Meister Eckhart - Meister Eckhart: a mystic-warrior for our times

More praise for Meister Eckhart by Matthew Fox

Matthew Fox is among the great theologians, mystics, and intellectuals of our time, and I have long held that he is at his best when teaching and writing about Meister Eckhart. This book is unlike anything Ive ever read on Eckhart in that it skillfully and honestly engages Eckharts work as it can be applied to the great struggles of our day, through the work of some of the great thinkers and activists of modern times. Eckhart is vastly underappreciated, but I think this creative and dialogical approach can lead to a new recognition of his incredible work. Moreover, Meister Eckharts work is the perfect way to get to know Creation Spirituality, the movement in Western spirituality that Fox has synthesized. And perhaps most importantly, this book, in its masterful weaving of Eckharts timeless spirituality with the most timely of contemporary movements, radicals, and rebels, can help us to begin to reimagine ourselves at this pivotal moment in human history.

Theodore Richards, author of Creatively Maladjusted: The Wisdom Education Movement Manifesto and Cosmosophia: Cosmology, Mysticism, and the Birth of a New Myth

Matthew Foxs prophetic voice lights up our landscape, which is darkened by unchecked corporate greed, militarism, and intolerance that manifest in the massive destruction of all life-forms on our planet. Using the profound teachings of Meister Eckhart, Fox encourages, inspires, and guides us to take action to realize our own inner power and to make each of our days count. The wisdom contained in this book will help us to meet our responsibility in this critical time of human history. It is a must-read.

Lily Yeh, Barefoot Artist

Matthew Fox, like Meister Eckhart, is a prophet whose message transcends his, or any, religion. He reveals a thrilling potential for a kind of cosmic wholeness in us that we may never have imagined but that is actually supported by modern cosmology and could help heal our world. With both empathic understanding and extraordinary intellectual command, Fox lets a wide range of important thinkers, religious and secular, male and female, Eastern and Western, speak for themselves, echoing in many ways Eckharts far earlier discoveries. Fox makes the mystical practical. He quotes Heschel Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge and adds that not seeing this is the reason our education system bores kids and fails to inspire them.

The diametric opposite of religious writers who ignore or even deny science that appears to conflict with their dogma, Fox thirsts to understand modern science and regrets only that Eckhart did not have the chance. One of Eckharts deepest insights, centuries ahead of his time, was that we are all interdependent. Fox illustrates this with the recent discovery that we humans are almost entirely made of the rarest material in the universe stardust, which is a mere 0.01 percent of cosmic density but that stardust came into existence only because of the behavior of the other 99.99 percent of the content of the universe over billions of years. This is truly a vast amplification of Eckharts fundamental idea.

For Fox, mysticism is a human, not a religious, path, and through Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, or any other tradition (perhaps even science), we come to a common underground river of wisdom. And he doesnt want anyones metaphor system to get in the way of their seeing it. If, as one of the mystics (Baal Shem Tov) that Fox quotes taught, we can experience a trace of heaven on Earth, and joy, love, and even ecstasy in daily life, many people would trade their wealth for this. Fox asks only that we trade our superficiality.

Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel Primack, authors of The View from the Center of the Universe

Along with Matthew Foxs ever-engaging scholarship and style, I am moved by his generosity. He not only gives us his beloved spiritual father as a living presence for our lives but also brings us a whole rainbow of mystic-warriors as companions on the way. From Carl Jung to Karl Marx to Adrienne Rich and Lily Yeh, they each serve as a lens through which we see more vividly Meister Eckharts meaning for this moment of our journey.

Joanna Macy, coauthor of Active Hope: How to Face the Mess Were in without Going Crazy

Matthew Fox is perhaps the greatest writer on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. No one paints as broad a portrait of the master as Fox does in this book. He has walked with Eckhart, as a living presence, for over forty years. From modern feminism to archaic shamanism, C. G. Jung to Otto Rank, Ananda Coomaraswamy to Bill Everson, Fox has successfully bridged a gap between Eckhart as a shamanistic personality and Eckhart as a postmodern mentor to the interfaith movement, revealing just how cosmic Eckhart really is and how remarkably relevant to todays religious crisis! This book is a must for anyone who wants to know Eckhart intimately, in the now.

Steven Herrmann, author of Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward

Whether our species has a future on Earth does not depend on the development of more gee-whiz technologies, but on whether we are willing to move into the psycho-spiritual dimension proclaimed by Meister Eckhart and elucidated by Matthew Fox in this important book. Now is our moment to awaken to the God-consciousness that Eckhart knew, and that many in our own time have already claimed, as Fox shows. This intrinsic aspect of who we are does not have to be acquired, for it already exists as part of our original equipment. In this endeavor, however, time is not on our side. Urgency is afoot. On this crucial journey, let Meister Eckhart and Matthew Fox be your guides.

Larry Dossey, MD, author of One Mind: How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters

Books by Matthew Fox

Letters to Pope Francis: Rebuilding a Church with Justice and Compassion

Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation (with Adam Bucko)

Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint for Our Times:

Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century

The Popes War: Why Ratzingers Secret Crusade Has Imperiled

the Church and What Can Be Saved

Christian Mystics: 365 Readings and Meditations

The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine

The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human

A New Reformation: Creation Spirituality & the Transformation of Christianity

Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet

Prayer: A Radical Response to Life

(formerly On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear)

One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh:

Lessons for Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

The Physics of Angels (with biologist Rupert Sheldrake)

Natural Grace (with biologist Rupert Sheldrake)

Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life

The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time

Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

The Coming of the Cosmic Christ:

The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance

Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality