We jump now a thousand years from the time of Plotinus in the third century to that of Meister Eckhart in the thirteenth century. Johannes Eckhart was born in 1260 in Germany, acquired the title of 'Meister' when the degree of Master of Theology was conferred upon him in 1302, and died in 1327 in France.
We shall demonstrate many similarities between Plotinus and Eckhart, at least the central qualities of a jnani Master, but the spiritual and intellectual ambience that Eckhart found himself in was utterly changed from the 3rd century Rome of Plotinus The Roman Empire had adopted Christianity as its state religion after Constantine, and although the Empire itself waned, its progeny, the Roman Catholic Church, grew and became the sole spiritual and intellectual context over the long period of the Middle Ages.
The early Middle Ages, also known as the Dark Ages, was a period of frequent warfare during which the intellectual and spiritual life that was typically pursued in the cities and city states from the time of Athens became almost impossible. During this time Christianity became the universal religion, sweeping aside its early competitors which included Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeanism. Early Christianity owed some of it character to these other religions, but in our analysis its chief quality was that of a devotional or bhakti religion. While Buddhism, the great jnani religion of the East, had a fervently anti-intellectual stance at its core, the equivalent in the West, Neoplatonism, was a religion of the learned, and hence in the early Middle Ages almost disappeared, as the cities and seats of learning disappeared or shrank. Where Buddhism could appeal to the ordinary people through its rejection of learning and its adoption, particularly in the Mahayana, of puja (devotional practices), Christianity was a religion aimed at the ordinary people from the start, and gave the spiritual life of the entire Middle Ages its prime quality: one of piety.
The spiritual and intellectual ambience of Eckhart's time are not Pythagoras, Heraclitus and Socrates, but St. Paul, St Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and of course the only Book of consequence: the bible. At this point we shall not speculate on the nature of Jesus himself, but observe simply that it was Paul who effectively created the early Christian religion. Unlike Plato he was a simple man, and it is in the temperaments of Paul and Plato that we discover why Christ became the focus for a world religion whereas Socrates did not. Where Plato set up an elite Academy for erudition and study, Paul created a sangha or community united by their love of a martyred Christ and a caring for each other. Christ is their first object of devotion, extended upwards to an anthropomorphised God similar to that of the Jews, and downwards to the poor and downtrodden of humanity. This was always a people's religion where the intellectuals and jnanis that were born into the Christian world of the Middle Ages were out of place, unlike those in the Hellenistic world. It is one of Christianity's earliest thinkers, Augustine, who both fitted perfectly into the emerging new religion, and shaped it more strongly in its own image.
Augustine (354-430) lived some one hundred and fifty years after Plotinus, and not long after the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman empire by Constantine. Augustine had been for ten years a Manichaean, after being disillusioned with which, he dabbled for a while with Neoplatonism and then firmly chose Christianity. His Confessions show a highly intelligent man who is nevertheless a bhakti by instinct. In Neoplatonism he simply could not find the devotional qualities he was looking for, neither for a Christ-equivalent, nor for a personal God, nor for the poor and oppressed the active caring for whom was seen as a devotional practice. Furthermore, his delight in the works of Paul were matched by a conviction that prayer was more than sufficient, and that an intellectual edifice of understanding such as Plotinus's or Plato's was unnecessary. It is absurd to suggest that a single man would shape the intellectual and spiritual life of a region as big as Europe or a period of so many centuries, but Augustine's inward-looking piety became the hallmark of the Early Middle Ages.
But the rise in power and wealth of the Catholic Church eventually led to the establishment of monasteries, whose initial purpose was conducive to prayer, piety, and silence, but which became before long conducive to study and scholarship. It was the works of Aristotle that first marked a revival of interest in the Greek period, and as the ancient works were gradually rediscovered, the suppressed intellectual energies of Europe found a new confidence to turn outwards from God and to catalogue, taxonomise, and even praise His works. We find a different kind of philosophy at work here compared to the Hellenistic one, a work, to become known as Scholasticism, that is subservient to a fiercely devotional simplicity of life and thought. Scholasticism reached its pinnacle in the works of Thomas Aquinas, published around the time of Eckhart's birth. Aquinas produced one of the great Summa of medieval thought (a kind of encyclopaedia), devoting considerable space to one of the Schoolmen's unique intellectual pastimes, proving the existence of God. Aquinas himself can be considered as a person of intense jnani inclinations, and it is said that after a lifetime of scholarly works he had a first-hand experience of the divine (we might call it a satori) after which he regretted everything he had written.
