Passion for Creation

We read in the Gospel that Saint Luke writes about a young man who was dead. Then our Lord came by and appeared at the right time, took compassion on him, touched him, and said: “Young man, I tell you to get up!” (Lk. 7:12ff.).

Understand now that God is entirely in every good person. There is in the soul a something in which God dwells, and there is in the soul a something in which the soul dwells in God. However, if the soul turns outward to other objects, it will die, and God also will die for the soul. Of course, God does not die to himself, but he rather continues to live in himself. If the soul separates from the body, the body is dead, but the soul continues to live in itself. In the same way, God is dead for that soul, even though he continues to live in himself. Understand now that there is a power in the soul that is wider than the widest heaven, which is so unbelievably wide that we cannot correctly express it. Yet that power is even wider still.

Come now and pay careful attention! In that noble power the heavenly Father now says to his only begotten Son: “Young man, get up!” The union of God with the soul is so great that it is scarcely believable, and God is so lofty in himself that no perception or longing can attain him. Longing extends beyond everything we can attain through perception. It is wider than all the heavens; indeed, it is wider than all the angels. And at the same time all that is on earth lives merely from a tiny spark of an angel. Longing is wide, immeasurably wide. But all that perception can grasp and all that longing can long for—that is not God. Where understanding and longing end, it is dark but God shines there.

Our Lord now says: “Young man, I tell you to get up!” If I am to perceive God’s word within myself, I have to be alienated from all that is mine, especially from the realm of the temporal, just as whatever is beyond the sea is alien to me. The soul is as young as it was when it was created. Old age, which falls to the soul’s lot, has effect with respect to the body only to the extent that the soul is active in the senses. A master of the spiritual life says: “If an old person had the eyes of a young person, he or she would see just as well as the young person.” Yesterday I sat in a dwelling place and made a statement that sounded quite unbelievable. I said that Jerusalem is as close to my soul as the place in which I am now. Yes, quite truly, an object a thousand miles farther away than Jerusalem is as near to my soul as is my own body—and I am as certain of this as I am of the fact that I am a human being. And it is easy for learned priests to comprehend what I am saying. Understand that my soul is as young as it was when it was created. Indeed, it is even younger! And understand that it would not surprise me if it were younger tomorrow than it is today!

The soul has two powers that have nothing to do with the body—reason and will, which operate beyond time. Would that the eyes of the soul were opened so that perception could gaze clearly at the truth! Understand that for such a person it would be easy to abandon all things as if they were but a pea or a bean. Yes, by my soul, all that would be to such a person like nothing! Now there are certain people who abandon things out of love, yet still are concerned about the things they have abandoned as if they were important. People, however, who truly know that, even if they give up themselves and everything else, all this is just nothing—ah, people who live in this way truly possess all things.

In the soul there is a power for which all things are equally delightful. Indeed, for this power the least important and the best of things are totally one and the same. This power grasps all things beyond “here” and “now.” “Now” means time, and “here” means place, that is, the place in which I am at present. If, however, I had completely left myself and become quite empty of myself, oh, then the Father would indeed have produced his only begotten Son in my spirit so completely that my spirit would produce him again. Yes, in all truth, if my soul were just as prepared as the soul of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father would have had the same pure effect in me as in his only begotten Son; the effect would have been no less. For the Father loves me with the same love as the one with which he loves himself.

Saint John said: “In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (Jn. 1:1). Now then, whoever should hear this Word in the Father—where it is completely still—must be quite still and cut off from all images and forms. Indeed, such people must conduct themselves so faithfully toward God that all things can cause them neither delight nor dismay. Such people should rather accept all things in God, just as they are.

Now Jesus says: “Young man, I tell you to get up!” He wishes to accomplish the deed himself. If anyone were to order me to carry a stone, he might just as well order me to carry a thousand stones as only one, to the extent that that person wishes to execute by himself or herself the act of carrying. Or if someone were to order another to carry a hundred weight, then the person might just as well order that a thousand weight be carried if the person giving the order is willing to carry the weight by himself or herself. Now then, God wishes to carry out this deed by himself. The individual needs only to follow and not resist him in anything. Ah, if the soul would dwell only inwardly, it would then have all things present.

There is a power in the soul, and not only a power but much more—there is a form of being and not only a form of being but rather something that detaches a person from being. This is so complete and high and noble in itself that no creature can enter it except God, who dwells within it. Indeed, in all truth, God himself cannot enter it to the extent that he has modes for himself or even to the extent that God himself is a mode or is good or is abundant. Quite truly, God cannot enter with any mode whatsoever. Rather, only with his purely divine nature can God enter it.

