Meister Eckhart says, “we sink eternally from letting go to letting go into the One.” Letting Go never ends, it is a continuous element to living, but it takes us to the depths or “ground” where God dwells.
Psychologist Otto Rank addresses the many separations that life asks of us this way: I have learned that the capacity to separate is one of life’s major functions. Life in itself is a mere succession of separations, beginning with birth, going on through several weaning periods and the development of the individual personality, and finally culminating in death—which represents the final separation.
Letting Go is often disturbing and a “shock.” At birth, the individual experiences the first shock of separation, which throughout his life he strives to overcome. In the process of adaptation, man persistently separates from his old self, or at least from those segments of his old self that are now outlived. Like a child who has outgrown a toy, he discards the old parts of himself of which he has no further use.
If we fail to learn to let go, the result is neurosis. The neurotic is unable to accomplish this normal detachment process. He cannot live through and emancipate himself from the various fundamental separation stages in life. Owing to fear or guilt generated in the assertion of his own autonomy, he is unable to free himself, and instead remains suspended upon some primitive level of his evolution. He stays fixated, so to speak, upon a particular worn-out part of his past that he cannot sever himself from, and his whole present behavior is directed and symbolized in terms of this unaccomplished separation.
Has Vladimir Putin remained “fixated upon a particular worn-out part of his past” such as the Soviet Empire of old? And are many now paying the price for this neurosis?
The neurotic never tastes the Now. He is too busy living in the past and bracing himself for an imagined angst-ridden future. To me it follows that the neurotic is not just the artiste manque (Rank’s term); he is also the mystique manque. Otto Rank calls us all to the unio mystica and to the “marvel of creation,” to the irrational and the beyond, to the Now, and to deep and constant letting go. To fail to respond is to invite loss of soul.
A civilization that excludes the mystic is inviting neurosis on a large scale.
Mysticism is our “Yes” to life. Rank proposes that neurosis is by definition a refusal to say Yes; thus it is a refusal to be a mystic: “All neurotic reactions can be thus reduced to one Big No that men hurl at life,” he cautions us. Is the current Ukrainian war “one Big No being hurled at life”?
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Meditations with Meister Eckhart, p. 49.
And also Matthew Fox, Passion For Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, pp. 177-187, 213-293.
Banner Image: Releasing one’s self into the new adventure. Photo by Marcus Dall Col on Unsplash.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you recognize the importance in your life of learning to Let Go? And the pain that accompanies separation? Are you employing your creativity and therefore saying Yes to your own selfhood? Are you moving beyond the artiste manque and mystique manque?
Recommended Reading
Meditations with Meister Eckhart: A Centering Book
A centering book by Matthew Fox. This book of simple but rich meditations exemplifies the deep yet playful creation-centered spirituality of Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart was a 13th-century Dominican preacher who was a mystic, prophet, feminist, activist, defender of the poor, and advocate of creation-centered spirituality, who was condemned shortly after he died.
“These quiet presentations of spirituality are remarkable for their immediacy and clarity.” –Publishers Weekly.
12 thoughts on “Eckhart & Rank on the Via Negativa: Undergoing Letting Go & Separation”
Matthew, In your “Queries for Contemplation” you ask:
1. “Do you recognize the importance in your life of learning to Let Go?” I do recognize the importance of letting go in my life. And Eckhart is my hero and guide in this, for he taught you and through you, us.
2. “And the pain that accompanies separation?” I find that once I have let go of something, it helps me let go easier the next time I have to let something go. And that is good, because when you first trying to do this consciously it hurts like hell.
3. “Are you employing your creativity and therefore saying Yes to your own selfhood?” Yes, I am employing my creativity in writing books, painting, and playing music.
4. “Are you moving beyond the artiste manque and mystique manque?” I would rather use your words here: “The neurotic never tastes the Now. He is too busy living in the past and bracing himself for an imagined angst-ridden future. To me it follows that the neurotic is not just the artiste manque (Rank’s term); he is also the mystique manque.”
Then there is your chilling question: “Has Vladimir Putin remained “fixated upon a particular ‘worn-out part of his past’ such as the Soviet Empire of old? And are many now paying the price for this neurosis?” That’s for sure !!!
Letting go, can be expressed as the tears of a silent heart… a silent heart that has no words for the war that IS unfolding and what is evolving and emerging from the destruction of its darkness. The Mother Earth too, weeps the tears of Her silent heart… as She absorbes the spilled blood of the wounded, the dying and the dead… Her tears falling like embers from burnt trees… gathering in heaps of ashes and rubble. We too, cry the tears of a silent heart, letting go of the pain, the suffering, the sorrows of this war… and enter into the depths of Her embrace… held in the womb of the Mother, we await the sound of that small still voice, heard now only in the beating of Her heart… this rythmic pulse burning like an ember… She offers as a gift, touching our lips… a kiss of hope like blackened coal that tastes of salt water.
Jeanette, Very poetic and beautiful in its darkness…
Matthew, thank you for another spiritually profound meditation about our mystical/contemplative transformative spiritual journey with-in God’s Spirit of Love~Wisdom~Creativity….
Being~Becoming Loving Compassionate Oneness with others and All of God’s ongoing Creation~Evolution in the Sacred Process of the Eternal Present Moment….
🔥❤️🙏
Falling upward (Rohr) has always been the Way of Christ—a descending path that includes suffering—a surrender and submission to Divine LOVE that leads to abundant life, the banquet, Home, our eternal dwelling in and with God. }:- a.m.
“In the midst of devastating crises, we are asked to do the counterintuitive… to LET GO of our anxiety, flight or fight reactions… in order to slow down and be still enough, to allow both the source of our troubles and the options for recovery to emerge. We have to be present or “woke”. To be woke, is to be spiritually alert and willing to be a witness to injustice or catastrophe. We owe one another, a witness. To be woke is to see and say what has gone unseen, unspoken. We have eyes, voices. We can offer both.”
Quoted and paraphrased from “Crisis Contemplation”, by Barbara Holmes
Artist/mystique manque — Reading this it occurs to me that there’s far more to “letting go” than we may have suspected. Some of us must let go of the false teachings that have captured our minds and abilities with the belief that art is of no value and that the mystical is impractical nonsense.
I was taught these things. Mercilessly. I *can* make beautiful art, in several mediums. And I *have* always trended toward the mystical. But a patriarchal household taught me as a child that imagination is frivolous and art is useless unless you make a lot of money producing it.
I find the entire patriarchy today pushing aggressively to recreate a past of inequity—of racism and misogyny; war and profit; master/slavery—and realize that *I* must let go of the restrictive teachings of my youth and dive into the crafts and talents and beliefs I *gnow* (from several authors who merge gnostic understanding into knowing conviction) I have. Therein will be my contribution to healing of the All.
May it be.
Olive, I think you are right on when you write: “Artist/mystique manque — Reading this it occurs to me that there’s far more to ‘letting go’ than we may have suspected. Some of us must let go of the false teachings that have captured our minds and abilities with the belief that art is of no value and that the mystical is impractical nonsense.” Thank you for your comment.
For me, letting go is a daily and lifetime process. Clinging–whether to a person, to activities one can no longer do, ideas, beliefs, etc–only causes more suffering for oneself and for others. I agree with Richard that letting go can be exquisitely painful and that, with practice, the pain can ease. It is necessary to let go in order even to begin to experience a full life and to have the courage to say yes, no matter what the situation. My yes usually comes way after the trauma, not in the midst of it, though.
Today in Quigong class the teacher often used the words,”letting go” and I remembered the DM for today. Each time I do the forms I remember to release the parts of me that no longer serve me. I choose to no longer carry the burdens of the past or to live in the future but to live as fully and completely as I can in the Present NO W.
“Now”
A deepening of what is.
An affirmation of what will be.
The “now” simply that —
Now —
To be taken as the Father gives,
lived faithfully as the Spirit directs,
always in You, Lord,
Your Presence –
loving, moving, acting
in and through us.
Faithful to the contemplative
so that the active may be transformed.
Yes!
❤️🌞🙂🔥🌈