Beyond Knowing and Unknowing

Socrates knew he knew nothing – the pinnacle of philosophy – but not enough for Meister Eckhart. For Eckhart, both knowledge and absence of knowledge had passed away. The cloud of unknowing is still a cloud, not yet the sky. In wisdom, you surrender; in love, you are surrendered. For the self, there are periods of light and darkness. For the sun, there is only light. For the mind, there is knowledge and absence of knowledge. But in the absence of knowledge, and in the absence of that absence, there is – I cannot say. When the soul comes out of her powers, she stands naked at the threshold, divested of knowledge and experience. She waits without waiting, and from there she’s taken. When the soul completely divests herself, God completely divests himself. The ordinary person becomes a philosopher. The philosopher becomes a mystic, then the mystic becomes natural. Then there is just friendship, creativity and celebration.