Intellectually Defunct

[EdgyDolmen]

It's no irony. He is an amateur and out of his league here. I view myself as an expert here and I have the publications and credentials to prove that.

I certainly do not see any special knowledge or scholarship within your comments. Your bloviating remarks are mere silage to feed your smugness.

 

[Devils' Advocate]

Thomas, if you would have read and understood Eckhart, you would agree with me.

One can only understand Eckhart correctly if they agree with you? I call bullturds. You have scholarly credentials and under that umbrella you should understand that Eckhart, and every other writer in history, their beliefs are open to interpretation. If you cannot see the reason in that statement then you may have the pigskin hanging on your wall but you are no scholar. Or more correctly, you not acting like a scholar. And shame on you!

 

[shunyadragon]

Eckhart Tolle actually taught a Buddhist way without addressing specific theological issues. Focus on the Power of the NOW. His Power of the NOW is basically nothing new, it is Zen.

=https://www.eckharttolle.com/article/Eckhart-Tolle-Oprah-Winfrey-O-Magazine-Interview]

OPRAH: In the beginning of The Power of Now, you describe how, at 29 years old and considering suicide, you thought, I cannot live with myself any longer.… And then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought that was. Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the "I" and the "self" that "I" cannot live with. Maybe…only one of them is real. I love this because it's the first time I thought, When I say, "I'm going to tell myself something," who is the "I" and who is the "self" I'm telling? That's the fundamental question, isn't it?

ECKHART: That's right. Most people are not aware that they have a little man or woman in their head that keeps talking and talking and whom they are completely identified with. In my case, and in many people's cases, the voice in the head is a predominantly unhappy one, so there's an enormous amount of negativity that is continuously generated by this unconscious internal dialogue.

OPRAH: What happened that enabled you to realize this?

ECKHART: One night, at the moment you were referring to, a separation occurred between the voice that was the incessant stream of thinking and sense of self that identified with that voice, and a deeper sense of self that I later recognized as consciousness itself, rather than something that consciousness had become through thinking.

OPRAH: When you realized that the voice in your head was separate from the awareness, did it blow your mind?

ECKHART: Yes, it did. I didn't understand it; I just realized the next day that I was suddenly at peace. There was a deep sense of inner calm, although externally nothing had changed, so I knew something drastic had happened. A while after this transformation, I was talking to a Buddhist monk who said that Zen is very simple: You don't rely on thought anymore; you go beyond thinking. Then I realized that was what happened to me. All that unhappy, repetitive thinking wasn't there anymore.

OPRAH: Where does our identification with these thoughts and this voice in our heads come from?

ECKHART: The sense of self that is derived from our thinking—which includes all one's memories, one's conditioning, and one's sense of self—is a conceptual one that is derived from the past. It's essential for people to recognize that this voice is going on inside them incessantly, and it's always a breakthrough when people realize, "Here are all my habitual, repetitive, negative thoughts, and here I am, knowing that these thoughts are going through my head." The identification is suddenly broken. That, for many people, is the first real spiritual breakthrough.

OPRAH: How is it spiritual?

ECKHART: I see it as not believing in this or that, but as stepping out of identification with a stream of thinking. You suddenly find there's another dimension deeper than thought inside you.

OPRAH: And what is that?

ECKHART: I call it stillness. It's an aware presence, nothing to do with past or future. We can also call it "waking up." That's why many spiritual traditions use the term awakening. You wake up out of this dream of thinking. You become present.

OPRAH: Your book Stillness Speaks is all about that awareness. I love this line: "When you notice that voice, you realize that who you are is not the voice—the thinker—but the one who is aware of it."

ECKHART: That's right. The stream of thinking is connected with the past. All your memories, reactive patterns, old emotions, and so on, they're all part of that, but it is not who you are. That's an amazing realization. Of course, the mind may then say, "Well then, tell me who I am."

OPRAH: That's the big question. So what is the answer?

ECKHART: The answer is, who you are cannot be defined through thinking or mental labels or definitions, because it's beyond that. It is the very sense of being, or presence, that is there when you become conscious of the present moment. In essence, you and what we call the present moment are, at the deepest level, one. You are the consciousness out of which everything comes; every thought comes out of that consciousness, and every thought disappears back into it. You are a conscious, aware space, and all your sense perceptions, thinking, and emotions come and go in that aware space.

OPRAH: You've often characterized thinking as a terrible affliction, even a disease, that is the greatest barrier to the power of now. But isn't to think to be human? Isn't that how we differ from other animals?

