes what it has become only through this illumination. “We are to be united with God essentially; we are to be united with God as one; we are to be united with God altogether. How are we to be united with God essentially? This is to be accomplished by a seeing and not by a being. His being cannot be our being, but is to be our life.” Not an already existing life—a being (Wesung)—is to be understood in the logical sense; but the higher understanding—the seeing—is itself to become life; the spiritual, that which belongs to the idea, is to be experienced by the seeing man in the same way as the individual human nature experiences ordinary, everyday life.
[ 5 ] From such starting-points Meister Eckhart also attains a pure concept of freedom. In ordinary life the soul is not free. For it is entangled in the realm of lower causes. It accomplishes that to which it is compelled by these lower causes. By the “seeing” it is raised out of the region of these causes. It no longer acts as an individual soul. In it is exposed the primordial essence, which cannot be caused by anything except itself. “God does not compel the will, rather He sets it at liberty, so that it wills nothing but what God Himself wills. And the spirit can will nothing but what God wills; and this is not its unfreedom; it is its true freedom. For freedom is this, that we are not bound, that we be free and pure and unadulterated as we were in our first origin, and when we were wed in the Holy Ghost.” It can be said of the enlightened man that he himself is the entity which determines good and evil out of itself. He cannot do otherwise than accomplish the good. For he does not serve the good, rather does the good live within him. “The righteous man serves neither God nor the creatures, for he is free, and the closer he is to righteousness, the more he is freedom itself.” What then must evil be for Meister Eckhart? It can only be an acting under the influence of the lower view, the acting of a soul which has not passed through the state of un-becoming. Such a soul is selfish in the sense that it wills only itself. Only externally could it bring its willing into harmony with moral ideals. The seeing soul cannot be selfish in this sense. Even should it will itself it would still will the mastery of the ideal; for it has made itself into this ideal. It can no longer will the goals of the lower nature, for it no longer has anything in common with this lower nature. It is no compulsion, no deprivation, for the seeing soul to act in the sense of moral ideals. “For the man who stands in God's will and in God's love it is a joy to do all the good things God wills, and to leave undone all the evil things which are against God. And it is impossible for him to leave a thing undone which God wants to have accomplished. As it would be impossible for one to walk whose legs are bound, so it would be impossible for one to do ill who is in God's will.” Furthermore Eckhart expressly protests against an interpretation which would see in his view a license for anything the individual might want. It is just in this that one recognizes the seeing man, that he no longer wants anything as an individual. “Some men say: If I have God and God's freedom, then I can do everything I want. They understand these words amiss. As long as you can do anything which is against God and His commandment, you do not have God's love; you can only deceive the world into the belief that you have it.” Eckhart is convinced that for the soul which goes down into its depths, in these depths a perfect morality will appear, that there all logical understanding and all action in the ordinary sense have an end, and that there an entirely new order of human life begins. “For everything the understanding can grasp, and everything desire demands, is not God. Where understanding and desire have an end, there it is dark, there does God shine. There that power unfolds in the soul which is wider than the wide heavens ... The bliss of the righteous and God's bliss is one bliss; for then are the righteous blissful, when God is blissful.”
I. Meister Eckhart
[ 1 ] Ganz durchglüht von der Empfindung, daß im Geiste des Menschen die Dinge als höhere Wesenheiten wiedergeboren werden, ist die Vorstellungswelt des Meisters Eckhart. Er gehörte dem Orden der Dominikaner an wie der größte christliche Theologe des Mittelalters, Thomas von Aquino, der von 1225 bis 1274 lebte. Eckhart war unbedingter Verehrer des Thomas. Das muß durchaus begreiflich erscheinen, wenn man die ganze Vorstellungsart des Meisters Eckhart ins Auge faßt. Er glaubte sich selbst mit den Lehren der christlichen Kirche ebenso in Einklang, wie er für Thomas eine solche Ãœbereinstimmung annahm. Eckhart wollte von dem Inhalte des Christentums nichts wegnehmen, und auch zu ihm nichts hinzufügen. Aber er wollte diesen Inhalt auf seine Art neu hervorbringen. Es liegt nicht in den geistigen Bedürfnissen einer Persönlichkeit, wie er eine war, neue Wahrheiten dieser oder jener Art an die Stelle von alten zu setzen. Er war mit dem Inhalte, den er überliefert erhalten hatte, ganz verwachsen. Aber er wollte diesem Inhalte eine neue Gestalt, ein neues Leben geben. Er wollte, ohne Zweifel, rechtgläubiger Christ bleiben. Die christlichen Wahrheiten waren die seinigen. Nur in anderer Weise ansehen wollte er sie, als dies z.B. Thomas von Aquino getan hatte. Dieser nahm zwei Erkenntnisquellen an: die Offenbarung in dem Glauben und die Vernunft in der Forschung. Die Vernunft erkennt die Gesetze der Dinge, also das Geistige in der Natur. Sie kann sich auch über die Natur erheben, und im Geiste die aller Natur zugrunde liegende göttliche Wesenheit von einer Seite erfassen. Aber sie gelangt auf diese Art nicht zu einer Versenkung in die volle Wesenheit Gottes. Ein höherer Wahrheitsgehalt muß ihr entgegenkommen. Er ist in der Heiligen Schrift gegeben. Sie offenbart, was der Mensch durch sich selbst nicht erreichen kann. Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Schrift muß von dem Menschen hingenommen werden; die Vernunft kann ihn verteidigen, sie kann ihn durch ihre Erkenntniskräfte möglichst gut verstehen wollen; aber sie kann ihn aus dem menschlichen Geiste heraus nimmermehr selbst erzeugen. Nicht was der Geist erschaut, ist höchste Wahrheit, sondern ein gewisser Erkenntnisinhalt, der dem Geiste von außen zugekommen ist. Unfähig erklärt sich der heilige Augustin, in sich den Quell zu finden für das, was er glauben soll. Er sagt: «Ich würde dem Evangelium nicht glauben, wenn mich die Autorität der katholischen Kirche nicht dazu bewegte.» Das ist im Sinne des Evangelisten, der auf das äußere Zeugnis verweist: «Was wir gehört, was wir mit unseren Augen gesehen, was wir selbst geschaut, was unsere Hände berührt haben von dem Worte des Lebens... was wir sahen und hörten, melden wir euch, damit ihr Gemeinschaft mit uns habet.» Der Meister Eckhart aber möchte Christi Worte dem Menschen einschärfen: «Es ist euch nütze, daß ich von euch fahre; denn gehe ich nicht von euch, so kann euch der Heilige Geist nicht werden.» Und er erläutert diese Worte, indem er sagt: «Recht, als ob er spräche: ihr habt zu viel Freude auf mein gegenwärtiges Bild gelegt, daher kann euch die vollkommene Freude des Heiligen Geistes nicht werden.» Eckhart meint von keinem anderen Gotte zu sprechen, als der ist, von dem Augustin, und der Evangelist, und Thomas sprechen; und dennochf ist ihr Zeugnis von Gott nicht sein Zeugnis. «Etliche Leute wollen Gott mit den Augen ansehen, als sie eine Kuh ansehen, und wollen Gott lieb haben, als sie eine Kuh lieb haben. Also haben sie Gott lieb, um auswendigen Reichtum und um inwendigen Trost; aber diese Leute haben nicht Gott recht lieb... Einfältige Leute wähnen, sie sollen Gott ansehen, als stünde er dort und sie hier. So ist es nicht. Gott und ich sind eins im Erkennen.» Es liegt solchen Bekenntnissen bei Eckhart nichts anderes zugrunde, als die Erfahrung des inneren Sinnes. Und diese Erfahrung zeigt ihm die Dinge in einem höheren Lichte. Er glaubt daher eines äußeren Lichtes nicht zu bedürfen, um zu den höchsten Einsichten zu kommen: «Ein Meister spricht: Gott ist Mensch geworden, davon ist erhöhet und gewürdigt das ganze menschliche Geschlecht. Dessen mögen wir uns freuen, daß Christus unser Bruder ist gefahren von eigener Kraft über alle Chöre der Engel und sitzet zur Rechten des Vaters. Dieser Meister hat wohl gesprochen; aber wahrlich, ich gebe nicht viel darum. Was hülfe es mir, hätt' ich einen Bruder, der da wäre ein reicher Mann, und ich wäre dabei ein armer Mann? Was hülfe es mir, hätte ich einen Bruder, der ein weiser Mann wäre, und ich wäre ein Tor?... Der himmlische Vater gebiert seinen eingebornen Sohn in sich und in mir. Warum in sich und in mir? Ich bin eins mit ihm; und er vermag mich nicht auszuschließen. In demselben Werk empfängt der Heilige Geist sein Wesen und wird von mir, wie von Gott. Warum? Ich bin in Gott, und nimmt der Heilige Geist sein Wesen nicht von mir, nimmt er es auch nicht von Gott. Ich bin auf keine Weise ausgeschlossen.» Wenn Eckhart an das Wort des Paulus erinnert: «Ziehet euch Jesum Christum an», so will er diesem Worte den Sinn unterlegen: versenket euch in euch, tauchet hinunter in die Selbstbeschauung: und aus den Tiefen eures Wesens wird euch der Gott entgegenleuchten; er überstrahlet euch alle Dinge; ihr habt ihn in euch gefunden; ihr seid einig geworden mit Gottes Wesenheit. «Gott ist Mensch geworden, daß ich Gott werde.» In seinem Traktat «Ãœber die Abgeschiedenheit» spricht sich Eckhart über die Beziehung der äußeren Wahrnehmung zu der inneren aus: «Hier sollst du wissen, daß die Meister sprechen, daß an einem jeden Menschen zweierlei Menschen sind: der eine heißt der äußere Mensch, das ist die Sinnlichkeit; dem Menschen dienen fünf Sinne, und er wirkt doch durch die Kraft der Seele. Der andere Mensch heißt der innere Mensch, das ist des Menschen Inneres. Nun sollst du wissen, daß ein jeder Mensch, der Gott liebt, die Kräfte der Seele in dem äußeren Menschen nicht mehr gebraucht, als die fünf Sinne zur Not bedürfen; und das Innere kehrt sich nicht zu den fünf Sinnen, als nur insofern es der Weiser und Leiter der fünf Sinne ist und sie hütet, damit sie nicht ihrem Streben nach der Tierheit frönen.» Wer in dieser Art über den inneren Menschen spricht, der kann nicht mehr auf ein sinnlich außer ihm gelegenes Wesen der Dinge sein Auge richten. Denn er ist sich klar darüber, daß aus keiner Art der sinnlichen Außenwelt dieses Wesen ihm entgegentreten kann. Man könnte ihm einwenden: was geht die Dinge in der Außenwelt dasjenige an, was du ihnen aus deinem Geiste hinzufügst. Baue doch auf deine Sinne. Sie allein geben dir Kunde von der Außenwelt. Verfälsche nicht durch eine geistige Zutat, was dir die Sinne in Reinheit, ohne Zutat, als Bild der Außenwelt geben. Dein Auge sagt dir, wie die