It is in Eckhart, rather than Aquinas, that we have the best illustration of how a jnani genius, one who's starting point was realisation, not erudition, struggled with his bhakti environment. The struggle is symbolised by his eventual excommunication by Papal bull in 1329, though he died shortly before he received it. The papal Inquisition had been active for almost exactly a hundred years at this point, and the universal atmosphere of suspicion that this created was part of Eckhart's Europe, though more pronounced in the south.
It is worth taking a short detour to consider the question of religious freedom here. In India, both in the Buddhist religions, and in the jnani sections of Hinduism, we might say that compassion is the dominant religious emotion, whereas in Europe during the rise of Christianity it was love. Although this is a tremendous generalisation it is still worth pursuing, pointing out that as compassion grows cold it becomes indifference, a quality that Westerners found conspicuous in the East, while as love grows cold it becomes control. Hence we could say that the perversion of the spiritual impulse of love in Christianity became religious intolerance and a persecution of heresy, embodied in the various forms of Inquisition that persisted from 1231 to 1834. India simply has no equivalent, though some would argue that the suffering arising from institutionalised indifference to poverty was endemic. We simply don't find a word for heresy in Indian spiritual literature, and its first appearance in Buddhist texts seem to be in China.
So what happens when a great jnani, a buddha of the West, is born into the late medieval world, an exclusively Christian world almost a thousand years in the making? For that is how we see Eckhart, and that is how we see his struggle: that of a jnani genius operating in an overwhelmingly bhakti context. But first we need to establish his jnani credentials, which we can do by starting with one of his most famous tractates, On Detachment:
I have read many works of both heathen masters and prophets, and books of the Old and New Testaments, and have sought earnestly and with the utmost diligence to find out what is the best and highest virtue, with the aid of which man could be most closely united with God, by which man could become by grace what God is by nature, and by which man would be most like the image of what he was when he was in God, when there was no difference between him and God, before God had created the world.
And when I search the Scriptures thoroughly, as far as my reason can fathom and know, I just find that pure detachment stands above all things, for all virtues pay some regard to the creatures, yet detachment is free from all creatures. Hence it was that our Lord said to Martha: "One thing is needful", that is to say, he who wished to be untroubled and pure must have one thing, namely detachment.
The teachers praise love most highly, as St.Paul does when he says: "In whatever tribulation I may find myself, if I have not love, then I am nothing." But I praise detachment more than all love. First, because the best thing about love is that it forces me to love God. On the other hand, detachment forces Got to love me. Now it is much nobler that I should force God to myself than that I should force myself to God. And the reason is that God can join Himself to me more closely and unite Himself with me better than I could unite myself with God. That detachment forces God to me I can prove by the fact that everything likes to be in its own natural place. Now God's own and natural place is unity and purity and they come from detachment. Hence God must of necessity give Himself to a detached heart. (Selected Treatises and Sermons, p. 156)
With only a few changes, much of this could come from Plotinus, and we note that Eckhart had read the "works of both heathen masters and prophets". We remember that Plotinus praises detachment in "The Good or the One"; with Eckhart we have a clear statement that detachment is above love, in contradiction to Paul, but a sure sign of the pure jnani temperament. In fact it contradicts not just St Paul but the whole development of Christianity throughout the Middle Ages. We are not suggesting however that Eckhart derives his thought from Plotinus, because Eckhart's emphasis on detachment is so far-reaching that it can only come from his inner experience.
We might also comment on the use of biblical reference by Eckhart in the above passage, where he cites Jesus saying to Martha: "One thing is needful." The passage comes from St. Luke chapter 10, verses 38-42, where Martha busies herself with serving while her sister sits with Jesus. The passage concludes with Jesus' words: "and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her." In a bhakti context we would interpret the "good part" as the devotion she shows to the Master, but somehow Eckhart has turned it into detachment. Such a flexible interpretation of biblical passages to support Eckhart's views is common in his writings, and indicates more that he simply lacked suitable jnani texts in the public domain than either poor scholarship or dishonest intent.
