Meister Eckhart & Christian Mysticism

we find ourselves in a curious situation in the current world in some parts of the world especially in secularized europe being religious is sometimes seen as something rather embarrassing something irrational religion generally seen as often being dangerous or opposed to modern ideals but at the same time people also love to call themselves spiritual the term i am spiritual but not religious is a very common term in many of these contexts the bulk of our skepticism towards religion is usually aimed at or towards christianity to the majority of people in europe for example christianity is the

religion by which other religions are measured christianities even the religion by which the very word religion and what it means is kind of based there's the framework upon which we understand what religion is supposed to be in that sense christianity often comes to represent something old and outdated something irrational silly beliefs in some man in the sky who watches over us and by contrast and by comparison many of the religions from the east so we say hinduism or buddhism and these kinds of religions are viewed in a very different light in the western world in

europe this is partly the result of a very shallow understanding of the christian tradition and a romanticizing of the more exotic religions like the eastern traditions many of the theological critiques aim that christianity like for example the idea that they believe in some man in the sky is often more based on popular culture than it is on actual christian theology the intellectual tradition of christian theology and mysticism is a broad deep and complex one and a lot of it would probably be very intellectually stimulating to those who were willing to actually look a bit deeper

rather than through very shallow pop culture infused misrepresentations in fact many of those ideas and philosophies that are so appealing to many people in the eastern religions are usually very much present in the abrahamic religions including christianity in christian mysticism for example we find many striking similarities with teachings from buddhism advaita vedanta sufism and some forms of taoism and this is why i want to dedicate this video to one of the most fascinating thinkers mystics and philosophers in european and christian history the dominican friar from germany the man from whom god hid nothing meister eckhart

[Laughter] [Applause] this video is brought to you by our wonderful patreon community and as always i'm going to be mentioning some of the new arrivals to our patreon team i would like to thank danny van heck arteris flitz george asconis i would like to thank also carl tapps i would like to thank mats orman simulation mo s and marilyn zachla berger and a special thank you to our group of saints wahsev khan greg corbin adam schreibe muhammad hanan fikri say jafari and amulatif without all of you this channel would not be possible so i can't

thank you all enough thank you thank you thank you so much i will leave a link to my patreon page in the description if anyone else wants to join our little community eckhart van gaal is one of the most influential figures in christian mysticism one whose radical expressions of oneness with god in the ground of the soul garnered accusations of heresy but also a list of devoted admirers and followers eckhart was born in germany near the city of gotha and around the year 1260. his earliest years are quite obscure but we know that he probably

entered the dominican order in early adulthood and became a friar in these monastic orders of christianity the difference between a friar and a monk is that a monk lives in a cloistered community that is isolated from the world whereas a friar will take all the vows of celibacy and poverty while still living within society and doing things like teaching and preaching to the masses and indeed the first time meister eckhart appears in the historical record is in 1294 when he holds an easter sermon in paris as a junior professor only one instance that shows maester

eckhart's very active and distinguished career as a teacher and preacher in different convents and in different universities as a young dominican he would study theology and philosophy perhaps under albert the great in cologne he seems to have been strongly influenced by albert as well as thomas aquinas both of whom were his older contemporaries the dominican order at this time was characterized by a strong scholasticism and thereby a big emphasis on philosophy as an important complement to revelation and theology more broadly they were especially influenced by the greek philosopher aristotle and studied many of his works

along with his muslim and arabic commentators like ivan rust or averroes to the dominicans rational philosophy was an important part in understanding the bible and its message properly something that distinguished them from the other major order at the time the franciscans who were often highly critical of using aristotelian philosophy at this time this was in fact a huge debate in the larger christian world these two opposing sides which are often represented by the dominican order on the one hand and the franciscan order on the other often argued about the music compatibility of philosophy and theology

