While reading Rudolf Otto’s Mysticism: East and West, I came across a quotation given by Otto of Meister Eckhart, a German Mystic, along with an interpretation. It reads as follows:
“In so far as the creature is creature, it carries within itself bitterness, shame, evil and hardship. Whosoever forsakes things in as much as they are accidental possesses them in as much as they are pure Being and eternal.” (Otto, p.113)
The simplest expression for the true content of this teaching is:
“All things – in their finite forms–have flowed out in time, and have nevertheless–in their infinite form -remained in eternity.”
When I read the Eckhart’s words, I immediately understood that this was not just a metaphysical statement, but a practical one as well. Otto however, wrote this quote in his chapter on “Creature and Maya”, which is a metaphysical discussion on the definition of the word Creare, or creature, and the concept of Maya, or Illusion, from Sankara’s Advaita philosophy.
The teaching I understood from this quotation had nothing to do with remaining in eternity, or a creatures finite forms. It may very well have contained that lesson as well, however I found one to be more practical. What Eckhart meant is that the Fact of creature carrying bitterness, shame, evil and hardness, is just as true the fact of creature as Pure being and eternal.
When a creature is a creature, it carries all those negatives of itself as described by Eckhart. This is the acceptance and belief of oneself as a creature, in all its misery. The forsaking of this state, as an accident, and to an extent as predestined, yet not part of one’s own pure Being or Essence, validates the fact that they indeed are! It is seen as something that must be fought against, denied, and resisted. However, when we forsake aspects of ourselves which seem inherent within us, that have come as part of our “life package” we validate the existence of that aspect of ourselves by its negation and denial. It exists because we say it does not. The concept exists because of our focus on its non-existence. This is the trick of duality and dualism in general. What we say is not is, and what we say is, is, because we have manifested it and called it into being either way.
The center path, of which both Eckhart and Sankara explain in their work throughout Otto’s analysis, is that there is a way to accept pure Being, with and without its creatureliness, and everything that comes with it. There is no distinguishing trait to negativity and positivity because of the concept of unity which overrides both. Through unity, forsaking is impossible, only acceptance and understanding of one’s own true nature and situation is necessary to exist.
In order to overcome our existence as a “mere creature”, we must overcome these concepts of bitterness, shame, evil and hardship through a new paradigm of thinking and being, rather than harshly tossing it to the side and refusing to accept its existence, or embracing it as the inevitable. This negativity toward Being creature both exists, and does not exist, implying that it is in reality to be perceived with a higher form of perception which we are not commonly trained to look at.
