Living and Acting without a Why – Lawrence

In researching material for my current work of non-fiction: Highway of Holiness: Soul Journey, I began to read some background on Meister Eckhart, a 14th century Dominican and mystic. I have to admit that, at times, I find it tough going because the scholarship is far beyond my learning thus far. However, I continue to read on because of the nuggets of wisdom and understanding that I receive from time to time.

Eckhart speaks of “the fused identity” as being the essential meaning of “ground”. “The one ground in which we attain fused identity with God is rooted in the oneness of Christ’s ground,” says Eckhart; and “The more someone knows the root and the kernel and the ground of the Godhead as one the more he knows all things…Go into your own ground and there act—acting out of a well-exercised ground is to live and act without a why.”

This living and acting without a why, I think, is not following God’s direction blindly and without question, but it is as if life’s right actions become effortless because, being united with God in the ground of his being, enables one to “live and act without a why”, without constant struggle of right against wrong. One does not have to fight within oneself to do the right thing; one naturally and in the spirit does the right thing because one is living and acting out of the soul’s unity with the Godhead—out of the ground of holy being.

© Judith Lawrence