“For this innermost reason you should perform all of your deeds without whys and wherefores. I say in truth, as long as you perform your deeds for the sake of the kingdom of heaven or God or your eternal salvation, in other words for an external reason, things are not truly well with you. You may he well accepted, but it is certainly not the best way. For verily, if someone imagines that they will receive more in warmth, devotion, sweet rapture, and in the special grace of God than by the hearth or in a stable, all you are doing is taking God, placing a coat around his head, and pushing him under a bench. Because the person who seeks for God in a particular way, takes that way and misses God. But the person who seeks for God without a way will find Him, as He is, in Himself; and such a son lives with the Son and He is life itself. The person who for a thousand years asks the question of life, "Why do you live?" could provide the answer, the only answer, "I live because I am alive." The reason for this is that life is lived for its own sake and emanates from its Own sources; hence it is lived entirely without whys or wherefores, because it lives for itself.”
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Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris. Coming into prominence during the decadent Avignon Papacy and a time of increased tensions between the Franciscans and Eckhart's Dominican Order of Preacher Friars, he was brought up on charges later in life before the local Franciscan-led Inquisition. Tried as a heretic by Pope John XXII, his "Defence" is famous for his reasoned arguments to all challenged articles of his writing and his refutation of heretical intent. He purportedly died before his verdict was received, although no record of his death or burial site has ever been discovered.
Meister Eckhart is sometimes (erroneously) referred to as "Johannes Eckhart", although Eckhart was his given name and von Hochheim was his surname.
"Perhaps no mystic in the history of Christianity has been more influential and more controversial than the Dominican Meister Eckart. Few, if any, mystics have been as challenging to modern day readers and as resistant to agreed-upon interpretation."
—Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart