Description:
In this remarkable work, Reiner Schürmann shows Meister Eckhart, the thirteenth-century Christian mystic, as the great teacher of the birth of God in the soul, which shatters the dualism between God and the world, the self and God. This is an exposition of Eckhar's mysticism--perhaps the best in English--and, because Eckhart is a profound philosopher for whom knowing precedes being, it is also an exemplary work of contemporary philosophy.
Schürmann shows us that Eckhart is our contemporary. He describes the threefold movement of detachment, release, and "dehiscence" (splitting open), which leads to the experience of "living without a why," in which all things are in God and sheer joy. Going beyond that, he describes the transformational force of approaching the Godhead, the God beyond God:
"A man who has experienced the same no longer has a place to establish himself. He has settled on the road, and for those who have learned how to listen, his existence becomes a call. This errant one dwells in joy. Through his wanderings the origin beckons."Brief description: Reiner Schürmann (1941-1993) was born to German parents in Amsterdam. He received his doctorate at the Sorbonne in 1981 and was Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City. Among many other awards for his scholarship and writing, he received the Distinguished University Teacher Award in 1989. He wrote a seminal work on Heidegger and, just before his death, completed the two-volume Broken Hegemonies, a study of the imposition of the universal on the singular throughout the history of philosophy. Director of the faculty of philosophy at the New School for Social Research Graduate Faculty of New York, Schürmann was the author of three notable philosophical works: Maître Eckhart et la joie errante ("Master Eckhart and the Wandering Joy", 1972), Le Principe d'anarchie, Heidegger et la question de l'agir (From Principles to Anarchy: Heidegger on Being and Acting, 1982).