or revelation meister eckhart naturally since he was a dominican argued very much in favor of the use of philosophy and aristotelianism when we read his works and his sermons we can clearly see very strong use and influence from the aristotelian tradition this is at the core of meister eckhart's ideas as a teacher of theology and philosophy we know that eckhart worked as a lecturer on the works of peter lombard in paris in the 1290s and after this he would spend his time moving around a lot between different cities in the region for basically the rest

of his life being appointed to different positions of authority a large portion of his life was spent in a convent in the city airfort which is often considered his home convent this is where he spent most of his time he would preach here to other monks and and members of the dominican order he would write many of his commentaries on the bible and so on in the year 1302 eckhart returned to paris being appointed the regent master which is the highest teaching position in the entire order which is a kind of professorship with a teaching

commitment only a year later and between the years 1303 to 1311 he served as provincial that is the dominican authority over the entire province of saxonia which is eastern and northern germany he was very successful here as well founding a few convents for women and retaining a very high status within the dominican order after this he returned once again to paris to serve a second term as regent master this time for two years before relocating to stroudsburg in 1313 and finally to the city of cologne in either 1323 or 1324 where he spent his last

years all of this to show you that eckhart was no controversial mystic on the fringes of society or the church at least for most of his life he was a very successful and reputable man within the dominican order and also through that in the church generally in all his time moving around from different cities he wrote many literary works primarily in latin much of this corpus of his writings consists of latin works that are mostly commentaries so philosophical commentaries on certain books of the bible these latin works of prose are fascinating and interesting enough in

themselves but it wasn't here that he left his biggest mark on history indeed eckhart was a magnificent preacher and he preached a lot he preached in convents and universities but he also preached to the general masses around germany and in these sermons he used the vernacular language of middle high german that is the language spoken by the regular people indeed this was a time when the german language had begun to be used in a religious way primarily by some of the women mystics of the region like the begins for example now eckhart of course picks

up on this general trend and in the region and uses his native language of german to get very creative linguistically and create some truly awe-inspiring imagery and phrases many of eckhart's sermons survive in written form and they make up the bulk of what has made him so controversial but also so beloved at the same time the use of the vernacular language allowed eckhart to create a very emotional and vibrant way of talking about his mystical ideas about god the soul and the reunion among many other things this is somewhat in contrast to his scholastic treatises

which being tied to the much more established theological language of latin does not come off as creative and as striking but these sermons along with some of his latin treatises as well did get him into some trouble indeed by the end of his life he was actually tried for heresy by the pope john the 22nd certain sections from his writings and sermons were picked out as being possibly heretical and or dangerous and he had to defend himself both in person and in in written form in any case this was of course a long process there

was an investigation eckhart had to defend himself and in trials and and so on this process was so long in fact that by before it even ended eckhart had already died we're not entirely sure how or when eckhart died but scholars suggest that he probably died of natural causes he was pretty old at this time and that it may have been on january 28 1328 as the investigation against eckhart concluded after he died he was not actually deemed a heretic as opposed to what many people tend to say when they talk about this instead 28

parts or 28 sections from his writings or sermons were picked out and deemed as either heretical or as dangerous which indeed did leave a kind of a black mark on his reputation for some time afterwards but this did not stop him of course from being immensely popular and as having many devoted followers and students and today he is generally accepted as a great teacher within the catholic church but now it's time to get into the meats of the discussion what were these ideas that were so powerful and controversial what did he say in his sermons

and his written works now eckhart can be a seriously difficult thinker and there is often disagreement on how he should be interpreted or how some of his ayat core ideas should be understood but one of the foremost scholars of eckhart today bernard mcginn has argued that if eckhart's teachings or ideas can be summarized under one phrase or name it would be the mysticism of the ground the ground is in fact one of the central themes in all of his sermons and a concept which everything else revolves around the original word which eckhart uses is the