Now then, pay attention to what Jesus says: “Young man, I tell you . . .” What now is God’s “declaration”? It is God’s deed, and this deed is so noble and elevated that God done accomplishes it. Know then that all our perfection and all our bliss depend on the fact that the individual goes through and beyond all creation and all temporality and all being, and enters the foundation that is without foundation.

We ask of God, our dear Lord, that we should become one and indwelling. May God help us to this end. Amen.

COMMENTARY: Spirituality—the Art of Wakefulness/Thankfulness, the Ultimate Prayer/Rising from the Dead Before We Die/Why God Needs to Love Us

Spanish poet Antonio Machado has written that God sent his Word in the person of Jesus Christ to announce just one word. That word is: “Wake up!” This theme of waking up, of getting up, of rising up may well signify the meaning of spirituality the world over. Spirituality is our waking up—in our consciousness and our work lives and our ways of living—waking up to the divine presence everywhere. The Kabir spiritual tradition from fifteenth-century India spoke similarly of the need for waking up. Says the Kabir:

Friend, wake up! Why do you go on sleeping?

The night is over—do you want to lose the day the same way?

Other women who managed to get up early have

already found an elephant or a jewel . . .

So much was lost already while you slept. . .

and that was so unnecessary!

My inside, listen to me, the greatest spirit,

the Teacher, is near,

wake up, wake up!

Run to his feet—

he is standing close to your head right now.

You have slept for millions and millions of years.

Why not wake up this morning? . . .

Oh friend, I love you, think this over

carefully! If you are in love,

then why are you asleep?

In Sermon Six we saw Eckhart invoking this same theme of waking up by citing Paul’s treatment of that theme in Romans and also Jesus’ referring to it in the Gospels. In this sermon, we see Eckhart reiterating this theme but with a new dimension to it. Here, it is not just a matter of our sleeping away our lives and sleeping away our divine potential. Here we are actually dead to the divine and dead to our own potential. And so Jesus not only says “Wake up” but “Get up.”

Following is the fuller scriptural reading of Jesus’ waking the young man from the dead. It is a story about Jesus’ compassion and about Jesus’ being called “Lord” for the first time in Luke’s Gospel. The reason for this new appellation is twofold: In the Jewish mind, only God is capable of compassion and in the Jewish mind only God can give life and thus wake one from the dead.

Jesus went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. When he was near the gate of the town it happened that a dead man was being carried out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt compassion for her. “Do not cry,” he said. Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, “Young man, I tell you to get up.” And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Everyone was filled with awe and praised God. (Lk. 7:11–16)

Since this scriptural passage invokes the divine name of Jesus, that of Lord for the first time, Eckhart feels justified in introducing what he considers a parallel passage from the Gospel of John that announces the nearness of the Word to God and especially how the gift of life comes to humans through this Word. Following is the fuller passage from that which Eckhart cites in this sermon:

In the beginning was the Word:

the Word was with God

and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things came to be,

not one thing had its being but through him.

All that came to be had life in him

and that life was the light of men,

a light that shines in the dark,

a light that darkness could not overpower. (Jn. 1:1–5)

Eckhart paraphrases this last line in his sermon by saying that where understanding and longing end, it is dark, but God shines there.

Eckhart distinguishes between enlightened and unenlightened persons as between those who are awake or aware and those who are not. It is a question of experience and of tasting or not tasting. Eckhart’s attitude toward those who do not taste is a certain exasperation at a great waste. Such persons are wasting their lives just as a person who keeps a good wine cellar but never tastes the wine is wasting his wine.

People who know all that God knows are a God-knowing people. People apprehend God in his own selfhood and in his own unity and in his own presence and in his own truth. With such people all is well. But the person who is not accustomed to inward things does not know what God is. Like a man who has wine in his cellar, but has not drunk it or tasted it, such a person does not know that it is good. Thus it is with people who live in ignorance. They do not know what God is, and yet they think and believe that they are alive.¹

Such people only imagine they are alive—they are not yet alive, not yet risen from the dead. Notice that the waking up and getting up is related by Eckhart to consciousness or knowledge of God, which is a tasting knowledge. We need to wake up and get up from our mortal slumber by an adventurous exploration of the mysteries that lie behind mysteries and of the core behind the core of things.

The shell must be cracked apart and then what is in it must come out; for if you want the kernel, you must break the shell. And therefore, if you want to discover nature unconcealed, you must destroy all likenesses and the farther you get in, the nearer you come to its being.²

Getting up also means entering in—you must break the shell if you want the kernel. Or, as Eckhart puts it in the present sermon, we should become one and indwelling. In fact, so deep and so deeply divine is our inner kernel that only God can enter there. And even God has to take his shoes off to enter. Only with his purely divine nature can God enter there.

So important is the theme of getting up and waking up to Eckhart’s spirituality that he devoted another sermon to a similar scriptural passage from the following chapter of Luke’s Gospel. Indeed, he may well have had this Gospel story in mind in his present sermon. In this case, Jesus raises a young woman from the dead, the daughter of a synagogue official. Her parents and others

were all weeping and mourning for her, but Jesus said, “Stop crying; she is not dead, but asleep.” But they laughed at him, knowing she was dead. But taking her by the hand he called to her, “Child, get up.” And her spirit returned and she got up at once. (Lk. 8:52–55)

In this passage we hear Jesus pronouncing the subtle difference between being asleep and being dead and we have, together with the passage from Luke 7 that forms the basis of the current sermon, testimony that Jesus gets people up, both from sleep and from death. In his sermon based on raising this young woman from her sleep that is a death, Eckhart outlines four reasons for “getting up”:

The soul advances to God in four steps. The first step is the one that fear and hope and longing cause to grow in the soul. A second time the soul makes an advance is when fear and hope and longing are completely broken off. A third time the soul falls into a forgetfulness of all temporal things. A fourth time the soul advances into God, where it will remain forever with God reigning in eternity. Then the soul will think no longer of temporary things or of itself. The soul has rather dissolved into God and God into the soul. And whatever the soul then does, it does in God.³

Eckhart talks of similar truths we wake up to in the present sermon. He elaborates, for example, on the first step of longing that grows in the soul. Longing is wider than all the angels . . . immeasurably wide. It ex-tends beyond everything we can attain through perception. Rather than flee from longing, or control it, or keep it in check, we are to enter fully into it. And when we do, we discover what he has called the second stage, “when fear and hope and longing are completely broken off.” Or, as he puts it in this sermon: All that perception can grasp and all that longing can long for—that is not God. Where understanding and longing end, it is dark but God shines there. The third soulful experience, Eckhart has said, occurs when we “fall into a forgetfulness of all temporal things.” Thus he talks in the present sermon of our experience of the youthfulness and newness of eternity. Understand that my soul is as young as it was when it was created. Indeed, it is even younger! And understand that it would not surprise me if it were younger tomorrow than it is today! In his sermon on Luke 8 he has spoken of the “timelessly new” experience of all things in God and of the extraordinary joy that accompanies the new time-consciousness that comes when we wake up to realized eschatology. “Just as one can die of anxiety before the blow, that is, before a murder is carried out, in the same way one can die of joy or of its anticipation. And so the soul dies within itself in joyful expectation of eternal bliss before it passes over to God.”⁴ So great is the joy that it can kill us—but it is a joy in eternal life that is tasted previous to earthly death.

It is not only time that the soul forgets in its journey into God—it is also place. Our place consciousness as well as our time consciousness is broken through and we wake up to a new sense of space as well as of time. For deep within the soul a power grasps all things beyond “here” and “now.” “Now” means time, and “here” means place, that is, the place in which I am at present. It is in this context of breaking through place awareness that Eckhart can talk about Jerusalem being

as close to my soul as the place in which I am now. Yes, quite truly, an object a thousand miles farther away than Jerusalem is as near to my soul as is my own body—-and I am as certain of this as I am of the fact that I am a human being.

Our waking up, then, is a waking up to a new space (instead of place) consciousness.

The fourth stage of waking up concerns our entering into God where we reign for eternity and are dissolved, us in God and God in us. It is, in other words, our waking up to inness: ours and God’s. It is our waking up to the fullness of God’s love for us and what this means. The Father loves me with the same love as the one with which he loves himself.

Elsewhere, Eckhart repeats this theme of the thoroughness of God’s love for us, a theme so basic to his entire spirituality and to our waking up.