Farbe ist; was dein Geist über die Farbe erkennt, davon ist in der Farbe nichts. Vom Standpunkte des Meisters Eckhart müßte man antworten: Die Sinne sind physische Apparate. Ihre Mitteilungen über die Dinge können somit nur das Physische an den Dingen betreffen. Und dieses Physische in den Dingen teilt sich mir so mit, daß in mir selbst ein physischer Vorgang erregt wird. Die Farbe als physischer Vorgang der Außenwelt erregt einen physischen Vorgang in meinem Auge und in meinem Gehirn. Dadurch nehme ich die Farbe wahr. Ich kann auf diesem Wege aber nur das von der Farbe wahrnehmen, was an ihr physisch, sinnlich ist. Die sinnliche Wahrnehmung schaltet alles Nichtsinnliche von den Dingen aus. Die Dinge werden durch sie alles dessen entkleidet, was an ihnen nicht-sinnlich ist. Schreite ich dann zu dem geistigen, dem ideellen Inhalt fort, so stelle ich nur dasjenige wieder her, was die sinnliche Wahrnehmung an den Dingen ausgelöscht hat. Somit zeigt mir die sinnliche Wahrnehmung nicht das tiefste Wesen der Dinge; sie trennt mich vielmehr von diesem Wesen. Die geistige, ideelle Erfassung verbindet mich aber wieder mit diesem Wesen. Sie zeigt mir, daß die Dinge in ihrem Innern genau von demselben geistigen Wesen sind, wie ich selbst. Die Grenze zwischen mir und der Außenwelt fällt durch die geistige Erfassung der Welt dahin. Ich bin von der Außenwelt getrennt, insofern ich ein sinnliches Ding unter sinnlichen Dingen bin. Mein Auge und die Farbe sind zwei verschiedene Wesenheiten. Mein Gehirn und die Pflanze sind zweierlei. Aber der ideelle Inhalt der Pflanze und der Farbe gehören mit dem ideellen Inhalt meines Gehirns und des Auges einer einheitlichen ideellen Wesenheit an. - Es darf diese Anschauung nicht verwechselt werden mit der weit verbreiteten anthropomorphosierenden (vermenschlichenden) Weltanschauung, welche die Dinge der Außenwelt dadurch zu erfassen glaubt, daß sie ihnen Eigenschaften psychischer Art beilegt, die den Eigenschaften der menschlichen Seele ähnlich sein sollen. Diese Ansicht sagt: wir nehmen an einem andern Menschen, wenn wir ihm äußerlich gegenübertreten, nur sinnliche Merkmale wahr. Ich kann meinem Mitmenschen nicht ins Innere schauen. Ich schließe aus dem, was ich von ihm sehe und höre, auf sein Inneres, auf seine Seele. Die Seele ist also niemals etwas, was ich unmittelbar wahrnehme. Eine Seele nehme ich nur in meinem eigenen Innern wahr. Meine Gedanken, meine Phantasiegebilde, meine Gefühle sieht kein Mensch. Ebenso wie ich nun ein solches Innenleben habe neben dem, was äußerlich wahrzunehmen ist, so müssen ein solches alle anderen Wesen haben. So schließt, wer auf dem Standpunkt der anthropomorphosierenden (vermenschlichenden) Weltanschauung steht. Was ich an der Pflanze äußerlich wahrnehme, muß ebenso nur die Außenseite eines Inneren, einer Seele sein, die ich mir hinzulenken muß zu dem, was ich wahrnehme. Und da es für mich nur eine einzige Innenwelt gibt, nämlich meine eigene, so kann ich mir auch die Innenwelt der anderen Wesen nur ähnlich meiner Innenwelt vorstellen. Dadurch kommt man zu einer Art Allbeseelung aller Natur (Panpsychismus). Diese Anschauung beruht auf einer Verkennung dessen, was der entwickelte innere Sinn wirklich darbietet. Der geistige Inhalt eines äußeren Dinges, der mir in meinem Innern aufgeht, ist nichts zu der äußeren Wahrnehmung Hinzugedachtes. Er ist dies ebensowenig, wie der Geist eines anderen Menschen. Ich nehme durch den inneren Sinn diesen geistigen Inhalt ebenso wahr, wie durch die äußeren Sinne den physischen Inhalt. Und was ich mein Innenleben in obigem Sinne nenne, ist gar nicht, im höheren Sinne, mein Geist. Dieses Innenleben ist nur das Ergebnis rein sinnlicher Vorgänge, gehört mir nur als ganz individuelle Persönlichkeit an, die nichts ist als das Ergebnis ihrer physischen Organisation. Wenn ich dieses Innere auf die äußeren Dinge übertrage, so denke ich tatsächlich ins Blaue hinein. Mein persönliches Seelenleben, meine Gedanken, Erinnerungen und Gefühle sind in mir, weil ich ein so und so organisiertes Naturwesen bin, mit einem ganz bestimmten Sinnesapparat, mit einem ganz bestimmten Nervensystem. Diese meine menschliche Seele darf ich nicht auf die Dinge übertragen. Ich dürfte das nur, wenn ich irgendwo ein ähnlich organisiertes Nervensystem fände. Aber meine individuelle Seele ist nicht das höchste Geistige an mir. Dieses höchste Geistige muß in mir erst durch den inneren Sinn erweckt werden. Und dieses erweckte Geistige in mir ist zugleich ein und dasselbe mit dem Geistigen in allen Dingen. Vor diesem Geistigen erscheint die Pflanze unmittelbar in ihrer eigenen Geistigkeit. Ich brauche ihr nicht eine Geistigkeit zu verleihen, die ähnlich meiner eigenen ist. Für diese Weltanschauung verliert alles Reden über das unbekannte «Ding an sich» jeglichen Sinn. Denn es ist eben das «Ding an sich», das sich dem inneren Sinn enthüllt. Alles Reden über das unbekannte «Ding an sich» rührt nur davon her, daß diejenigen, die so reden, nicht imstande sind, in den geistigen Inhalten ihres Innern die «Dinge an sich» wieder zu erkennen. Sie glauben in ihrem Innern wesenlose Schatten und Schemen, «bloße Begriffe und Ideen» der Dinge zu erkennen. Da sie aber doch eine Ahnung von dem «Ding an sich» haben, so glauben sie, daß sich dieses «Ding an sich» verberge, und daß dem menschlichen Erkenntnisvermögen Grenzen gesteckt seien. Man kann solchen, die in diesem Glauben befangen sind, nicht beweisen, daß sie das «Ding an sich» in ihrem Innern ergreifen müssen, denn sie würden dieses «Ding an sich», wenn man es ihnen vorwiese, doch niemals anerkennen. Um dieses Anerkennen aber handelt es sich. - Alles, was der Meister Eckhart sagt, ist von dieser Anerkennung durchdrungen. «Dessen nimm ein Gleichnis. Eine Tür geht in einem Angel auf und zu. Wenn ich nun das äußere Brett an der Türe dem äußeren Menschen vergleiche, so vergleiche ich den Angel dem inneren Menschen. Wenn nun die Türe auf und zu geht, so bewegt sich das äußere Brett hin und her, während doch der Angel beständig unbeweglich bleibt, und dadurch keineswegs verändert wird. In gleicher Weise ist es auch hier.» Ich kann als individuelles Sinneswesen die Dinge nach allen Seiten erforschen - die Tür geht auf und zu -; wenn ich die Wahrnehmungen der Sinne nicht geistig in mir erstehen lasse, dann kenne ich nichts von ihrem Wesen - der Angel bewegt sich nicht-. Die durch den inneren Sinn vermittelte Erleuchtung ist, nach Eckharts Anschauung, der Einzug Gottes in die Seele. Er nennt das Licht der Erkenntnis, das durch diesen Einzug aufflackert, das «Fünklein der Seele». Die Stelle des menschlichen Innern, an der dieses «Fünklein» aufleuchtet, ist «so lauter, und so hoch, und so edel in sich selber, daß darin keine Kreatur sein mag, sondern nur Gott allein wohnt darin mit seiner bloßen göttlichen Natur». Wer dieses «Fünklein» in sich hat aufgehen lassen, der sieht nicht mehr bloß so, wie der Mensch mit den äußeren Sinnen sieht, und mit dem logischen Verstande, der die Eindrücke der Sinne ordnet und klassifiziert, sondern er sieht, wie die Dinge an sich sind. Die äußeren Sinne und der ordnende Verstand sondern den einzelnen Menschen von den anderen Dingen ab; sie machen ihn zu einem Individuum im Raum und in der Zeit, das auch die anderen Dinge im Raum und in der Zeit wahrnimmt. Der von dem «Fünklein» erleuchtete Mensch hört auf, ein Einzelwesen zu sein. Er vernichtet seine Absonderung. Alles, was den Unterschied zwischen ihm und den Dingen bewirkt, hört auf. Daß er, als Einzelwesen, es ist, der wahrnimmt, kommt gar nicht mehr in Betracht. Die Dinge und er sind nicht mehr geschieden. Die Dinge und somit auch Gott sehen sich in ihm. «Dies Fünklein, das ist Gott, also, daß es ist ein einig Ein, und das Bild in sich trägt aller Kreaturen, Bild ohne Bild, und Bild über Bild.» Mit den herrlichsten Worten spricht Eckhart die Auslöschung des Einzelwesens aus: «Es ist daher zu wissen, daß das Eines ist nach den Dingen, Gott erkennen und von Gott erkannt zu sein. In dem erkennen wir Gott und sehen, daß er uns macht sehend und erkennend. Und wie die Luft, die erleuchtet, nichts anderes ist, als was sie erleuchtet; denn davon leuchtet sie, daß sie erleuchtet ist: also erkennen wir, daß wir erkannt sind und daß er uns sich machet erkennend.»
[ 2 ] Auf solcher Grundlage erbaut sich der Meister Eckhart sein Verhältnis zu Gott. Es ist ein rein geistiges, und kann nicht nach einem Bilde geformt sein, das dem menschlichen, individuellen Leben entlehnt ist. Nicht wie ein einzelner Mensch den anderen liebt, kann Gott seine Schöpfung lieben; nicht wie ein Baumeister das Haus verfertigt, kann Gott die Welt erschaffen haben. Alle dergleichen Gedanken schwinden vor dem inneren Schauen. Es gehört zum Wesen Gottes, daß er die Welt liebt. Ein Gott, der lieben könnte und auch nicht lieben, ist nach dem Bilde des individuellen Menschen gebildet. «Ich sprech bei guter Wahrheit und bei ewiger Wahrheit und bei immerwährender Wahrheit, daß sich Gott in jeglichen Menschen, der sich zugrunde gelassen hat, allzumal ausgießen muß nach aller Vermögenheit, so ganz und gar, daß er in seinem Leben und in seinem Wesen, in seiner Natur und in seiner Gottheit nichts behaltet; er muß es alles zumal in fruchtbarer Art ergießen.» Und die innere Erleuchtung ist etwas, was die Seele notwendig finden muß, wenn sie sich auf den Grund vertieft. Schon daraus geht hervor, daß Gottes Mitteilung an die Menschheit nicht nach dem Bilde der Offenbarung eines Menschen an den anderen vorgestellt werden darf. Diese Mitteilung kann auch unterbleiben. Ein Mensch kann sich dem anderen verschließen. Gott muß sich, seinem Wesen nach, mitteilen. «Es ist eine sichere Wahrheit, daß es Gott also Not ist, daß er uns suche, recht als ob all seine Gottheit daran hinge. Gott mag unser so wenig entbehren als wir seiner. Mögen wir uns von Gott kehren, so mag Gott sich doch nimmer von uns kehren.» Folgerichtig kann auch dann des Menschen Verhältnis zu Gott nicht so aufgefaßt werden, daß darin etwas Bildliches, dem individuellen Menschlichen Entnommenes enthalten ist. Eckhart ist sich bewußt, daß es zur Vollendung des Urwesens der Welt gehört, sich in der menschlichen Seele zu finden. Dieses Urwesen wäre unvollkommen, ja unfertig, wenn es des Bestandteiles seiner Ausgestaltung entbehrte, der in der Seele des Menschen zum Vorschein kommt. Was im Menschen geschieht, gehört zu dem Urwesen; und geschähe es nicht, so wäre das Urwesen nur ein Teil seiner selbst. In diesem Sinne darf der Mensch sich als notwendiges Glied des Weltwesens fühlen. Eckhart drückt das aus, indem er seine Empfindung Gott gegenüber also schildert: «Ich danke nicht Gott, daß er mich lieb hat, denn er mag es nicht lassen; er wolle es oder nicht, seine Natur zwinget ihn doch... Darum will ich Gott nicht bitten, daß er mir etwas gebe, ich will ihn auch nicht loben um das, was er mir gegeben hat...»
