In the last sense Eckhart taught,
contrary to traditional Christianity, and in conformity with Indian
wisdom, that the soul must be absorbed into the absolute and that
everything transient and individual must cease to exist. "The highest
freedom is that the soul should rise above itself and flow into the
fathomless abyss of its archetype, of God Himself."
Even St. Bernard was not quite free from this mystical heresy (_cf._ the
previously quoted passages). "When he has reached the highest degree of
perfection, man is in a state of complete forgetfulness of self, and
having entirely ceased to belong to himself, becomes one with God,
released from everything not divine." Even compassion must cease in this
state, for there is nothing left but justice and perfection.
We recognise here a characteristic of all those who are greatest among
men: of Goethe, for instance, of Bach, or Kant: namely, the
correspondence of intense personality and the most highly developed
objectivity; for the greatest personality ceases in the end to
distinguish between itself and the world, has eradicated everything
paltry, selfish and subjective and has become entirely objective,
impersonal, divine.
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