german grunt which is as we have seen translated as ground but in fact can have a much broader and more creative use in its original german form in the words of megin quote grunt can first of all be understood as physical ground that is the earth grunt can also mean the bottom or lowest side of a body surface or structure abstractly grunt is employed to indicate the origin cause beginning reason or proof of something finally grunt is employed as what is in most hidden and most proper to a being that is its essence in some

ways this is quite different from how the word ground usually functions in english and thus the word german word grunt gives eckhart the opportunity to play around a lot with terms and concepts but in any case the way that eckhart uses the word grunt is to signify a radical and striking point about the nature of reality to the dominican master the ground of the soul and the ground of god is one and the same ground in fact in a lot of his sermons and writings he talks about the ground in an indistinct way so he's

not talking about the divine ground or the ground of the soul because when he talks about the ground there is no distinction between these two quotes it is not because either the soul is grounded in its essential reality or god in his but because they are both grounded in the same ground in a fused identity that eckhart and his followers found the language of the ground so rich in meaning the ground or grunt is a metaphor that describes the very zenith or center of reality or the divine it is incomprehensible beyond all being or language

or particularity it is god but it is also beyond god what i mean by that is that is beyond god as we commonly understand god it is beyond the trinity of the christian theology or even the oneness of god itself but it nonetheless is god in god's absolute and essential reality the ground is utterly the silent and empty abyss which in german is ab grunt by the way that is the true essence of the godhead it is the starting point of reality from which everything including divinity emanates and to which everything eventually flows back and

in the grunt there is no distinction the soul and god everything is absolutely indistinct from each other they are fundamentally one eckhart himself puts it in very plain words quotes god's ground and the soul's ground is one ground and quote here god's ground is my ground and my ground is god's ground and this sounds radical of course and to some it may appear to go against what is perceived as christian orthodoxy but eckhart existed that this is an essential feature of christianity and the divine word quote now know all of our perfection and our holiness

rests in this that a person must penetrate and transcend everything created in temporal and all being and go into the ground that has no ground we pray our dear lord god that we may become one and indwelling as this section suggests the ultimate goal is to penetrate back into god to detach from the world of particularities and individualism and return back to our source and eventually the further we reach even god himself will unbecome as court the mystic is not content to return to the god who acts but effects a breaking through to the silent

unmoving godhead as we break through we reach beyond the god as commonly perceived beyond the trinity and enter into the silent empty desert of the ground the grunt where god and human achieves indistinct identity in the simple one but this indistinction and oneness is always there it is not that the mystic becomes one with god but realizes it is already essential oneness of course many christian mystics and thinkers prior to eckhart had also talked about uniting with god but in most cases this was referring to a kind of intimacy with god or as being one

with god in spirits and not necessarily a complete identity between the two but this indeed seems to be what eckhart is indicating the closest we find to eckhart's expressions is in the uh christian mystic women of the 13th and 14th centuries and especially in with the begin movement in the writings of some of these begins like mech till the magdeburg or we find similar expressions of oneness with god and especially in the french mystic marguerite paret who had been burnt at the stake for heresy in 1310 so right around the time that eckhart would hang

around in paris as well it's quite likely thus that eckhart was familiar with her masterpiece the mirror of simple souls which is what got her executed it would thus be safe to say that eckhart was influenced on the one hand of course by some of the great scholastic philosophers and theologians like albert the greats and thomas aquinas but also by some of the begins that were flourishing in the region at the time both in language and also in ideas but the concept of ground or grunts and its identity with both god and the soul is

really only the starting point of eckhart's very complex theology and metaphysics he has a lot more to say on subjects like well god the soul creation and ethics among that much more the more scholastic metaphysics of eckhart's works expressed in his latin treatises and commentaries on the bible paints the picture of a very complex and often hard to understand theology eckhart even warns himself that if not understood properly many of the things he says will come off as heretical there is a lot to go through here so bear with me but let's start with that

