Beyond coolness. The concept of gelâzenheit in Meister Eckhart

On the one hand, Meister Eckhart’s concept of gelâzenheit (or Gelassenheit, as spelt in modern German) is a key to his philosophy. On the other hand, Gelassenheit is a key-concept in our times. It’s trendy to be relaxed. There are a lot of seminars for managers and decision-makers intending to learn how to become more relaxed in a world of rush and trouble, to become gelassen. Gelassenheit is difficult to translate, because there are no comparable expressions of such full semantical richness. It would be a paradox to hold the special meaning of Gelassenheit and than try to translate it, for example with expressions like “coolness”, “calmness”, “composure” or “tranquillity”. This terms cover only some meaning of Gelassenheit, each one does describe a particular semantical item, but leaves beside the other connotations.

Meister Eckhart, a Medieval theologian, philosopher and mystic of the Dominican Order, is also known as one of the most important promotors of the German language. With the term Gelassenheithe provided the German language with a concept, that covers the complexity of an attitude, consisting in calmness, adoration, humility, dedication and wisdom, that finally leads to the experience of the unio mystica (“unity with God”). It gets clear, that he amplified with this concept the semantic value of the Latin expressions resignatio and tranquilitas just as the one of the Greek concepts euthymia and henosis. These concepts only describe the much more complex idea of Gelassenheit partly without meeting its full meaning and without developing its semantic density completely. The different aspects of the historical concepts are summed up in the concept Gelassenheit, because it unites the outgoing aspect of leaving and giving up (resignatio), calmness and quietude (Seneca’s tranquilitas animi, as a resulat of the stoic apáthia) and a good mind (Demokrit’s euthymia as a consequence of ataraxia, “smooth attitude”) as well as finally the unity with God (Plotin’s henosis, in which the idea of God implicates the imagination of a consubstantiality of the divine and the human soul), that is developed by Meister Eckhart to the unio mystica as the final aim of all human beings.

Meister Eckhart references first of all to the biblical term lassen (leave), that is a crucial one in the Gospel, for example when Jesus calls his disciples. In the Gospel of Matthew we read: “And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, 'Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.' They immediately left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.” (Matthew 4, 18-22). The concept of lassen, focussed on material matters (“the boat”) and personal matters (“the father”), is the starting point of Meister Eckart’s concept of Gelassenheit, because lassen (infinitive) is the precondition to be gelassen (past participle).

So in the end it becomes quiet clear how to understand the term lassen (“leave”) in the context of Gelassenheit. Not in a literal (it would not be wise at all to leave all the contexts of living), but in a spiritual meaning: It is indeed wise of leave the absorbing love to all earthly things and relations to become open for the religio Dei, for the loving relation to God. This, at least to me, is a modern interpretation of Gelassenheit and unio mystica, that, beyond a false fatalism, does not forget the Christian’s responsibility for the planet which is assumed calm and wise, overcoming the temptation to start numerous actions without Gelassenheit, and without taking into account our deep relation to God.