Living without a “why”

A sermon delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation (Blacksburg, VA), December 9, 2007, by the Reverend Christine Brownlie.

The words rang through the room like a temple bell calling attention, attention, attention, attention. Glancing around, it seemed that every person in the circle was alert and waiting to hear more. The group of fourteen was comprised of 12 middle-aged to elderly women and two men. We’d gathered for a weeklong retreat hosted by Shalem Institute as part of a program called “Deepening Your Contemplative Life.” Our speaker, Bill Dietrich, was talking about the theology of a medieval Dominican monk named Meister Eckhart. He had read a few lines from one of Eckhart’s sermons, and the words of this great mystic had startled us and had brought us all to an abrupt moment of silence. We sat in this stillness for a few moments just trying to absorb this strange idea of living without a “why.”

Although I didn’t know anyone well, I knew that most of the people in the group were busy folks who were enrolled in this program because they wanted to be more focused and purposeful about their spiritual journeys. For the past few months, most of us had been struggling to keep up various disciplines: time set aside for journaling or meditation or prayer. Several of us were feeling disappointed — even discouraged. The common complaint was that despite our efforts, we weren’t making much progress in our spiritual life. The disciplines that we’d begun seven months ago with enthusiasm and high expectations were not getting us where we wanted to be.

Some of us continued faithfully, even though we felt like failures. Others had given up, and some were so irregular in our practices that our efforts seemed doomed to go nowhere. Perhaps this disappointment and frustration were the reasons that the idea of living without a ”why” captured our attention so completely. In that short phrase, we heard a suggestion that there was another way to approach our chosen practice and the rich spiritual life that was our goal.

You may recognize the name of the author of these puzzling words. Meister Eckhart had a way of expressing his ideas that was often charming, paradoxical, and sometimes shocking. I’ve found his words printed in the margins of books on spiritual growth and personal development. Here are a few of his most popular sayings.

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is “thank you,” it will be enough.

The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.

You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion.

I pray to God to make me free of God.

He sounds like a modern liberal, or even a New Age thinker. But we would be wise to remember that these quotes are sound bites that reveal a small and highly selective window into his theology. In many ways his beliefs were deeply grounded in traditional Catholicism. He believed in God, the Trinity, heaven, and hell. He often spoke of sin, prayer, and the eternal soul. In many ways, he was a man of his time, and yet many of his teachings transcend time and even culture.

I’m going to tell you just a little bit about this man before we look more deeply at his notion of living without a “why.”

Johann Eckhart lived from about 1260 to 1327. He was born near Gotha, in Thuringia Germany. His parents were probably merchants. At age 8, he joined the Dominican order and studied in Strasburg and Cologne. In Paris, he received a master's degree in theology in 1302. He became a priest in 1303 and later a vicar in Bohemia. In 1311–1313, he was again in Paris as a teacher, and then he was professor of theology in Strasburg until 1323. Finally, he taught and preached as regent in Cologne.

Meister Eckhart was neither a complacent nor a compliant monk. He favored the Pope in the struggle between Louis IV of Bavaria and the papacy. His own teachings were more original and mystical than the standards of day permitted. Called before a hostile tribunal, Eckhart was accused of heresy on 100 counts. He appealed to Pope John XXII in Avignon. He was well received there, but he was forced to return to Cologne because of illness. He died soon afterwards and he was posthumously condemned (or suspected) of heresy on over 20 counts.

Despite this condemnation, his works were still widely read, and his ideas influenced Martin Luther, St. John of the Cross, and St Theresa of Avilla. Some even see him as a forerunner of the spirit of Karl Marx. Zen masters such as DT Suzuki consider him a kindred spirit, and I have found references to his thoughts in the writings of Muslim mystic theologians. Hindu scholars see parallels between Eckhart and some Vedantist traditions. Eckhart’s idea of the spark of God in the soul is close to the early Unitarian claim that there is a seed of the divine in each person waiting to be cultivated. Matthew Fox, the author of a book on Meister Eckhart’s creation spirituality, says that a number of modern authors from Saul Bellow to Annie Dillard and Alan Watts have used Eckhart’s ideas extensively in their own works

My intent in laying out these connections and credentials is to encourage you to focus on the universality of his theology, which is couched in traditional Christian language, and hence a problem for some of us. My advice to those of you who struggle with this language can be found in the monk’s own words: pray to God that you might be rid of the ideas that you now hold of God, for they are at best partial and may keep you from understanding what Eckhart has to say. If you can’t overcome the word “God,” then perhaps you can substitute “Ultimate Realty,” “Spirit of Life and Creation,” “Indescribable Emptiness,” or some other label that works for you. And even if you can’t do this, I think you will find Eckhart’s ideas both interesting and liberating.

Eckhart taught that every person possessed a spark of God that dwelled within the soul. This spark allows the human soul to have a direct connection with God, and the fulfillment of this connection is the soul’s deepest longing. Eckhart’s God is not simply some powerful big daddy up in the sky who doled out ponies and cures for deadly diseases. God created all that is, and all that is lives in God. This God is certainly a relational, compassionate, and loving being, but there is also an indescribable unchanging aspect of the divine that is beyond all naming. Here we encounter the mystery of the Divine that brings us to profound silence. At times, Eckhart uses the words “nothingness” or “emptiness’” when he writes of this aspect of God. It is this unchanging nothingness that the soul longs to “sink and flow into” in order to know the bliss of union with the divine. While we might see this state of union as the ultimate “goal’ of the spiritual journey, it is not something to work and strive for. Union cannot be attained by effort — just as one cannot strive for enlightenment or the attainment of the true self.

