The Thought of Meister Eckhart

The Mystery of the Mystical Union with the Divine

Sem. Patrick Garbo

The mysticism of the ground or in the German language “grunt” is the very summary of the

mysticism of Meister Eckhart according to Prof. Bernard Mcginn (a leading scholar of the life

and works of Eckhart). The Grunt is the center of all the sermons of Eckhart, the scholars of

Middle High German provided a definition of grunt based on the thought of this Dominican

teacher. 1"First ground is easily understood as the physical ground/earth, it can also mean the

bottom or the lowest side of the body, abstractly it is then employed to indicate the origin

(origo), cause (causa), beginning (principium), reason (ratio), or proof of something, it can also

mean as what is inmost, hidden, most proper to a being, that is the essence (essential)." The

ground is a metaphor that describes the very foundation or center of the reality of the Divine. It is

also the empty abyss, that is the true essence of the Godhead, it is the origin of everything. And

in the Grunt, there is no distinction between God and the soul as Meister Eckhart mentioned in

his Sermon 5b 2"God's ground and my ground is the same ground.” For some Christian mystics

such as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, it is the "centro del alma” or “the center of the

soul”. For some Christians, it may sound radical or complex but the good teacher insisted that it

is an essential feature of Christianity 3“Understand: all our perfection and all our bliss depends

on our traversing and transcending all creatureliness, all being and getting into the groundless

1
The Mystical Thought
of Meister Eckhart-Bernard Mcginn
2
Sermon 5b of Meister Eckhart
3
SERMON EIGHTY
ground. We pray to our dear Lord God that we may be one and indwelling, and may God help us

to find this ground. Amen.” As the master suggests the ultimate goal is to penetrate back into

God, to detach from the world of vanities and particularity, and to return to our main source.

The Ideogram of Prof. Bernard Mcginn presenting the whole mystical thought of Eckhart

The exitus “flowing-forth” and the reditus “flowing-back” or “the breaking through” this

doctrine suggests that everything is coming from the seat of the godhead and will return to the

very same seat of the godhead. Exitus may also include the process of sin or distancing from God

but to return there has to be a link between God and Man (the Pauline doctrine of Christ’s

mediation). It echoes the very words of St. Augustine on the Book I of his Confessions
4
“because you made us for yourself and our hearts and no peace until they rest in you.” And
4
SAINT AUGUSTINE
CONFESSIONS
Translated with an Introduction by
some biblical references may influence Eckhart eg. Eccle. 1:7..ad locum unde exeunt flumina,

revertuntur,ut iterum fluant-"The rivers return to the place from whence they flowed, so that they

may flow again"). Gerard Manley Hopkins also expressed the same sentiments in his brief

poem:

Thee God, I come from, to thee go;

All-day long I like fountain flow

From thy hand out, swayed about,

Mote-like in thy mighty glow.

Now the Bullitio (inner boiling) is the inner life of the Holy Trinity, which is the principle or the

ultimate cause (causa) of this big reality, man may also include in the inner life of the Godhead

because he is created in the image and likeness of God (Imago Dei). On the other hand, Ebullitio

is the boiling over or the flowing over, the inner life of the Trinity which consists of the Love

between the Father and the Son resulted in the fruit of the Holy Spirit, from the inner boiling of

the Trinity overflows (ebullition) the origin of all beings. Eckhart also suggested that from the

very foundation of the universe the Father created the world for the Word to be incarnate, it's not

because of the fall of man, but because it was the very intention of the Father from the beginning,

that the overflowing would be turned to the second person of the Trinity taking on the form of

human flesh and enabling human beings to become involved in that reditus process. The

flowing-back process must include the total detachment of the soul from any particularities as

mentioned above, secondly, the birth of the eternal Logos, the birth that Eckhart suggested is not

the historical event that happened 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem but rather the birth of Christ into

R. S. PINE-COFFIN
every human soul, and this birth happens every time we don't just notice it because we are so

attached to our vanities, but if we recognized it we well realized that we are in a union in the

inner life of Trinity, lastly the breaking-through process, the breaking through beyond God, this

the return of the soul to the ground or the indistinct oneness with God (one being with God), this

may sound very controversial because most of the mystics talked about becoming one spirit and

love in God but not one being. Eckhart believes that we are one being with God because it is the

ultimate goal of every being 5"There, the soul forgets herself and all things, as she is in herself,

and knows herself divinely, in as far as God is in her, and insofar as she loves herself divinely in

Him and is united with Him without distinction so that she enjoys and rejoices in nothing but

Him." Eckhart’s understanding of union with the Divine is to raise man into divinity 6“Now

observe: St. Paul says that as we shall with unveiled face regard the splendor and glory of God,

so we shall be transfigured and formed in that image, which is all one image of God and the

Godhead.”. The whole thought of Eckhart could be clearly understood in a poem dated back to

the 14th century attributed to him (Granum Senapis), the poem describes God as a desert, a place

of mystical vastness, an emptiness, or the nothingness of God. This can also be related to the

"nada" of John of the Cross. According to him, we should set aside our images about God

because he is incomprehensible and beyond our senses 7"He is a transcendent being and a

superessential nothingness.” Eckhart’s view might be complex and unorthodox for some

Christian thinkers but his legacy continues to awaken the minds of many people, this spiritual

awakening would lead the soul to that perfect unity 8“O my soul, go out, let God in! Sink, my

entire being, into God’s nothingness.”

5
Sermon 44
6
Sermon 54
7
Sermon 96
8
Granum sinapis, 8th stanza
 MEISTER ECKHART: THE MAN WHOM GOD HID NOTHING

OUTLINE (NEW)

Introduction

I. (Biography) The man whom God hid nothing

a. Early Life of Meister Eckhart

b. His works and the philosophers who influenced him

II. The Thought of Meister Eckhart

a. The Mystery of the Mystical Union with the Divine

BIBLIOGRAPHY (Additional Sources)

Meister Eckhart SELECTED WRITINGS, Selected and Translated by OLIVER DAVIES, pdf

The cloud of unknowing & the Book of privy counseling, Translated & Edited by William

Johnston, pdf

Meister Eckhart- Sermons, pdf

THE COMPLETE MYSTICAL WORKS OF MEISTER ECKHART Translated and Edited by

Maurice O'C. Walshe

INTERNET SOURCES

Fr. Joachim Lally- “Catholic Mystical & Contemplative Tradition: Meister Eckhart” (Lecture)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg0c32KbA-g&t=120s-Meister Eckhart & Christian

Mysticism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1aFIIXeU7s&t=14s-The Metaphysics of Meister Eckhart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzuXu1fTzt0&t=104s-God and Meister Eckhart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StAoAqa08LM&t=67s-The Nearness of the Kingdom by

Meister Eckhart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1Rp1OiFCK0-The Bible and Western Culture - Meister

Eckhart: From Whom God Hid Nothing

https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/blog/2014/09/03/granum-sinapis/