[ 3 ] Es ist aber dieses Verhältnis der menschlichen Seele zu dem Urwesen nicht so aufzufassen, als wenn die Seele in ihrer individuellen Wesenheit mit diesem Urwesen für einerlei erklärt würde. Die Seele, die verstrickt ist in die Sinnenwelt und damit in die Endlichkeit, hat als solche den Inhalt des Urwesens nicht schon in sich. Sie muß ihn in sich erst entwickeln. Sie muß sich als Einzelwesen vernichten. In treffender Weise charakterisiert der Meister Eckhart diese Vernichtung als «Entwerdung». «Wenn ich komme in den Grund der Gottheit, so fragt mich niemand, wannen ich komme und wo ich gewesen, und niemand vermisset mich, denn hier ist eine Entwerdung.» Deutlich spricht über dieses Verhältnis auch der Satz: «Ich nimm ein Becken mit Wasser und lege darin einen Spiegel und setze es unter das Rad der Sonne. Die Sonne wirft aus ihren lichten Schein in den Spiegel und vergehet doch nicht. Das Widerspiegeln des Spiegels in der Sonne ist Sonne in der Sonne, und der Spiegel ist doch, das er ist. Also ist es um Gott. Gott ist in der Seele mit seiner Natur und in seinem Wesen und seiner Gottheit, und er ist doch nicht die Seele. Das Widerspiegeln der Seele in Gott ist Gott in Gott, und die Seele ist doch, das sie ist.»
[ 4 ] Die Seele, die sich der inneren Erleuchtung hingibt, erkennt nicht bloß in sich das, was sie vor der Erleuchtung war; sondern sie erkennt das, was sie erst durch diese Erleuchtung wird. «Wir sollen mit Gott vereinigt werden wesentlich; wir sollen mit Gott vereinigt werden einlich; wir sollen mit Gott vereinigt werden gänzlich. Wie sollen wir wesentlich mit Gott vereinigt werden? Das soll geschehen an der Schauung und nicht an der Wesung. Sein Wesen mag nicht unser Wesen werden, sondern soll unser Leben sein.» Nicht ein schon vorhandenes Leben - eine Wesung - soll im logischen Sinne erkannt werden; sondern das höhere Erkennen - die Schauung - soll selbst Leben werden; das Geistige, das Ideelle soll von dem schauenden Menschen so empfunden werden, wie von der individuellen Menschennatur das gewöhnliche, alltägliche Leben empfunden wird.
[ 5 ] Von solchen Ausgangspunkten gelangt der Meister Eckhart auch zu einem reinen Freiheitsbegriffe. Die Seele ist im gewöhnlichen Leben nicht frei. Denn sie ist eingesponnen in das Reich der niederen Ursachen. Sie vollbringt, wozu sie von diesen niederen Ursachen genötigt wird. Durch die «Schauung» wird sie aus dem Gebiet dieser Ursachen hinausgehoben. Sie handelt nicht mehr als Einzelseele. Es wird in ihr die Urwesenheit freigelegt, die durch nichts mehr verursacht werden kann, denn durch sich selbst. «Gott zwingt den Willen nicht, sondern er setzt ihn vielmehr in Freiheit, also daß er nichts anderes will, denn das Gott selber will. Und der Geist mag nichts anderes wollen, denn was Gott will: und das ist nicht seine Unfreiheit; es ist seine eigentliche Freiheit. Denn Freiheit ist, daß wir nicht gebunden sind, daß wir also frei und lauter und also unvermengt seien, als wir waren in unserem ersten Ausfluß, und da wir gefreiet wurden in dem heiligen Geist.»Von dem erleuchteten Menschen darf gesagt werden, er sei selbst die Wesenheit, welche aus sich das Gute und das Böse bestimmt. Er kann gar nicht anders, als das Gute vollbringen. Denn er dienet nicht dem Guten, sondern das Gute lebt sich in ihm aus. «Der gerechte Mensch dienet weder Gott, noch den Kreaturen; denn er ist frei, und je näher er der Gerechtigkeit ist, desto mehr ist er die Freiheit selber.» Was kann, für den Meister Eckhart, dann das Böse nur sein? Es kann nur das Handeln unter dem Einfluß der untergeordneten Anschauungsweise sein; das Handeln einer Seele, die nicht durch den Zustand der Entwerdung durchgegangen ist. Eine solche Seele ist selbstsüchtig in dem Sinne, daß sie nur sich will. Sie könnte nur äußerlich ihr Wollen mit sittlichen Idealen in Einklang bringen. Die schauende Seele kann in diesem Sinne nicht selbstsüchtig sein. Wenn sie auch sich wollte, so wollte sie doch die Herrschaft des Idealen; denn sie hat sich selbst zu diesem Idealen gemacht. Sie kann nicht mehr die Ziele der niederen Natur wollen, denn sie hat nichts mehr mit dieser niederen Natur gemein. Es bedeutet für die schauende Seele keinen Zwang, keine Entbehrung, im Sinne der sittlichen Ideale zu handeln. «Der Mensch, der da steht in Gottes Willen und in Gottes Minne, dem ist es eine Lust, alle guten Dinge zu tun, die Gott will, und alle bösen Dinge zu lassen, die wider Gott sind. Und es ist ihm unmöglich, ein Ding zu lassen, das Gott will gewirkt haben. Recht so, dem wäre unmöglich zu gehen, dem seine Beine gebunden sind, so unmöglich wäre dem Menschen eine Untugend zu tun, der in Gottes Willen ist.» Eckhart verwahrt sich noch ausdrücklich dagegen, daß mit dieser seiner Anschauung ein Freibrief gegeben wäre für alles mögliche, was der einzelne will. Gerade daran erkennt man den Schauenden, daß er gar nichts mehr als einzelner will. «Es sprechen etliche Menschen: habe ich Gott und Gottes Freiheit, so mag ich wohl tun alles, was ich will. Dies Wort verstehen sie unrecht. Dieweil du irgendein Ding vermagst, das wider Gott ist und sein Gebot, so hast du Gottes Minne nicht; du magst die Welt wohl betrügen, als habest du sie.» Eckhart ist überzeugt, daß der Seele, die sich bis zu ihrem Grunde vertieft, auf diesem Grunde auch die vollkommene Sittlichkeit entgegenleuchtet, daß da alles logische Begreifen und alles Handeln im gewöhnlichen Sinne aufhört und eine ganz neue Ordnung des Menschenlebens eintritt. «Denn alles, was das Verständnis begreifen mag, und alles, was die Begegnung begehret, das ist ja Gott nicht. Wo die Verständnis und die Begehrung endet, da ist es finster, da leuchtet Gott. Da tut sich jene Kraft in der Seele auf, die weiter ist denn der weite Himmel... Der Gerechten Seligkeit und Gottes Seligkeit ist Eine Seligkeit; denn da ist der Gerechte selig, da Gott selig ist.»
I. Meister Eckhart
[ 1 ] The world of ideas of Master Eckhart is completely glowing with the feeling that things are reborn as higher beings in the spirit of man. He belonged to the Dominican order, like the greatest Christian theologian of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1225 to 1274. Eckhart was an unconditional admirer of Thomas. This must seem quite understandable if one considers the whole way of thinking of the master Eckhart. He believed himself to be in harmony with the teachings of the Christian Church, just as he assumed such harmony for Thomas. Eckhart did not want to take anything away from the content of Christianity, nor did he want to add anything to it. But he wanted to bring out this content anew in his own way. It is not in the spiritual needs of a personality such as he was to substitute new truths of this or that kind for old ones. He was completely wedded to the content he had received. But he wanted to give this content a new form, a new life. He wanted, without a doubt, to remain an orthodox Christian. The Christian truths were his own. He just wanted to look at them in a different way than Thomas Aquinas, for example, had done. He accepted two sources of knowledge: revelation in faith and reason in research. Reason recognizes the laws of things, i.e. the spiritual in nature. It can also rise above nature and grasp in spirit the divine essence underlying all nature from one side. But in this way it does not reach an immersion in the full essence of God. A higher truth content must meet it. It is given in the Holy Scriptures. It reveals what man cannot achieve through himself. The truth content of Scripture must be accepted by man; reason can defend it, it can want to understand it as well as possible through its powers of cognition; but it can never produce it itself out of the human spirit. It is not what the spirit sees that is highest truth, but a certain content of knowledge that has come to the spirit from outside. St. Augustine declares himself unable to find the source within himself for what he should believe. He says: "I would not believe the Gospel if I were not moved to do so by the authority of the Catholic Church." This is in the spirit of the evangelist, who refers to the external testimony: "What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we ourselves have seen, what our hands have touched of the word of life... what we have seen and heard we report to you, so that you may have fellowship with us." But the Master Eckhart wants to impress Christ's words on people: "It is profitable for you that I depart from you; for if I do not depart from you, the Holy Spirit cannot become you." And he explains these words by saying: "Just as if he said: you have put too much joy in my present image, therefore the perfect joy of the Holy Spirit cannot come to you." Eckhart means to speak of no other God than the one of whom Augustine, the Evangelist and Thomas speak; and yet their testimony of God is not his testimony. "Some people want to look at God with their eyes as they look at a cow, and want to love God as they love a cow. So they love God for outward riches and inward comfort; but these people do not really love God... Simple-minded people think they should look at God as if he were standing there and they here. It is not so. God and I are one in knowledge." Eckhart's confessions are based on nothing other than the experience of the inner sense. And this experience shows him things in a higher light. He therefore believes that he does not need an external light in order to arrive at the highest insights: "A master says: God has become man, from this the whole human race is exalted and honored. Let us rejoice in this, that Christ is our brother, having gone forth by his own power above all the choirs of angels, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. This Master has spoken well; but truly, I do not care much for it. What good would it do me if I had a brother who was a rich man and I was a poor man? What good would it do me if I had a brother who was a wise man and I was a fool? The heavenly Father begets his only begotten Son in himself and in me. Why in himself and in me? I am one with him; and he cannot exclude me. In the same work the Holy Spirit receives his essence and becomes of me as of God. Why? I am in God, and if the Holy Spirit does not take his essence from me, he does not take it from God either. I am in no way excluded." When Eckhart recalls the words of St. Paul: "Put on Jesus Christ", he wants to give this word the meaning: immerse yourselves in yourselves, dive down into self-contemplation: and from the depths of your being God will shine out towards you; he outshines all things; you have found him in yourselves; you have become one with God's being. "God became man that I might become God." In his treatise "On Seclusion", Eckhart speaks about the relationship between outer and inner perception: "Here you should know that the masters say that there are two kinds of man in every man: one is called the outer man, that is sensuality; five senses serve man, and yet he works through the power of the soul. The other man is called the inner man, that is man's inner being. Now you should know that every man who loves God uses the powers of the soul in the outer man no more than the five senses require for need; and the inner man does not turn to the five senses except in so far as it is the wise man and guide of the five senses and guards them so that they do not indulge in their pursuit of animality." Whoever speaks in this way about the inner man can no longer direct his eye to a sensual being outside of him. For he is aware that this being cannot confront him from any kind of sensual external world. One could object to him: what business is it of the things in the external world what you add to them from your spirit. Rely on your senses. They alone give you information about the outside world. Do not falsify by a spiritual addition what the senses give you in purity, without addition, as a picture of the outer world. Your eye tells you what the color is like; what your mind recognizes about the color, there is nothing of that in the color. From the point of view of Master Eckhart, one would have to answer: The senses are physical apparatuses. Their communications about things can therefore only concern the physical in things. And this physical in things communicates itself to me in such a way that a physical process is aroused in me. Color as a physical process in the outside world stimulates a physical process in my eye and in my brain. This is how I perceive the color. In this way, however, I can only perceive what is physical, sensual about the color. Sensual perception eliminates everything non-sensual from things. Through it, things are stripped of everything that is non-sensual about them. If I then proceed to