The Nature of the Soul

Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, takes us through the essence of the soul

God is in all things as being, as activity, as power. But He is fecund (procreative) in the soul alone, for though every creature is a vestige of God, the soul is the natural image of God. This image must be adorned and perfected in this birth. No creature but the soul alone is receptive to this act, this birth. Indeed, such perfection as enters the soul, whether it be divine undivided light, grace, or bliss, must enter the soul through this birth, and in no other way. Just await this birth within you, and you shall experience all good and all comfort, all happiness, all being and all truth. If you miss it, you will miss all good and blessedness— Sermon Two, Meister Eckhart p. 79)

As promised in my last essay, “The Metaphysics of the Soul” which explores the character, action, and interaction of the soul on various planes of existence, I will now explore the internal essence or nature of the soul, relying on two of Meister Eckhart’s most spiritually powerful explanations, Sermon One and Sermon Two (as translated by M. O’C. Walshe, 1987)

I first came across Meister Eckhart as a young man when I purchased the three volumes of his sermons in a used book store in Columbus, OH decades ago. Those volumes have followed me around the world, and they inform anew in each deeper reading. He is perhaps my favorite Christian mystic (along with a special fondness for his near-contemporary Marguerite Porete). His way of getting to the heart of the soul is unparalleled in its clarity.

Our souls are made in the image of God, but not how we think

As the Eckhart quote that opens this essay affirms, the soul is made in the image of God. And yet, Eckhart also claims in Sermon One that the soul contains no images!

Accordingly, one master says that the soul can neither create nor obtain an image of herself. Therefore she has no way of knowing herself, for images all enter through the senses, and hence she can have no image of herself.

Therefore you have to be and dwell in the essence and in the ground, and there God will touch you with His simple essence without the intervention of any image. No image represents and signifies itself: it always aims and points to that of which it is an image.

The soul cannot, therefore, know itself except insofar as God as Love dwells within her. The imageless image of God, which we call “presence,” may come to live in us, inspiring many devoted symbols, images, writings, beliefs, faiths, and practices, but that “image” is not itself constituted by our conceptions. This is very humbling but also very rewarding! As we baptize ourselves in the imageless image of God, Spirit, and Love a deep, abiding peace emerges.

This may all seem contradictory, yet this is a productive contradiction. By defying convenient explanation, this “imageless image” provides an authentic, non-dogmatic path to know God on the level of intimate, authentic, unmediated experience, rather than ideology. God speaks directly to us silently, through the imageless and wordless medium of our soul, the child of God.

I said in the last essay that the soul is the created, individuated, and therefore non-eternal body of Spirit. Through the soul we experience ourselves as spiritual persons with our own free choice, will, desire, development, and journey. Just as we are human beings existing at the intersection of the dark/“sin” and light/love powers, so is our soul the intersection (and bridge) between the spirit and the world, between the heavens and the earth. This is a heady adventure, bedeviling and thrilling, if we can embrace the apparent contradictions and let it work on us.

The way I would explain it is this: The soul is the marriage of the essence of God above (Spirit) and the powers of the world below (images, symbols, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, etc.). The essence from above provides life, love, light, truth, wisdom, support, stillness, hope, charity, and clarity. The powers from below offer change (including death), devotion, innocence, inquiry, desire, creativity, and activity.

It’s a brilliant design when you meditate upon it: We have to “resist the temptation” to be caught up and overcome by our worldly senses and distractions (as nice as those are), and clean out our souls of all images to receive the “image” of God, the imageless imprint or impression called love. In this movement, we establish the “kingdom of God” on earth. Initially we do this from a point of faith, exercising discipline, and seeking reward. Ultimately we must do this from a point of “knowing unknowing”, simply desiring to be filled with spirit and reaping a higher level of being, which repels all notions of “reward,” save that greater reward of being reborn to our spiritual essence at its deepest, broadest, and highest level.

They must know that the very best and noblest attainment in this life is to be silent and let God work and speak within. When the powers have been completely withdrawn from their works and images, then the Word is spoken. Therefore (Christ) said: ‘In the midst of the silence the secret word was spoken unto me.’ And so, the more completely you are able to draw in your powers to a unity and forget all those things and their images which you have absorbed, and the further you can get from creatures and their images, the nearer you are to this (God’s Word) and the readier to receive it.

Rebirth

In this process, it is said that one must “die” to the lower self, consumed with and addicted to the human senses, and be “reborn” to a new kingdom. This does not mean we abandon the senses altogether. We are still invited to deeply taste, touch, smell, hear, see, but turned toward the inner, to taste the love of God in grace and healing, to touch the vulnerable hearts of our own spirits in reverence to the beauty of nature, to smell the rose within and be awakened to the aroma of virtue which beckons us to serve the advancement of all creation, to hear the cries of a child’s suffering and respond with care and affection, to see the kingdom of heaven rise in the heart and in every movement of justice that further frees our species to unleash the creative will of God.

We also die to falsehood, out-worn narratives, and abuses including religious ones, which seek to impose the exercise of world-over-spirit in the form of control, exploitation, and all forms of manipulation and abuse, including spiritualized abuse. We must abandon self-constituted certainties and “self” addiction to be reborn to the selfless self, the being-less being.

God needs no image and has no image; without any means, likeness or image God operates in the soul— right in the ground where no image can ever go in, but only He Himself with His own being. This no creature can do.

And you must know too that inwardly the soul is free and void of all means and all images— which is why God can freely unite with her without form or likeness.

God is only reborn in the “ground” (or essence) of the soul and not the powers of the world. But if this is the case, why are we living and striving on earth? Is it just a ruse to be discarded, so that we sit around in silence, receiving God, and doing nothing?

So why are we living or acting on this planet at all?

Since this work of birth occurs in the essence and ground of the soul, then it happens just as much in a sinner as in a saint, so what grace or good is there in it for me?

Here is the answer: Receiving light takes serious work to remove the restrictions to light! One must dedicated oneself to purifying the heart to experience the blessings of light, without which the light cannot enter. This is the whole purpose of the spiritual instructions of Jesus’ Beatitudes (“blessed are the peacemakers”, etc.). This purification is both a definite choice and a cultivated practice. Virtue is therefore not a conceit to “get me into heaven” or “make me look good to others” but a spiritual necessity to allow the light of spirit to reach me at all!

The superfluity of light in the ground of the soul wells over into the body (my emphasis) which is filled with radiance. No sinner can receive this light, nor is he worthy to, being full of sin and wickedness, which is called ‘darkness’. Therefore it says: “The darkness shall neither receive nor comprehend the light (John 1:5). That is because the paths by which light would enter are choked and obstructed with guile and darkness.

You wouldn’t know this from many, even Christian, religious practices which seem more caught up in anti-spiritual judgment, institutional authority and control, and in showy displays of piety vs. authentic virtue. They, despite their proclamations, are missing the boat, according to Eckhart, and conversely those who follow no religion but are cultivating a pure, receptive heart, may enter the kingdom of God.

Are you saying I can’t use those worldly talents and soul powers that God has given me?

The questions arises: Since God the Father gives birth only in the essence and ground of the soul and not in the (manifesting) powers (of the soul), what concern is it of theirs? How do they help just by being idle and taking a rest? What is the use, since this birth does not take place in the powers.

The answer from Eckhart involves marshaling and focusing one’s manifesting powers in service of the soul’s essence and ground!

So for (the soul’s) inward work to be effective, she must call in all her powers and gather them together from the diversity of things to a single inward activity. St. Augustine says the soul is rather where she loves than where she gives life to the body.

Aha! brilliant answer. One should avail one’s soul powers in a way that not only serves the essence of spirit birthed by God in the soul, but that gathers and devotes one’s earthly talents and gifts to the “inward activity” of the soul as a grateful, responsive offering. In familiar language this is named “finding your calling.” And what could be more joyous than one who has found what they are “really meant to do in this world” and spends a happy life offering that? This is the opposite of self-denial! It is self-expression in its truest and purest form— doing on earth what God’s Spirit calls you to do from the heavens.

And this calling is not always simply, or even primarily, “spiritualistic” in nature. Monastic monks in Western culture were known for their scholarship, record-keeping, religious ritual, and innovative agriculture techniques (to say nothing of their beer-making :0)…) that preserved divine scripture, cultivated spiritual practice, and advanced human society. These activities stemming from “powers” thrive alongside the soul “essence” in a completely complementary way. They are NOT mutually exclusive as many of us have been taught. There is a reason why the Bible talks about a New Heaven AND a New Earth. One reflects the other: As above, so below.

In stillness and silence we HEAR and discern God’s pure calling and distinguish it from both ego desires and the noise of the world, but THEN we act upon it in an inspired, reverential way that does justice to God’s calling in the world.

Unlearning the ignorant “knowing” of the world leads to divine unknowing and Reality

Another questions arises. You might say: ‘Sir, you place all our salvation in ignorance. That sounds like a lack. God made man to know… Ah but here we must come to a transformed knowledge, and this unknowing must not come from ignorance, but rather from knowing we must get to this unknowing.

The world is littered with idols that not only distract from but dishonor the spirit. One of the falsehoods perpetuated by the world is that “knowing” involves being “streetwise” and negotiating a “dog-eat-dog” world and, conversely, that “spirituality” is naive, ignorant, and even dangerous. This is completely backwards. It is the eternal, unchanging spirit which provides the essence of real knowledge and eternal truth and the vanities of the world which show themselves to be mortal, temporary, and ultimately destructive.

How many times do the so-called “truths” of the world have to be disproven, before we call THEM ignorant and naive? How many times will we tolerate falsehoods which harm our relationship with ourselves, with each other, with God, and with the world before we finally get it? Divine knowing called “unknowing” (which the world calls naive and childlike) is actually deep knowing that goes beyond surfaces and instances. It is time-bound, superficial worldly prejudices — like “war is noble,” “violence is power,” and “money and fame are the highest goals”— that are deeply ignorant. How could this “world” be anything other than a simulation, a simulacrum, when it enslaves the vast majority of people to material conceits that destroy all they touch?

Divine truth is not a proposition or concept. It is not material or concrete, and yet it is real. It has no definite “thing” and possesses no materiality, and yet, because of this, it can transcend change, space, and time and exist in and of itself. Divine unknowing is knowing beyond three-dimensional senses. Divine unknowing effervesces with non-material presence. We detect this in our heart of hearts and our soul of souls. We experience this as GRACE, a deep relief, peace, and liberation leading to acceptance of eternal, spiritual Reality with a capital “R”.

From this undying place we hold within us the opportunity to let go of our material chains, and fly with our spirit to divine life. In so doing, we will not only honor God but contribute to the soulful renewal of the universe herself.

Please share whatever thoughts come to your awareness.

Blessings, Zeus