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ABSTRACT
This essay seeks to elicit the complexity, profundity, and subtlety at work in the title, so as to gain a more genuine understanding of what constitutes mystical knowledge and divine awareness for Eckhart. In part one I explore what Eckhart means by this line, and in the process disclose what he does not mean. In part two I explore the mystical implications of the line’s meaning. Throughout I draw from Eckhart’s own sermons and treatises, as well as scripture and works that have influenced his thinking. I also incorporate examples from other mystical traditions as analogies that help us to grasp what Eckhart is saying. My aim is to show the varying ways in which the mystical can be understood in Eckhart, and the extent to which these ways are significant to him. To conclude, I elucidate what Eckhart’s famous line in essence says and what it achieves.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Eckhart, Sermon 57, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 87.
2 Rumi, ‘Who Says Words With My Mouth’, Rumi: The Essential Rumi, 13.
3 The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen’s Most Important Koan, 19.
4 See, for example, Eckhart, Sermon 19, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 157.
5 Eckhart, Sermon 65, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 136.
6 Eckhart, Sermon 66, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 143–4.
7 Eckhart, Sermon 57, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 87.
8 Ibid.
9 Eckhart, Sermon 60, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 104.
10 Ibid.
11 Meister Eckhart, ‘Commentary on John’, 163.
12 Also see Ibid., 169.
13 I would argue that mystics from different traditions and periods grasp this very point in various ways.
14 See, for example, Eckhart, Sermon 57, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 83.
15 See, for example, Eckhart, Sermon 17, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 144.
16 Eckhart, Sermon 13(b), in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 118.
17 Ibid., 116–7.
18 Eckhart, Sermon 47, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 28.
19 Eckhart, Sermon 97, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 339.
20 Eckhart, ‘Commentary on John’, 160.
21 Lk. 14: 26 (KJV).
22 Eckhart, Sermon 30, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 224.
23 Rumi, ‘A Community of the Spirit’, 3.
24 Sankara, Crest-Jewel of Discrimination, 119.
25 Eckhart, Sermon 14(b), in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 127.
26 See Eckhart, Sermon 4, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 40.
27 See, Mt. 5: 29, and 18: 9. See also Mk. 9: 47.
28 Eckhart, Sermon 13(b), in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 119.
29 Rumi, ‘Be Melting Snow’, 13.
30 Quoted from, Myokyo-Ni, Gentling the Bull: The Ten Bull Pictures. A Spiritual Journey, 30.
31 See, Eckhart, Sermon 8, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 71.
32 See Ibid., 72.
33 Eckhart, Sermon 53, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 66.
34 See Eckhart, Sermon 1, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 4.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Eckhart, ‘Commentary on John’, 160.
38 See Eckhart, Sermon 42, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 294–5.
39 See Eckhart, Sermon 68, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 160–1.
40 Eckhart, Sermon 66, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 141.
41 See Augustine, The Confessions, 3. 6. 11.
42 See Eckhart, Sermon 69, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 165.
43 Eckhart, Sermon 7, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 63.
44 See Eckhart, Sermon 59, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 100. Also see Walshe’s note 13 on p. 101.
45 Eckhart, ‘Commentary on John’, 163.
46 ‘Kena Upanishad’, The Thirteen Principal Upanishads: Translated from the Sanskrit, 337. There are many more modern translations of this text and this particular line, but for me, other translations of this line do not quite capture the same meaning.
47 Ex. 33: 20 (KJV).
48 See, Kaiser Jr., Davids, Bruce, and Brauch, Hard Sayings of the Bible, 154–6. Note that on p. 153 of this book, it also argues that, allegorically, to see God’s back suggests God’s disapproval, whereas to see his face suggests his blessing and approval. There is also a striking similarity here to Arjuna asking Krishna in chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita if he can have a cosmic vision of Krishna’s divine form and eternal Self. Arjuna cannot see this with mortal eyes and so is temporarily given divine sight with which he sees everything in the universe there is to see including the past and the future.
49 Jn. 1: 18 (KJV).
50 See Eckhart, Sermon 13(b), in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 117–8.
51 See, for example, Eckhart, ‘Commentary on John’, 161.
52 See Eckhart, Sermon 47, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 27–8.
53 Ibid., 29.
54 Eckhart, Sermon 14(b), in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 126.
55 Eckhart, Sermon 18, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 151.
56 See Eckhart, Sermon 23, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 184.
57 Eckhart, ‘Commentary on John’, 162.
58 Ibid., 163.
59 Eckhart, Sermon 74, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 203.
60 See Ex. 20: 2.
61 Eckhart, Sermon 9, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 87.
62 Eckhart, Sermon 41, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 289.
63 Eckhart, Sermon 96, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 333.
64 See, for example, section 125 of The Gay Science, and section 2 of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
65 Eckhart, Sermon 19, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 154.
66 Ex. 33: 11 (KJV). See also, Deut. 34: 10.
67 Eckhart, Sermon 78, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 225.
68 Eckhart, ‘The Book of the Parables of Genesis’, 113.
69 Ibid.
70 Eckhart, Sermon 14(b) in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 124.
71 Ibid., 125.
72 Eckhart, ‘Commentary on John’, 129.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid., 130.
75 Eckhart, Sermon 79, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 233.
76 See Eckhart, Sermon 14(b) in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 125.
77 1 Cor. 13: 12 (KJV).
78 The New Greek-English Interlinear New Testament, 610.
79 See Strong, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, 1559.
80 See Cruden, Cruden’s Complete Concordance to the Old and New Testaments, 197.
81 Augustine, The Confessions, 2.3.6, 34.
82 Ibid., 4.16.30, 83.
83 The New Greek-English Interlinear New Testament, 610.
84 Furthermore, where to ‘know in part’ suggests we know attributes of God in the world, such as, justice, Eckhart frequently argues throughout his works that the just man is only just and therefore justified through justice itself, and in this respect, we might say that he knows justice fully.
85 Eckhart, ‘Commentary on John’, 162.
86 See Eckhart, Sermon 67, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 154.
87 1 Jn. 3: 2 (KJV).
88 Eckhart, Sermon 41, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 290.
89 See Ibid.
90 Eckhart, Sermon 43, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 1.
91 Eckhart, Sermon 14(b), in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 124.
92 Walshe, Ibid., note 3, 128.
93 See Eckhart, Sermon 29 in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 219.
94 See Eckhart, Sermon 63, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 119, and Sermon 65, 134.
95 See Eckhart, Sermon 20 in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 164.
96 See Eckhart, Sermon 7 in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 65.
97 Eckhart, Sermon 24(a) in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 189.
98 Eckhart, Sermon 78, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 225.
99 See Eckhart, Sermon 14(b) in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 123, Sermon 71, vol. II, 182–3, and Sermon 78, vol. II, 225.
100 See Eckhart, Sermon 53 in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 62–3, Sermon 65, vol. II, 137, and Sermon 68, vol. II, 159.
101 See Eckhart, Sermon 62 in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 114–5, and Sermon 94, vol. II, 323.
102 Eckhart, Sermon 5, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 52.
103 See Eckhart, Sermon 62 in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 114.
104 See Eckhart, Sermon 37, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. I, 269–70.
105 Ibid.
106 Eckhart, Sermon 57, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 87.
107 Huang Po, On the Transmission of Mind, 81.
108 Ibid., note 1.
109 Ibid., 82.
110 Ibid., note 1.
111 A reference to, Exodus, 3: 14.
112 Eckhart, Sermon 87, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 273.
113 Jn. 1: 5 (KJV). See, for example, Eckhart, Sermon 51, in Meister Eckhart: Sermons and Treatises, vol. II, 53, and Sermon 53, Ibid., 67.
114 The Upaniṣads, trans. and ed., Valerie J. Roebuck (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 46.
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Duane Williams
Duane Williams is an associate professor in the theology, philosophy, and religious studies department at Liverpool Hope University. His teaching and research interests include: mystical theology, religious philosophy, phenomenology, hermeneutics, aesthetics, poetics and philosophy of language. He is a trustee of The Eckhart Society and editor of the society’s journal, Medieval Mystical Theology. He is also a co-facilitator of the Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion.