PATH THREE: BREAKTHROUGH AND GIVING BIRTH TO SELF AND GOD

Path Two led us on a journey of letting go and letting be. We are urged to be radical in our letting go so that we let go of fear, of death, of distrust, of everything. And ultimately even of letting go itself. When we learn to let go even of letting go, then we learn how birth comes about. As Path Two culminated in the scriptural passage of the vine that bears fruit, so Path Three explores the experience of how we bear fruit, of how we are to give birth, and of what this birthing entails. Eckhart envisions a threefold birth that takes place when we have journeyed the via positiva of creation and the via negativa of letting go. These births are the following: the birth of ourselves in a breakthrough in consciousness, the birth of God in us, and the birth of ourselves as sons and daughters of God. The theology of the divinization of humanity is overwhelmingly in evidence throughout all of the sermons in Path Three. For Eckhart is concerned with the breakthrough that divinity has made and can make in human history, human consciousness. Indeed, he will insist that “the essence of God is birthing” and that therefore those who give birth are participating in a divine activity.

We saw in Sermons Nine and Ten that fertility is a sign of blessing in ancient Israel. It is also a sign of blessing in the Celtic spiritual tradition. And it is prominent in Eckhart’s theology, as we shall see. For with birth there is blessing, but without birth there can be no blessing. In the birth, Eckhart declares, “you will discover all blessing.” But “neglect the birth and you neglect all blessing.”¹ A creation or blessing spirituality, then, culminates in giving birth to still more blessing. The formula behind such a spirituality appears to be as follows:

via positiva (creation) + via negativa (letting go) → via creativa

Eckhart’s is a spirituality of the via creativa: how all are birthers and creators, as God is a birther and Creator. He admits a dialectic and a tension between the via positiva and the via creativa. Interestingly enough, this tension between living and creating is, according to psychiatrist and artist Otto Rank, the single most basic struggle in the soul of any artist.² Eckhart’s therapy for healing such a struggle would appear to be Path Two: letting go and letting be. To create, the artist needs to let go radically of living; and to live, the artist needs to let go radically of creating. The via negativa, then, becomes a bridge that heals and links Paths One and Three and thereby encourages rather than discourages further birth and creativity. The first of the births that occur is that of the individual: an awakening, a rebirth, a birth of oneself. For this awakening Eckhart invented a word. He called it “breakthrough.”³