We also note in the above passage that not only is Paul contradicted, who shaped the religion of Christ in the first place, but that Christ is not needed either. Later in his essay On Detachment Eckhart even removes the central Christian practice, prayer. First, a few more thoughts on detachment:
Now you might ask, what is detachment, since it is so noble in itself? Here you should know that true detachment is nothing other than this: the spirit stands as immovable in all the assaults of joy or sorrow, honour, disgrace or shame, as a mountain of lead stands immovable against a small wind. This immovable detachment brings about in man the greatest similarity with God. For if God is God, He has it from His immovable detachment, and from this detachment He has His purity, His simplicity and His immutability. And therefore, if man is to become like God, as far as a creature can possess similarity to God, it must be by means of detachment. (Selected Treatises and Sermons, p. 159)
We might accept that Eckhart's emphasis on detachment, and the way that he places it higher than love and all the other Christian virtues, is consistent with the jnani temperament, and we may also suspect by now a leaning to via negativa that would align itself with the Buddha's thinking. But Eckhart's theistic language could suggest a substantial difference. The use of the word "God" separates Eckhart from the early Western Masters we looked at: Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, and Plotinus, who were not familiar with the theistic language of the Jews. Could we replace all references to "God" in these passages from Eckhart with "the One," and all uses of "He", "His", "Himself" with "it," "its" and "itself"? If we try it then, for sure, they read more like Plotinus than Eckhart, but the real difference is a change from an active principle to something more passive. If "God" is changed to "the One" then He, or it, becomes more passive in the exact proportion that the aspirant becomes more active, i.e. we recognise the emergence of the typical jnani characteristic, the spiritual will. But Eckhart himself recognises the active principle in the conventional Christian "God" as problematic and often talks instead of Gottheit as a higher and less active principle which is usually translated as the "Godhead," but could also be understood as "Godliness." "Godhead" as a noun still has the misleading implication of an entity that one might approach, as one approaches other entities, whereas "Godliness" is more of a quality. Let Eckhart explain:
God and the Godhead are as different from each other as heaven and earth --- Creatures speak of God — but why do they not mention the Godhead? Because there is only unity in the Godhead and there is nothing to talk about. God acts. The Godhead does not. --- The difference between God and the Godhead is the difference between action and non-action. (Sermons)
Bearing this in mind let us look at another extract from On Detachment:
Hence, if the heart is to find preparedness for the highest of all flights, it must aim at a pure nothing and in this there is the greatest possibility that can exist. For when the detached heart has the higher aim, it must be toward the Nothing. [now follows an analogy with a wax tablet---] In the same way, when God wishes to write on my heart in the most sublime manner, everything must come out of my heart that can be called "this" or "that"; thus it is with the detached heart. Then God can work in the sublimest manner and according to His highest will. Hence the object of the detached heart is neither this nor that.
But now I ask: what is the prayer of the detached heart? I answer that detachment and purity cannot pray. For if anyone prays he asks God that something may be given to him, or asks that God may take something away from him. But the detached heart does not ask for anything at all, nor has it anything at all that it would like to be rid of. Therefore it is free from all prayer and its prayer is nothing else than to be uniform with God. On this alone the prayer of detachment rests. (Selected Treatises and Sermons, p. 164)
To see prayer as mere supplication is a mistake that only a jnani would make. But while Eckhart introduces the "Nothing", a term that Buddhism would recognise (though more usually called "Emptiness") we cannot avoid the active nature of Eckhart's God. This is a bhakti concept, as is the use of the word "heart" where a Buddhist, or Plotinus for that matter would use "mind." But this is the point, we are now in a theistic world, a heart-oriented religion, and unless one is to utterly baffle one's audience one has to use the language of the time. Plotinus used a language of learning, and this colours his message and outlook, Eckhart uses a language of devotion and that colours his message and outlook.
Let us take a look at Eckhart's life to see if we can come closer to the man. Unfortunately, due to the Papal bull which proclaimed the "errors" of Eckhart's work, both his own writings and any contemporary accounts of him were removed from the normal process of historical preservation. It was only in the 19th century that scholars began to piece together his life, indeed it was only at this point his place and date of birth became known. Two series of writings by Eckhart were discovered, one in German and one in Latin, and a century of scholarship went to and fro in attempts to authenticate the documents. The essay On Detachment for example was first touted as prime Eckhart, then discredited, and only more recently reinstated as his authentic work. The more recent breakthrough was to realise that the transcripts of Eckhart's trial, which he attended some of, contained detailed copies of his more contentious writings, and this allowed verification of other documents.
Within all this what is sadly lacking is an account of Eckhart the man, like we have for Socrates by Xenophon, or for Plotinus by Porphyry. All we know of his life are the formal externals of his Degree in Theology, and the various posts he held as theologian and spiritual guide. From his Latin writings we find a man entirely at home in the Scholastic tradition, writing for example an equivalent but shorter Summa in the vein of Aquinas. It is in the German prose, as in our extracts, that Eckhart pours out his fresh and vital ideas on the spiritual life, ideas and terminologies that have had influence up to the present.