very central thing to well most christians which is of course god who is god and how does eckhart understand him well the first thing that needs to be understood is that eckhart's theology is a heavily negative or apophatic one what this means is that he applies the sort of theology where when all is said and done nothing can be said or grasped about god he is utterly beyond any description or intellectual understanding and the best response is really just silence in this he is heavily influenced by two of his predecessors his fellow dominican thomas aquinas

and the jewish philosopher maimonides indeed to eckhart god in his absolute ground grunt is even identified as nothingness as a total and absolute absence of anythingness and an absolute abyss and darkness which cannot be grasped but he still has a few things to say about god and one of the key discussions here is on the so-called transcendentals that is attributes or qualities that apply to god and creatures which includes things like being in existence oneness goodness and truth in eckhart's thought god is in fact the only one who possesses these qualities so god is being

an existence god is goodness god is oneness and none of these things belong to created things quote analogouts have nothing of the form according to which they are analogically ordered rooted in positive fashion in themselves but every created being is analogically ordered to god in existence truth and goodness therefore every created being radically and positively possesses existence life and wisdom from god and in god and not in itself indeed one of the most recurring themes in eckhart is that he identifies the essence of god with being itself a more precisely indistinct being meaning he doesn't

have being in the sense that a creature or anything has a being or existence he is pure being or pure existence in itself and because god is the sole possessor of this attribute this means that when it comes to created things like me and you and all things in the universe they are absolutely nothing in themselves any being or existence that you or i have is really god's being and thus identical to god himself insofar as it is being and the same can be said about the other transcendental qualities like goodness god again is goodness

itself and any goodness in creatures is really god's goodness here it is important to grasp one of the key features of eckhart's thought the so-called in quantum principle often expressed with the term in so far as so if we return to the quality of goodness for example a good person is participating in eternal goodness and thus god himself insofar as he is good the good person is god insofar as he is good because goodness is nothing but god himself and yet in his entire created reality he is not god whatsoever he is that which god

isn't he is nothing but again insofar as he has being he is nothing other than god since god is being itself so again we can look at the world and creation itself as utter nothingness it's it has no being has no goodness all these qualities only belong to god and creation and the things in the world are really just emptiness they're nothing they're nothingness entirely but in some way at the same time they share in these quality or they don't share in the qualities but it is god's qualities that are sort of experienced through this

nothingness of the created things quote if my life is god's being then god's existence must be my existence and god's is-ness is my is-ness neither less nor more and this paradox is something that you'll have to get used to it is in fact one of eckhart's favorite ways of talking about god since nothing can truly be said about god the purpose of eckhart's weird expressions and paradoxes is not to actually describe god in any real way but instead to in bernard mcginn's words quote frame the appropriate paradoxes that would serve to highlight the inherent limitations

of our minds and to mark off in some way the boundaries of the unknown territory where god dwells in one sense and very importantly god is absolutely and utterly transcendent of the world and creation this is not a pantheism in the common sense of that word god is utterly distinct and different from all created things because he is being itself and they are nothingness but at the same time god is all things and there is nothing which is not god god is the existence of all things in an absolute sense but not in the way

that he sort of dwells within them or in their created nature he's not incarnated in all things and eckhart talks about this paradox in a very unique and clever dialectical language by affirming that it is god's distinction that is his very indistinction it is god's utter difference from creation that is the same as his other sameness and imminence indeed aside from indistinct being or existence two of the favorite words of eckhart to describe god is unity and oneness unum and intellect he shows his clear debt to aristotelian philosophy by essentially conceiving of god as pure

intellect pure thinking awareness and knowledge in some spots he even places this aspect of god as being above being itself quote it does not now seem to me that god understand because he exists but rather that he exists because he understands but even more important for our current discussion is the word unity or oneness or unum which is applied to god as well to eckhart god in his absolute essence is of course one and consists of a unity this doesn't deny the doctrine of the trinity of course as we will clearly see soon but that