ECKHART: Yes, and thinking can be a powerful and wonderful tool. It only becomes an affliction if we derive our sense of who we are from this dream of thought. In that case, you're continuously telling yourself what I call "the story of me." For many people, it's an unhappy story, so they're always dwelling on the past. That's a dysfunctional and unhappy state.

OPRAH: We live in a world where most people believe they are their story. "I was born in this family, this is where I was raised, these are the things that happened to me, and this is what I did." If you are not your story, then who are you?

ECKHART: That's a very good question. You cannot deny, of course, that these events exist; one's personal history has its place, and it needs to be honored. It's not problematic unless you become totally lost in that dimension. How do you experience your past? As memories. And what are memories? Thoughts in your head. If you're totally identified with these thoughts in your head, then you're trapped in your past history. So, is that all there is to who you are? Or are you more than your personal history? When you step out of identification with that and realize for the first time that you're actually the presence behind thinking, then you're able to use thought when it's helpful and necessary. But you are no longer possessed by the thinking mind, which then becomes a helpful, useful servant. If you never go beyond the thinking mind and there is no sense of space, it creates continuous conflict in relationships.

 

[Thomas]

One can only understand Eckhart correctly if they agree with you?

Quite. Eckhart is so often the go-to mystic for many because:
a) he was condemned by the Church which is always good news;
b) his language is more metaphysical than theological so it can be read from many different confessional perspectives;
c) people are not usually au fait with where Eckhart stands in the Christian Mystical tradition generally, and Dominican spirituality specifically.

a) The accusations against Eckhart's teachings were examined in 1325 by a papal official, Nicholas of Strasburg, and declared “orthodox.”

A year later Eckhart was again accused of heresy. He wrote his 'Defence' to show his teachings were rooted in Scripture and the Fathers, notably Augustine. Scholars generally agree the accusations stem from a rivalry between the Dominican and the Franciscan orders. His accusers were Franciscans, and so were his interrogators.

The theological grounds of the dispute between the Franciscans and the Dominicans was one of the priority of the will over the intellect (Franciscan) or intellect over the will (Dominican). Eckhart, of course, was totally Dominican, and his preachings all spoke of the 'transcendent intellect' – this is not the intellect as we read it today, the measure of mental dexterity and capacity, but rather for the medievals, the intellect signified the transcendent, inspiration, intuition and revelation.

The verdict went against him, so Eckhart appealed to Pope John XXII. Eckhart died while the issue was under review and the next year, Pope John XXII, at the behest of his political allies, condemned Eckhart, identifying 17 points of his teaching as heretically unorthodox and 11 as “evil-sounding, rash and suspect of heresy.” The papal bull of condemnation intended to taint his good name and stamp out his writings. It failed.

In the 20th century, Dominican scholars labored to clear his name. The Walberberg Chapter, a panel of experts, convened from 1982-1992. They decided Eckhart needed no “rehabilitation” in the juridical sense, for neither he nor his doctrine had in fact been condemned, contrary to what had been thought. Heresy implies a deliberate, wilful teaching contrary to Church doctrine, and Eckhart had been unyielding in claiming his views were rooted in Scripture and Church Fathers, and furthermore that if the Church found him at fault, he would recant the teachings! As a heretic must be allowed the option to recant, the fact that he was dead means the accusation cannot now be levelled against him. His ideas are another matter, but again it is universally agreed that his teachings were misinterpreted, and often wilfully so, by his detractors.

John XXII was himself accused of heresy, but the issue was unresolved until his death. Subsequently Pope Benedict XII issued a doctrine that renders John's position heretical, but as this definition was not in place in John's day, he is not himself said to be a heretic. He was a crap theologian, however!

The ruling is one of things easy to understand, but few bother.

The exoneration of Eckhart was “a judgment sustained today by scores of theologians and historians.” (Woods)

In 1992, the Master of the Dominican Order Timothy Radcliffe formally requested Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) to abrogate the bull of condemnation; though this has not yet occurred, Pope John Paul II himself in September 1985 observed, “Did not Eckhart teach his disciples: ‘All that God asks you most pressingly is to go out of yourself … and let God be God in you?’ One could think that in separating himself from creatures, the mystic leaves his brothers, humanity, behind. The same Eckhart affirms that, on the contrary, the mystic is marvelously present to them on the only level where he can truly reach them, that is, in God.” (L’Osservatore Romano, 28 Oct. 1985) Furthermore JP-II said the bull itself was defective and that it did not stand, so there was no need to abrogate it. Dominican scholar Richard Woods concludes: “For all practical purposes, the exoneration of Meister Eckhart has been achieved.” So the Meister can openly be considered as he was in his own day: “one of the greatest masters of Western spirituality” (Colledge & McGinn).

b) – Everyone claims Eckhart's doctrine as 'theirs' because he speaks of a pure metaphysic and not in the confessional language of this doctrine or that!

So he's been claimed by various heterodox Christians (e.g. Matthew Fox's 'creation spirituality'), by philosophers (e.g. Jacques Derrida), By spiritual teachers (e.g. Schopenhauer compared Eckhart's views to the teachings of Indian, Christian and Islamic mystics and ascetics: "If we turn from the forms, produced by external circumstances, and go to the root of things, we shall find that Sakyamuni and Meister Eckhart teach the same thing" and "Buddha, Eckhardt, and I all teach essentially the same.")

The Theosophical Society incorporated Eckhart in its notion of Theosophy. So did Steiner's Anthroposophists. So did the rest of the New Age.

Eckart was compared to Shankara's Advaita Vedanta by Rudolf Otto in his 'Mysticism East and West'. Karl Neumann, who translated large parts of the 'Tripitaka', found parallels between Eckhart and Buddhism and D.T. Suzuki said Zen and Eckhart were essentially the same (they're not).

Psychoanalyst and philosopher Erich Fromm drew on Eckhart's writings, and the Meister was a significant influence in developing United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld's conception of spiritual growth through selfless service to humanity, as detailed in his book of contemplations called Vägmärken ('Markings').

Everybody loves Eckhart!

But that does not make him a syncretist, a heretic, a humanist, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Moslem, etc. He is Catholic through-and-through. His teachings, as he shows, are drawn from the Christian Tradition and founded in that Tradition's teachings.

c) There is nothing in Eckhart's metaphysic that is not there in Scripture, and the root of his thought is well-treated in Catholic circles, from Scripture, through Dionysius, St Maximus, Augustine and notably Eriugena (another who's ideas were condemned). Then trace his thinking in line with Dominican speculation, and it's all there.

The best book I've read is Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge by C.F. Kelley. There's an interesting article by the Moslem scholar Reza Shah-Kazemi on the Sacred Web site.
http://www.sacredweb.com/online_articles/sw10_shahkazemi.html

 

[shunyadragon]

Quite. Eckhart is so often the go-to mystic for many because:
a) he was condemned by the Church which is always good news;
b) his language is more metaphysical than theological so it can be read from many different confessional perspectives;
c) people are not usually au fait with where Eckhart stands in the Christian Mystical tradition generally, and Dominican spirituality specifically.

a) The accusations against Eckhart's teachings were examined in 1325 by a papal official, Nicholas of Strasburg, and declared “orthodox.”

A year later Eckhart was again accused of heresy. He wrote his 'Defence' to show his teachings were rooted in Scripture and the Fathers, notably Augustine. Scholars generally agree the accusations stem from a rivalry between the Dominican and the Franciscan orders. His accusers were Franciscans, and so were his interrogators.

The theological grounds of the dispute between the Franciscans and the Dominicans was one of the priority of the will over the intellect (Franciscan) or intellect over the will (Dominican). Eckhart, of course, was totally Dominican, and his preachings all spoke of the 'transcendent intellect' – this is not the intellect as we read it today, the measure of mental dexterity and capacity, but rather for the medievals, the intellect signified the transcendent, inspiration, intuition and revelation.

The verdict went against him, so Eckhart appealed to Pope John XXII. Eckhart died while the issue was under review and the next year, Pope John XXII, at the behest of his political allies, condemned Eckhart, identifying 17 points of his teaching as heretically unorthodox and 11 as “evil-sounding, rash and suspect of heresy.” The papal bull of condemnation intended to taint his good name and stamp out his writings. It failed.

In the 20th century, Dominican scholars labored to clear his name. The Walberberg Chapter, a panel of experts, convened from 1982-1992. They decided Eckhart needed no “rehabilitation” in the juridical sense, for neither he nor his doctrine had in fact been condemned, contrary to what had been thought. Heresy implies a deliberate, wilful teaching contrary to Church doctrine, and Eckhart had been unyielding in claiming his views were rooted in Scripture and Church Fathers, and furthermore that if the Church found him at fault, he would recant the teachings! As a heretic must be allowed the option to recant, the fact that he was dead means the accusation cannot now be levelled against him. His ideas are another matter, but again it is universally agreed that his teachings were misinterpreted, and often wilfully so, by his detractors.

John XXII was himself accused of heresy, but the issue was unresolved until his death. Subsequently Pope Benedict XII issued a doctrine that renders John's position heretical, but as this definition was not in place in John's day, he is not himself said to be a heretic. He was a crap theologian, however!

The ruling is one of things easy to understand, but few bother.

The exoneration of Eckhart was “a judgment sustained today by scores of theologians and historians.” (Woods)

In 1992, the Master of the Dominican Order Timothy Radcliffe formally requested Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) to abrogate the bull of condemnation; though this has not yet occurred, Pope John Paul II himself in September 1985 observed, “Did not Eckhart teach his disciples: ‘All that God asks you most pressingly is to go out of yourself … and let God be God in you?’ One could think that in separating himself from creatures, the mystic leaves his brothers, humanity, behind. The same Eckhart affirms that, on the contrary, the mystic is marvelously present to them on the only level where he can truly reach them, that is, in God.” (L’Osservatore Romano, 28 Oct. 1985) Furthermore JP-II said the bull itself was defective and that it did not stand, so there was no need to abrogate it. Dominican scholar Richard Woods concludes: “For all practical purposes, the exoneration of Meister Eckhart has been achieved.” So the Meister can openly be considered as he was in his own day: “one of the greatest masters of Western spirituality” (Colledge & McGinn).

b) – Everyone claims Eckhart's doctrine as 'theirs' because he speaks of a pure metaphysic and not in the confessional language of this doctrine or that!

So he's been claimed by various heterodox Christians (e.g. Matthew Fox's 'creation spirituality'), by philosophers (e.g. Jacques Derrida), By spiritual teachers (e.g. Schopenhauer compared Eckhart's views to the teachings of Indian, Christian and Islamic mystics and ascetics: "If we turn from the forms, produced by external circumstances, and go to the root of things, we shall find that Sakyamuni and Meister Eckhart teach the same thing" and "Buddha, Eckhardt, and I all teach essentially the same.")

The Theosophical Society incorporated Eckhart in its notion of Theosophy. So did Steiner's Anthroposophists. So did the rest of the New Age.

Eckart was compared to Shankara's Advaita Vedanta by Rudolf Otto in his 'Mysticism East and West'. Karl Neumann, who translated large parts of the 'Tripitaka', found parallels between Eckhart and Buddhism and D.T. Suzuki said Zen and Eckhart were essentially the same (they're not).

Psychoanalyst and philosopher Erich Fromm drew on Eckhart's writings, and the Meister was a significant influence in developing United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld's conception of spiritual growth through selfless service to humanity, as detailed in his book of contemplations called Vägmärken ('Markings').

Everybody loves Eckhart!

But that does not make him a syncretist, a heretic, a humanist, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Moslem, etc. He is Catholic through-and-through. His teachings, as he shows, are drawn from the Christian Tradition and founded in that Tradition's teachings.

c) There is nothing in Eckhart's metaphysic that is not there in Scripture, and the root of his thought is well-treated in Catholic circles, from Scripture, through Dionysius, St Maximus, Augustine and notably Eriugena (another who's ideas were condemned). Then trace his thinking in line with Dominican speculation, and it's all there.

The best book I've read is Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge by C.F. Kelley. There's an interesting article by the Moslem scholar Reza Shah-Kazemi on the Sacred Web site.
http://www.sacredweb.com/online_articles/sw10_shahkazemi.html

Sorry for the confusion. Meister Eckhart and Eckhart Tolle are two different persons with distinct similarities in philosophy, and relationship to the Roman Church.

 

[StevePame]

Quite. Eckhart is so often the go-to mystic for many because:
a) he was condemned by the Church which is always good news;
b) his language is more metaphysical than theological so it can be read from many different confessional perspectives;
c) people are not usually au fait with where Eckhart stands in the Christian Mystical tradition generally, and Dominican spirituality specifically.

a) The accusations against Eckhart's teachings were examined in 1325 by a papal official, Nicholas of Strasburg, and declared “orthodox.”

A year later Eckhart was again accused of heresy. He wrote his 'Defence' to show his teachings were rooted in Scripture and the Fathers, notably Augustine. Scholars generally agree the accusations stem from a rivalry between the Dominican and the Franciscan orders. His accusers were Franciscans, and so were his interrogators.

The theological grounds of the dispute between the Franciscans and the Dominicans was one of the priority of the will over the intellect (Franciscan) or intellect over the will (Dominican). Eckhart, of course, was totally Dominican, and his preachings all spoke of the 'transcendent intellect' – this is not the intellect as we read it today, the measure of mental dexterity and capacity, but rather for the medievals, the intellect signified the transcendent, inspiration, intuition and revelation.

The verdict went against him, so Eckhart appealed to Pope John XXII. Eckhart died while the issue was under review and the next year, Pope John XXII, at the behest of his political allies, condemned Eckhart, identifying 17 points of his teaching as heretically unorthodox and 11 as “evil-sounding, rash and suspect of heresy.” The papal bull of condemnation intended to taint his good name and stamp out his writings. It failed.

In the 20th century, Dominican scholars labored to clear his name. The Walberberg Chapter, a panel of experts, convened from 1982-1992. They decided Eckhart needed no “rehabilitation” in the juridical sense, for neither he nor his doctrine had in fact been condemned, contrary to what had been thought. Heresy implies a deliberate, wilful teaching contrary to Church doctrine, and Eckhart had been unyielding in claiming his views were rooted in Scripture and Church Fathers, and furthermore that if the Church found him at fault, he would recant the teachings! As a heretic must be allowed the option to recant, the fact that he was dead means the accusation cannot now be levelled against him. His ideas are another matter, but again it is universally agreed that his teachings were misinterpreted, and often wilfully so, by his detractors.

John XXII was himself accused of heresy, but the issue was unresolved until his death. Subsequently Pope Benedict XII issued a doctrine that renders John's position heretical, but as this definition was not in place in John's day, he is not himself said to be a heretic. He was a crap theologian, however!

The ruling is one of things easy to understand, but few bother.

The exoneration of Eckhart was “a judgment sustained today by scores of theologians and historians.” (Woods)

In 1992, the Master of the Dominican Order Timothy Radcliffe formally requested Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) to abrogate the bull of condemnation; though this has not yet occurred, Pope John Paul II himself in September 1985 observed, “Did not Eckhart teach his disciples: ‘All that God asks you most pressingly is to go out of yourself … and let God be God in you?’ One could think that in separating himself from creatures, the mystic leaves his brothers, humanity, behind. The same Eckhart affirms that, on the contrary, the mystic is marvelously present to them on the only level where he can truly reach them, that is, in God.” (L’Osservatore Romano, 28 Oct. 1985) Furthermore JP-II said the bull itself was defective and that it did not stand, so there was no need to abrogate it. Dominican scholar Richard Woods concludes: “For all practical purposes, the exoneration of Meister Eckhart has been achieved.” So the Meister can openly be considered as he was in his own day: “one of the greatest masters of Western spirituality” (Colledge & McGinn).

b) – Everyone claims Eckhart's doctrine as 'theirs' because he speaks of a pure metaphysic and not in the confessional language of this doctrine or that!

So he's been claimed by various heterodox Christians (e.g. Matthew Fox's 'creation spirituality'), by philosophers (e.g. Jacques Derrida), By spiritual teachers (e.g. Schopenhauer compared Eckhart's views to the teachings of Indian, Christian and Islamic mystics and ascetics: "If we turn from the forms, produced by external circumstances, and go to the root of things, we shall find that Sakyamuni and Meister Eckhart teach the same thing" and "Buddha, Eckhardt, and I all teach essentially the same.")

The Theosophical Society incorporated Eckhart in its notion of Theosophy. So did Steiner's Anthroposophists. So did the rest of the New Age.

Eckart was compared to Shankara's Advaita Vedanta by Rudolf Otto in his 'Mysticism East and West'. Karl Neumann, who translated large parts of the 'Tripitaka', found parallels between Eckhart and Buddhism and D.T. Suzuki said Zen and Eckhart were essentially the same (they're not).

Psychoanalyst and philosopher Erich Fromm drew on Eckhart's writings, and the Meister was a significant influence in developing United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld's conception of spiritual growth through selfless service to humanity, as detailed in his book of contemplations called Vägmärken ('Markings').

Everybody loves Eckhart!

But that does not make him a syncretist, a heretic, a humanist, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Moslem, etc. He is Catholic through-and-through. His teachings, as he shows, are drawn from the Christian Tradition and founded in that Tradition's teachings.

c) There is nothing in Eckhart's metaphysic that is not there in Scripture, and the root of his thought is well-treated in Catholic circles, from Scripture, through Dionysius, St Maximus, Augustine and notably Eriugena (another who's ideas were condemned). Then trace his thinking in line with Dominican speculation, and it's all there.

The best book I've read is Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge by C.F. Kelley. There's an interesting article by the Moslem scholar Reza Shah-Kazemi on the Sacred Web site.
http://www.sacredweb.com/online_articles/sw10_shahkazemi.html

Clearly reasoned, well written, and cited. Thank you, Thomas.