the spiritual, the ideal content, I only restore that which sensory perception has erased from things. Thus, sensory perception does not show me the deepest essence of things; rather, it separates me from this essence. Spiritual, ideal perception, however, reconnects me with this essence. It shows me that the things within are of exactly the same spiritual essence as I am. The boundary between me and the outside world disappears through the spiritual perception of the world. I am separated from the outside world insofar as I am a sensual thing among sensual things. My eye and color are two different entities. My brain and the plant are two different things. But the ideal content of the plant and the color belong to a unified ideal entity together with the ideal content of my brain and the eye. - This view must not be confused with the widespread anthropomorphizing (humanizing) view of the world, which believes it can grasp the things of the outside world by attributing to them properties of a psychic nature that are supposed to be similar to the properties of the human soul. This view says: we only perceive sensual characteristics in another person when we meet him externally. I cannot look inside my fellow human being. From what I see and hear of him, I draw conclusions about his inner being, his soul. The soul is therefore never something that I perceive directly. I only perceive a soul within myself. No one sees my thoughts, my fantasies, my feelings. Just as I have such an inner life in addition to what can be perceived externally, so must all other beings have one. So concludes anyone who stands on the standpoint of the anthropomorphizing (humanizing) world view. What I perceive externally in the plant must likewise only be the outside of an inside, a soul, which I must direct towards what I perceive. And since there is only one inner world for me, namely my own, I can only imagine the inner world of other beings to be similar to my inner world. This leads to a kind of all-souledness of all nature (panpsychism). This view is based on a misjudgment of what the developed inner sense really presents. The spiritual content of an external thing that comes to me in my inner being is not something added to the external perception. It is no more so than the spirit of another person. I perceive this spiritual content through my inner sense just as I perceive the physical content through my outer senses. And what I call my inner life in the above sense is not, in a higher sense, my spirit. This inner life is only the result of purely sensory processes, belongs to me only as a completely individual personality, which is nothing but the result of its physical organization. When I transfer this inner life to external things, I am actually thinking into the blue. My personal soul life, my thoughts, memories and feelings are within me because I am a natural being organized in such and such a way, with a very specific sensory apparatus, with a very specific nervous system. I am not allowed to transfer this human soul of mine to things. I would only be allowed to do so if I found a similarly organized nervous system somewhere. But my individual soul is not the highest spiritual in me. This highest spiritual must first be awakened in me through the inner sense. And this awakened spiritual in me is at the same time one and the same with the spiritual in all things. Before this spirituality the plant appears directly in its own spirituality. I do not need to give it a spirituality that is similar to my own. For this world view, all talk about the unknown "thing in itself" loses all meaning. For it is precisely the "thing in itself" that reveals itself to the inner sense. All talk about the unknown "thing in itself" only stems from the fact that those who talk like this are unable to recognize the "things in themselves" in the spiritual contents of their inner being. They believe to recognize insubstantial shadows and schemes, "mere concepts and ideas" of things within themselves. But since they do have a sense of the "thing in itself", they believe that this "thing in itself" is hidden and that there are limits to human cognition. One cannot prove to those who are caught up in this belief that they must grasp the "thing in itself" within themselves, for they would never acknowledge this "thing in itself" if it were shown to them. But it is about this recognition. - Everything that Meister Eckhart says is permeated by this recognition. "Take a parable of this. A door opens and closes in a hinge. If I now compare the outer board on the door with the outer man, I compare the hinge with the inner man. Now when the door opens and closes, the outer board moves back and forth, while the hinge remains constantly immobile and is in no way changed. It is the same here." As an individual sensory being I can explore things in all directions - the door opens and closes -; if I do not allow the perceptions of the senses to arise spiritually within me, then I know nothing of their essence - the hinge does not move. According to Eckhart, the enlightenment mediated by the inner sense is the entry of God into the soul. He calls the light of knowledge that flickers through this entry the "little spark of the soul". The place in the human interior where this "little spark" lights up is "so pure, and so high, and so noble in itself, that no creature can be in it, but only God alone dwells in it with his mere divine nature". Whoever has allowed this "little spark" to be absorbed in himself no longer sees merely as man sees with the external senses and with the logical mind, which orders and classifies the impressions of the senses, but he sees how things are in themselves. The external senses and the organizing mind separate the individual human being from other things; they make him an individual in space and time who also perceives other things in space and time. The person enlightened by the "little spark" ceases to be an individual being. He destroys his separation. Everything that causes the difference between him and things ceases. The fact that it is he, as an individual being, who perceives, no longer comes into consideration. The things and he are no longer separate. The things and thus also God see themselves in him. "This little spark, that is God, so that it is a unified One, and bears within itself the image of all creatures, image without image, and image above image." Eckhart expresses the annihilation of the individual being in the most glorious words: "It is therefore to know that the one thing after all things is to know God and to be known by God. In this we recognize God and see that he makes us seeing and recognizing. And just as the air, which illuminates, is nothing other than what it illuminates; for from this it shines that it is illuminated: so we recognize that we are recognized and that he makes us recognizing."
[ 2 ] Master Eckhart builds his relationship with God on this basis. It is a purely spiritual one and cannot be formed according to an image borrowed from human, individual life. God cannot love his creation in the same way that one person loves another; God cannot have created the world in the same way that a master builder builds a house. All such thoughts vanish before the inner vision. It is part of the being of God that he loves the world. A God who could love and also not love is made in the image of the individual human being. "I speak with good truth and with eternal truth and with everlasting truth, that God must pour himself into every man who has let himself down, according to all his ability, so completely that he retains nothing in his life and in his being, in his nature and in his divinity; he must pour it all out in a fruitful way." And inner enlightenment is something that the soul necessarily has to find when it delves into the reason. This alone shows that God's communication to humanity must not be presented in the image of the revelation of one person to another. This communication can also be omitted. One person can close himself off from the other. God must, according to his nature, communicate himself. "It is a certain truth that God therefore needs to seek us, just as if all his divinity depended on it. God may be as little without us as we are without him. If we may turn away from God, God may never turn away from us." Consequently, man's relationship to God cannot be understood in such a way that it contains something figurative, something taken from the individual human. Eckhart is aware that it is part of the perfection of the primordial being of the world to be found in the human soul. This primordial being would be incomplete, indeed unfinished, if it lacked the component of its formation that comes to light in the human soul. What happens in the human being belongs to the original being; and if it did not happen, the original being would only be a part of itself. In this sense, man may feel himself to be a necessary member of the world being. Eckhart expresses this by describing his feelings towards God thus: "I do not thank God that he loves me, for he may not let it go; whether he wants it or not, his nature compels him... Therefore I will not ask God to give me anything, nor will I praise him for what he has given me..."
[ 3 ] But this relationship of the human soul to the primordial being is not to be understood as if the soul in its individual essence were declared to be one and the same with this primordial being. The soul, which is entangled in the world of the senses and thus in finiteness, as such does not already have the content of the primordial being within itself. It must first develop it within itself. It must destroy itself as an individual being. Master Eckhart aptly characterizes this annihilation as "development". "When I come to the bottom of the Godhead, no one asks me where I come from and where I have been, and no one misses me, for here is a development." The sentence also speaks clearly about this relationship: "I take a basin of water and put a mirror in it and place it under the wheel of the sun. The sun casts its bright light into the mirror and yet does not fade away. The reflection of the mirror in the sun is the sun in the sun, and the mirror is what it is. So it is with God. God is in the soul with his nature and in his essence and his divinity, and yet he is not the soul. The reflection of the soul in God is God in God, and yet the soul is what it is."
[ 4 ] The soul that surrenders to inner enlightenment does not merely recognize in itself that which it was before enlightenment; rather, it recognizes that which it only becomes through this enlightenment. "We are to be united with God essentially; we are to be united with God unanimously; we are to be united with God wholly. How are we to be essentially united with God? This is to be done by sight and not by essence. His essence may not become our essence, but should be our life." Not an already existing life - an essence - is to be recognized in the logical sense; but the higher recognition - the vision - is to become life itself; the spiritual, the ideal is to be felt by the seeing human being in the same way as ordinary, everyday life is felt by the individual human nature.
[ 5 ] From such starting points, Meister Eckhart also arrives at a pure concept of freedom. The soul is not free in ordinary life. For it is caught up in the realm of lower causes. It accomplishes what it is compelled to do by these lower causes. Through "vision" it is lifted out of the realm of these causes. It no longer acts as an individual soul. The primordial being is uncovered in it, which can no longer be caused by anything other than itself. "God does not force the will, but rather sets it free, so that it wants nothing other than what God Himself wants. And the spirit may want nothing else than what God wants: and that is not its lack of freedom; it is its actual freedom. For freedom is that we are not bound, that we are therefore free and pure and thus unalloyed, as we were in our first outflow, and as we were freed in the Holy Spirit. "The enlightened man may be said to be the entity that determines good and evil from within himself. He cannot help but accomplish the good. For he does not serve the good, but the good lives itself out in him. "The righteous man serves neither God nor creatures, for he is free, and the closer he is to righteousness, the more he is freedom itself." What then, for Meister Eckhart, can only be evil? It can only be the action under the influence of the subordinate way of looking at things; the action of a soul that has not gone through the state of development. Such a soul is selfish in the sense that it only wants itself. It could only outwardly harmonize its will with moral ideals. The seeing soul cannot be selfish in this sense. Even if it wanted itself, it still wanted the rule of the ideal; for it has made itself into this ideal. It can no longer want the goals of the lower nature, for it no longer has anything in common with this lower nature. For the seeing soul it means no compulsion, no deprivation, to act in the sense of moral ideals. "The man who stands in God's will and in God's love, it is his pleasure to do all the good things that God wills and to refrain from all the evil things that are against God. And it is impossible for him to leave a thing that God wants to have done. Rightly so, it would be impossible for him to walk whose legs are bound, just as it would be impossible for a man to do an evil thing that is in God's will." Eckhart expressly rejects the idea that this view of his gives license to do whatever the individual wants. It is precisely by this that one recognizes the seer, that he no longer wants anything as an individual. "Some people say: If I have God and God's freedom, I may well do anything I want. They understand this word wrongly. Because you can do any thing that is against God and his commandment, you do not have God's love; you may well deceive the world as if you had it." Eckhart is convinced that the soul that delves to the bottom of itself will also find perfect morality shining on this bottom, that all logical understanding and all action in the ordinary sense will cease and a completely new order of human life will enter. "For everything that the understanding may comprehend and everything that the encounter desires is not God. Where understanding and desire end, there it is dark, there God shines. There that power opens up in the soul which is wider than the vast heavens... The blessedness of the righteous and the blessedness of God is one blessedness; for there the righteous is blessed, because God is blessed."