But this doesn‘t mean that we human beings are doomed to be ineffectual in our spiritual quest. Eckhart taught that the soul can be awakened and taught to be more attuned with the divine. To come to this state, the soul must first become aware of the expressions of God in creation, which includes humanity. As we become more aware of God’s presence shining in all things, our soul eagerly seeks a deeper connection with the Divine. But this moment of connection can happen only when we let go of our attachments to external things and desires. Eckhart calls this letting go “detachment,” by which he means getting rid of willing, of knowing, of desiring, and of having: all of which prevent us from seeing what really is. This work of letting go puts us in a place of spiritual “poverty” and deep quietness. As we are emptied of our attachments and emotions, we make room for the ultimate truth or reality of life to enter in to the soul — or if you prefer, our consciousness.

Our attachments are not just to the things and experiences of the world. Detachment also means letting go of everything we want from God or Life or the ultimate goodness that we hold onto as the meaning of life. It means letting go of the hopes and desires that our actions and good intentions will please God, or bring us to a moment of enlightenment, or win us admiration from other people. The point is not that we become blind or indifferent to the world or to God, but that we set aside our tendency to be grasping and striving. In time, as we peel off the layers of attachments to possessions, ideas, desires, and goals, we come to accept life just as it is.

In letting go, we learn to practice “letting be.” No matter what comes, we are able to let things be without trying to discern a reason for what is, even if we are unhappy or disappointed with a situation or an outcome of our best-laid plans.

This does not mean that we become passive or indifferent to the urgent needs and issues of the world. Eckhart was not one to withdraw from life, and he urged his parishioners to work diligently for just causes. He was very clear that our ability to be engaged with the world and the problems of our day becomes stronger and more enduring the more we are detached from an outcome of goal. He believed that living without a “why,” acting without the need for success, approval, or even a need to be effective, frees us. By following this path of detachment we become free of disappointment, frustration, anger. We experience a new sense of purpose and hope. Our decisions and actions are now based in the desire to pursue a cause or a need simply because we are convinced that this is the right thing to do. We are moved to take up a cause by our commitment to compassion, love, and justice. We devote ourselves to serve a higher cause, and this selfless devotion creates a new sense of power and courage.

For Eckhart, justice, love, and most of all compassion were key attributes of God’s nature. Compassion is not just a sugary sweet caring for the needs and suffering of another being. In his commentaries on Eckhart’s writings, Matthew Fox tells us that for Eckhart, compassion is a consciousness of the interdependence of all beings that “swim together in this … sea called creation.” Real compassion begins with ourselves; truly loving ourselves mind, body, and soul as children of God/Creation. Eckhart taught his followers that the concept of justice means that each person is entitled to what is rightfully his or hers as fellow creatures. In his eyes, all that we have is given to us and it is not right that some should have more than they need while others have nothing. Justice is served only when we truly love ourselves and extend that same love to others — even to those who seem to hinder our efforts. Again, there is no guarantee that we will ever succeed, but that uncertainty should not keep us from doing whatever we can for the sake of justice and compassion.

This idea of living without a “why” can seem very abstract and pointless. How could such a way of the spirit be helpful, especially in our complex and worrisome times when it seems that so much is at risk? As I consider what this very difficult and demanding path requires of us, I think of the lives of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., two leaders who were focused on their vision of justice and compassion despite enormous difficulties. Their efforts did not always bear fruits. They were not always objects of admiration, and both men endured terrible difficulties for the sake of their causes. Both also were, in my opinion, fine examples of activists whose causes were grounded in compassion and a fiery commitment to justice.

I think of Aung San Suu Kyi, the courageous leader of the resistance in Myanmar, formerly called Burma, who continues on with her work despite the determination of the government that refuses to address the just demands of the people and the emotional suffering that her long house arrest has caused her. In the face of great risk, she continues her work even though her efforts may fail.

I think of Nelson Mandela, who endured 25 years of solitary imprisonment as an angry and violent rebel, and who emerged as a man of peace and reconciliation. How could he even have hoped to ever see the sunlight again, and what deep work he must have undertaken to create such a transformation in his own mind and spirit?

Living without a “why” requires us to live with our hearts set on something other than our own desires and plans. For Eckhart and the Christians who still follow his teachings today, that something is union with God’s. For Buddhists, it may be the revelatory experience of Enlightenment, which reveals Truth and then points us back to the tasks of everyday life as a discipline of mindfulness. For those of us who proudly claim the label of “Humanist,” our focus point may be the ideal of selfless good actions and service to our brothers and sisters who are in need.

To learn to live without a “why” — to let go and let be— is a strange idea in a culture that urges us to focus on effectiveness, measurable outcomes, and getting it all done. Yet I think these words speak to our hearts and souls in a profoundly appealing voice, because we recognize that the relentless striving and grasping that consumes our days is really not what we want from life.

These words and ideas aren’t unique to Eckhart. They are echoed in the teachings of the Buddha, in the sacred scriptures of Hinduism, and the teachings of Islamic mystics. They touched the hearts and the souls, of seekers and strivers who were struggling and discouraged. Perhaps the words of this medieval Christian mystic will touch hope or need in you as well, and give you something to ponder in the dark and quiet nights of this season.

May it be so.