To examine Eckhart at greater length would be a delight, but for now we will just consider the question of the via negativa / via positiva distinction in connection with his teachings. As we have seen it is rare to find an extreme example of either path, so it is a question of teasing out where the balance lies, or what aspect of a life and teaching lie where. Eckhart's praise of detachment from the "creatures" (a term that was by now well-established) indicates a via negativa, but there are via positiva elements in his cultural context that he is not immune to. Firstly, like Plotinus, he wrote philosophical treatises, the Latin works that were meant to be read by the scholars and theologians — we can see this as an active engagement in the world that the Buddha shunned. Secondly, the Christian concept of active love, which means good works of various kind, were endorsed by Eckhart.
Let us leave Eckhart with a last extract, one that shows the pure jnani expression of transcendence:
In that breaking-through, when I come to be free of my own will 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.
---
When I stood in my first cause, I then had no "God", and then I was my own cause. I wanted nothing, I was empty Being and the only truth in which I rejoiced was in the knowledge of my Self. Then it was my Self I wanted and nothing else. What I wanted I was, and what I was I wanted and so I stood empty of God and every thing. (Sermons)
We see that the fully-realised jnani living in a theistic bhakti tradition has no choice: ultimately he even has to dispense with God.
We have already pointed out that the Schoolmen created a tradition within Christianity that went against its purely devotional core, and that must have had a jnani impulse behind it. By Eckhart's time Scholasticism had created within Christianity an endeavour that was neither a vibrant jnani teaching, nor could it support the common people in their devotions, nor yet was it able to pursue its goals of knowledge through a genuinely scientific method. Even within its limited scope for innovation its intellectual fruits, including some of Thomas Aquinas's ideas, were considered with suspicion by the Church. Later on Aquinas's thought was adjusted and reinstated as Catholic doctrine, known as "Thomism," but, as mentioned earlier, at the end of his life he rejected his own learning. According to Abhayananda on December 6th 1273 he attained an inner realisation, outside of discursive reasoning, which led him to remark: "Compared with what has been revealed in me, all my writings are as mere straw!" Unfortunately we know nothing more of his illumination.
But is is a later figure, that of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), who can be considered, like Eckhart, to be one of Christianity's great jnanis, or lost buddhas. Although confined to a largely theistic language, Cusa combines the intellectual vigour of Aquinas with the inner realisation of Eckhart, and provides a useful contemplation for us on the relationship between the silence of self-realisation and the development and use of the intellect. In this his instincts are like Plotinus, and in his background we have an emerging Renaissance. This passage from his great work "On Learned Ignorance" is taken from Abhayananda's Mysticism, and we are indebted to him for it:
Reason strives for knowledge and yet this natural striving is not adequate to the knowledge of the Essence of God, but only to the knowledge that God --- is beyond all conception and knowledge.
--- That wisdom (which all men by their very nature desire to know and consequently seek after with such great affection of mind) is known in no other way than that it is higher than all knowledge and utterly unknowable and unspeakable in all language. It is unintelligible to all understanding, immeasurable by all measure, improportionable by every proportion, incomparable by all comparison, infigurable by all figuration, unformable by all formation, --- unimaginable by all imagination, --- inapprehensible in all apprehension and unaffirmable in all affirmation, undeniable in all negation, indoubtable in all doubt, inopinonable in all opinion; and because in all speech it is inexpressible, there can be no limit to the means of expressing it, being incognitable in all cognition ... (Mysticism p. 324)
There can be no doubt that this is a jnani text because it starts with the assumption that men "by their very nature desire to know", which both ignores the bhakti orientation and quite possibly the female gender. In the way that this passage progresses we are reminded of Buddhist writings which, having their origin in the Buddha's own reluctance to intellectualise, often list negations. But the real origin of this style and sentiment is in the work of a much earlier jnani of Christian history, Dionysius the Areopagite, often referred to as the pseudo-Dionysius because of some confusion of identity. He was most likely a Syrian monk of the sixth century and is known for his Theologica Mystica, a mystical work that emphasises the "Divine Darkness". Dionysius is the source in Christian theology of the Christian via negativa, the term that we have appropriated and given a new though related meaning.
Dionysius may have been a Neoplatonist, but it is certain that his work had a great impact on medieval Christianity and shows its influence as much in Eckhart as it does in Cusa. The great medieval mystical work The Cloud of Unknowing takes many of these metaphors of darkness and ignorance to describe the inner space in which God is known. In more general jnani terms we have a teaching of transcendence which does not have its origin in Jesus, but in the lost buddhas of the West.