in essence god is oneness to echo then to be one means the same as to be indistinct quote we must understand that the term one is the same as indistinct in other words not to be distinguished for all distinct things are two or more but all indistinct things are one think of it this way existence is distinguished by the fact that it isn't distinguished at all everything partakes in existence and that in itself is what is unique about existence so existence is distinct or unique by the very fact that it is totally indistinct or the

same and this is true of god since he is existence the more he is different the more he is the same by that very logic now if you've been watching this channel for a while i know what you're thinking this sounds eerily similar to the ideas expressed by the sufi thinker ibn arabi and his school of or the unity of being and indeed the similarities up to this point are many and hard to ignore it could be the result of a common influence from neoplatonism i think that's probably a huge part of it but there

could also be other factors involved in any case it is a very fascinating and interesting comparison to make because there are certainly so many similarities here but meister record is also very unique of course being a christian and a dominican friar his ideas are very much influenced and grounded in those traditions as well indeed as most of you probably know the main theological idea of mainstream christianity is the idea of the trinity that is that god is one but that he consists of three different persons the father the son and the holy spirit so how

does eckhart relate his ideas about the ground that is god beyond god with the doctrine of the trinity and how do we get from this silent desert this silent emptiness to the creation of the universe in this discussion eckhart is likely strongly influenced by neoplatonism because the key feature of his metaphysics is one of divine outflow and inflow referred to as exetus or usgank and reditus or in other words everything flows from the divine ground and also flows back into that same ground and it is with this flowing or emanation that all things including the

trinity or god comes to be starting with the flowing out from god there are two stages or modes of this outflow the first of which is referred to as bulitzio this is an activity that takes place within god himself and is thus prior to any creation this activity is sometimes described as an inner boiling in which the three persons of the trinity come to be since this is all happening in god who is beyond time and space we should not think of this as a temporal activity this inner boiling take place in the eternal now

as eckhart calls it god or the father is always giving birth to the son or word or christ and the holy spirit is every existence as the bond of love that exists between them and it is from this buliccio this inner boiling that the next stage then takes place which he calls ebolizio so if bulicio is the inner boiling within god itself or god himself ebolicio is when god boils over it's like we lift the pan or the lid off the pan and god boils over into creation thus to eckhart the universe is created through

the outflow and overboiling of god himself this also means that creation itself contains elements or traces of this inner boiling and thus also of the trinity indeed eckhart sees creatures and things in the world as signs that point to god not just in the sense that their being is his being or that their goodness is his goodness this is also true but also in the sense that everything in the world in their created form seems to also contain traces of of the divine inner activity of the divine trinity and of the divine inner boiling the

sort of interactivity and principles of the trinity to eckhart is actually the very foundation of the order of the world and of the universe but just as everything flows from god all things are simultaneously called to return back to him this is the central theme for eckhart as a spiritual guide it is here that he explores how the individual human being can transcend the limits of created being and travel back on the path to indistinct unity with god which is after all the goal of all existence it is also here that the christology and the

figure of christ as the son and word of god shines through when it's his writings the most and makes sure that there is no confusion about eckhart's identity as a christian there are two main themes that recur in eckhart's discussions about the return to god one is the birth of the word in the soul and the second is the breaking through into the divine ground when we talk about the word in christian theology this is referring to the logos as mentioned in the first lines of the gospel of john in the beginning was the word

and the word was with god and the word was god or more specifically it is referring to the person of the son and the trinity and thus also it is referring to christ the word or son is in a way identical to god but in a mode of its own the word can be thought of as god's own knowledge or thoughts about himself the word is the principle from which everything in the universe is created and which is completely incarnated in the living person of jesus christ now for eckhart one of the highest features of

the mystical experience or rather mystical awareness is what he calls the birth of the word or sun in the soul as we have said the birth of the sun and god is always taking place outside time and space in the eternal present and secondly if you remember that central idea of eckhart's that the ground of the soul and the ground of god is one on the same ground this must necessarily mean that the word is being born in the ground of the soul at all times as well but we don't realize this of course being

caught up with our lives and the world of multiplicity so what we want to do is return back to god to that dark abyss in our soul and realize that birth of the word but how is this done in eckhart sermons one of the things he talks about the most and which is most important in terms of practical advice and thus the the highest forms of spiritual and religious practice is what he calls detachment what he means by this is not necessarily a detachment from outer things in the world like living in celibacy and these

things although as a dominican friar he would of course not be opposed to those ideas but what he's instead referring to is this kind of inner detachment and and freeing of the soul from its limitations caught true detachment is nothing else than for the spirit to stand as immoveable against whatever may chance it of joy and sorrow honor shame and disgrace as a mountain of lead stands before a little breath of wind this is a cutting off of all attachments to the world including the ego self and its works in a sense it is to

annihilate ourselves until there is nothing at all remaining to eckhart detachment means to empty ourselves of created things and return to the silent desert of the soul which is endless and it is only in this absolute abyss or ab grunt an emptiness of the soul that god shows himself quote you must know that to be empty of all created things is to be full of god and to be full of creative things is to be empty of god by detaching we increasingly become aware of god's indistinction to all things and the unity of our ground

we reach a knowledge that is really a non-knowledge in other words according to eckhart through unknowing true knowledge or rather awareness is achieved the soul must be completely empty in order to be filled by god himself just like the eye can only see color because it has no color of its own eckhart indeed considers god to be nothing not in the sense that he doesn't exist of course but that he literally is no thing and that its essence is a complete and utter incomprehensible abyss or nothingness but as we have seen it is this nothing

that is at the same time all things our created nature by contrast is absolutely nothing in itself at all since all attribution of qualities belong to god ultimately so when we are detaching from everything created we are really detaching from nothing from nothingness and returning to the other emptiness that is absolute fullness more juicy paradoxes here of course quote eckhart's mystical way will be an invitation to the soul to give up the nothingness of his created self in order to become the divine nothing that is also all things and it is when we reach this

state of complete detachment and emptiness of the soul that god can then fill us and then it is then that we experience the birth of the word in our own soul which is really taking place in at all times in the internal now but at this stage we we really experience this as part of our being and in a sense as such we also take part in the sonship of christ in so doing the self-knowledge and self-expression of god becomes apparent to us in the words of bernard mcginn again caught in perfect self-surrender god's self-knowing

becomes our self-knowing or better since there is no distinction in the one ground there is only a single essential self-knowing lastly another common metaphor that eckhart uses to describe this process of uniting with god is the term or concept of breaking through into the divine ground and this is where he gets the most radical with his language what he often means here is that for us to reach ultimate and complete union with god we must go beyond all images and all ideas and in that sense we must also go beyond god himself the detached soul

is never satisfied but also always seeks to go deeper into the abyss it passes by god as understood as the creator of the universe and with all these attributes that we conceive of god as having it goes beyond that god and further into the divine emptiness the divine nothingness in eckhart's words quote i speak in all truth truth that is eternal and enduring that this same light the spark of the soul is not content with the simple divine essence and its repose as it neither gives nor receives but it wants to know the source of

this essence it wants to go into the simple ground into the quiet desert into which distinction never gazed not the father nor the son nor the holy spirit or in another clear quote in the breaking through when i come to be free of will of myself and of god's will and of all his works and of god himself then i am above all created things and i am neither god nor creature but i am what i was and what i shall remain now and eternally he goes even further quote as long as the soul has

god knows god and is aware of god she is far from god the greatest honor the soul can pay to god is to leave god to himself and to be free of him in other words when complete self-realization is reached and we have returned to the limitless ground where the soul and god is one without distinction god unbecomes or dies we leave god behind and only exist in the silent ground which is god's true essence we have broken through into a total unity with the divine quote you should completely sink away from your eunus and