“God loves.” What mystery! What is God’s love? His nature and his being: that is his love. Whoever would take away God’s love for us would take away his essence, because his being is dependent upon his love for us . . . What a mystery that is! God loves me with his whole being—his being depends on it—God loves me as if his being and his becoming depend on it. God knows only one kind of love, and with exactly that same love with which the Father loves his only-begotten Son, with the same love he loves us.⁵

God is dependent on us for his essence, which is to love. Eckhart develops this theme elsewhere as well:

“God is love.” O my beloved, listen to me! This I ask of you! God loves my soul so much that his life and his being depend on it, and he must love me whether happily or unhappily for himself. Whoever should rob God of this, namely, that he love my soul, would be taking his divinity from him. For God is as truly love as he is truth.⁶

We rob God of divinity to the extent that we fail to wake up to his love for us. We are loved with the divine love—have we waked up to this truth yet? Furthermore, God is entirely in every good person—have we waked up to this truth yet? Furthermore, the union of God with the soul is so great that it is scarcely believable—have we waked up to this truth yet? The nearness to God that is ours to experience is experienced not by manufacturing it but by accepting it, for it already is. Accept all things in God, just as they are. Our waking up is a waking up to the truth of the panentheistic world we live in. As in the case of the dead young man or the dead young woman, we do not do the work of waking ourselves up. God does it, it is a divine deed of divine compassion. Jesus wishes to accomplish the deed himself.

Now then, God wishes to carry out this deed by himself. The individual needs only to follow and not resist him in anything. Ah, if the soul would dwell only inwardly, it would then have all things present.

Eckhart properly insists that only God can raise from the dead, only God can give life. It is God’s deed, and this deed is so noble and elevated that God alone accomplishes it. What is our role? We can recognize the steps of the journey into God which is a journey of waking up. And we can let ourselves be waked up. The journey is summarized by Eckhart:

Know then that all our perfection and all our bliss depend on the fact that the individual goes through and beyond all creation and all temporality and all being, and enters the foundation that is without foundation.

Our getting up and waking up is also an opening up. When we open up we accept and receive. Spirituality then becomes the art of wake-fulness, the art of being awake, of being aware, conscious and alive. It is the art of living the truth of our inness with God and God’s with us. One might say it is the art of swimming in the divine ocean all day long. Such an art should not take a lot of conscious effort but should become second nature to us, as all art must be to the artist.

Human beings should turn their will to God in all their activities and keep their eyes on God alone, marching along without fear and without hesitancy about being right or not doing anything wrong. For if a painter wanted to consider every stroke of his brush when he made his first stroke, no picture would ever result. If someone is supposed to go to a city and wanted to consider beforehand how he was to take the first step, nothing would come of the enterprise. This is why we should follow the first suggestion and move forward. This is how we move forward and arrive where we are supposed to be and that is as it should be.⁷

Move right along, we are told—flow, like the art flows from the artist. Do not fear making mistakes or counting every step. Trust. Let go. Elsewhere Eckhart compares the art of spirituality to that of a writer who, by much practice, can get beyond the skills and techniques needed to write. “He will then write fluently and freely.”

The same would apply to fiddling or any kind of art which was to result from his skill. It is quite enough for him to know that he is going to practice his art. Even if he is not concentrating on it the whole time, whatever he may be thinking about, his art will nevertheless proceed from his skill.

In the same way, a person should be so penetrated with the divine Presence and transformed into the form of his beloved God and be essential in him that his Presence may shine in him without any effort on his part, and he should acquire freedom from bondage and be entirely untrammeled by things.⁸

The art of spirituality is truly an art of waking up.

People should be as our Lord said: “You should be like unto people who at all times watch and wait for their lord” (Lk. 12:36). Now those persons who wait are awake and on the lookout for their lord, whom they are expecting. And they are expectant whenever anything comes, however strange it may be, and look to see whether perchance it is he who comes. In the same way, we should be on the lookout for our Lord in all things.⁹

What is the end result of all our getting up and our waking up? In the scriptural passages pertinent to this sermon we read that “everyone was filled with awe and praised God” (Lk. 7:16) and “her parents were astonished” (Lk. 8:56). Awe, astonishment, and praise are the fruits of our wakefulness, our resurrections from dead consciousness. There follows, at the root of our being, a sense of gratitude and thankfulness. All we can say for this gift of a divine universe, divinely infused and divinely present, is thank you. We are overcome with a sense of the gift that being, life, and creation are. And the gift that the Creator is. “With all these other gifts he wishes to prepare us for the gift that is himself.”¹⁰ The only prayer we can utter is a prayer of thank you. But that suffices. “If people had no other communication with God than that of being thankful to him, that would suffice.”¹¹ The end of all waking up and all getting up, the end of all the art of wakefulness that spirituality is, is a simple thank you. An act of praise for the gift of life extended even to the dead.