flow into his his-ness and your you and his his shall become one hour so totally that with him you eternally comprehend his unbecoming is-ness and his unnamed nothingness and this very conveniently brings us to the ethical teachings of meister eckhart this has all been very abstract so far and you may think what can he possibly extract in terms of ethical and moral teachings from any of this but in fact it actually flows pretty naturally from these ideas since the goal of a human being for a card is to be completely detached from created things this

means that we are also to be detached from our individual will our own wills and indeed once we reach complete and indistinct union with god there is nothing of us remaining none of our will will still be there there will only be god's will we don't want anything anymore we don't want to act piously we don't want to do the religious obligations anymore he calls this active attitude to quote live without a why in the same vein we also let go of all virtues this was of course scandalous for a lot of people but very

interestingly this is also where we find probably the biggest sign that eckhart may have been influenced by the begin marguerite paret and her book mirror of simple souls where she expresses basically identical ideas once we break through into the ground of god's being we let go of all virtues and religious obligations but it's very important to not misunderstand eckhart here as many have done eckhart and marguerite pratt both expressed these ideas and these expressions are primarily actually what got margaret peret executed because people didn't really understand what she was actually talking about here what eckhart's

and paret is saying is not that the person in question is relieved of performing his religious duties or of being virtuous instead what he is referring to is that when the soul is completely won or united with god and is annihilated the will of the individual person is completely annihilated as well so he will still perform he will still be virtuous he will still do his religious obligations but that will not be done through his own will it will only be god's will who acts just like god doesn't choose to be good he just is

good spontaneously because well he's god so too the person who has been united to god doesn't choose to act virtuously he just does so spontaneously because he is sort of enacting the will of god his individual will has been annihilated and there is only god left in fact maester eckhart was actually more of a supporter of an active life in this world than many of the other christian mystics of the middle ages a pure life of contemplation and an active life in charity and society was not a paradox to him but were essentially connected when

we again reach union with god and our actions stem spontaneously from his divine will our outer actions and active life become a necessary and important extension of that divine awareness it is here in this world that we live out the will of god but indeed as mentioned earlier many of these ideas of eckhart did get him into trouble now make no mistake eckhart was a successful very well respected man for the majority of his life but as we discussed in the beginning of the video he was indeed tried for heresy by the end of his

life and after he had died some of his writings selections from his writings were condemned as being either heretical or very dangerous and this would tarnish his reputation to a degree of course but still eckhart would go on to be a very respected and influential figure nonetheless some of his immediate students like henry souza and johannes tower would become very prominent writers and preachers themselves and his influence can be felt generally in the catholic church there have been times in history when his fame has diminished of course but today especially in the last century or

so he has very much been revived and is often considered a great teacher both in the church but also outside of christianity of course many of the new religious movements of today often look at him fondly and compare his ideas to those of other traditions like buddhism vedanta and sufism and of course not without reason his expressions of nothingness and emptiness and even that the godhead itself is utter nothingness has often compared to the buddhist ideas of shunyata or emptiness for example i'm sure that some of you watching can spot a lot of these similarities

that he shares with people and thinkers of other religious and spiritual traditions i think eckhart is one of the most fascinating figures of his kind in really all of history there has been some debate as to whether he should be considered a mystic or a philosopher or a theologian and there are aspects of him that really allow us to interpret him as all of these three i think the best thing for us to do is to not label him with only one of these categories he was of course a successful scholastic philosopher highly influenced by

the aristotelian tradition so in that sense he is a philosopher of course but he also applied this to theological ideas and he was a you know in terms of his writings and sermons they have a strong theological speculative theological bans so he is also a theologian but at the same time there is no denying that a lot of what he says is definitely mystical and of course that's a very difficult term but in a general sense of course he is very mystical in his ideas as well so why should we limit him to only one

of these categories i think eckhart is a thinker that really transcends these kinds of labels he expresses himself in ways that that just lends itself to so many different kinds of understandings and expressions but really who cares when the result is so intellectually stimulating baffling and inspiring all at the same time i'll see you next [Music] time you