The 8-week course
The Ground of the Soul
An eight week narrated video course on the teaching of Meister Eckhart, from the self you call yours to the ground underneath it.
$59
Or get all five, the book, the course, the devotional, the journal and the guided audio, as The Complete Meister Eckhart Collection for $89, and save $29. Get the collection
Free preview
Watch the first lesson
Below is the full first lesson, The crowd you call yourself, exactly as students see it. Every week of the course has three lessons like it, plus a guided audio and a section of the workbook.
If it speaks to you, the other 23 lessons are waiting.
What this course is
This is a narrated video course in eight weekly modules, twenty four lessons in all, built around the teaching of Meister Eckhart. It draws on the German sermons, the Talks of Instruction, the Book of Divine Consolation, and On Detachment, using C. de B. Evans's 1924 translation of Pfeiffer's edition.
It is not a survey of Eckhart's life or a history of Dominican theology. It takes a small number of his central claims, detachment, letting be, the ground of the soul, the birth of God, the Godhead beyond God, living without a why, and sits with each one long enough to let it mean something in an ordinary week.
Who this is for
This suits people who already practice centering prayer or lectio divina and want to understand where some of that language comes from. It suits readers who came to Eckhart through Zen or through nonduality and want the Christian source rather than a modern gloss.
Students of philosophy or theology who want a plain entry point into Eckhart's thought, without first needing Latin or a library, may find it useful too.
Who this is not for
If you want a quick technique or a short list of life hacks, this will probably frustrate you. Eckhart is slow and he repeats himself, and the course follows him at that pace on purpose.
If the words God and soul are not words you can work with right now, it is fine to pass. Nothing here depends on buying this course, and there is no pressure to.
How the eight weeks unfold
Week one starts with the self you normally call yourself, the bundle of opinions, roles, and reactions Eckhart might call the crowd. From there it looks at where most of us go looking for God, often in the wrong direction, and ends with something simple and hard, learning to sit still.
Week two takes up detachment, the virtue Eckhart ranked above even love. You look at the image of a mountain that holds still while the weather moves around it, and at why detachment, rightly understood, turns out to be warm rather than cold.
Week three is about letting be. It asks what it would mean to let go of self-will, looks at the line where the creature stops and God begins, and ends with consent standing in the place usually held by control.
Week four reaches the ground of the soul itself. You spend time underneath the noise of ordinary thought, sit with Eckhart's claim that there is one ground and not two, and consider what it means to rest somewhere grace already is, rather than somewhere you still have to reach.
Week five turns to the birth of God in the soul, a birth Eckhart says is happening now, whether or not you notice it. You look at the kind of unknowing this birth seems to ask for, and at Eckhart's picture of the soul as Mary, giving birth to the Word.
Week six goes further, into what Eckhart calls the Godhead beyond God. This means leaving God for God, setting down even your best and most comforting pictures of the divine, and staying with Eckhart's own strange prayer to be rid of God.
Week seven is about living without a why. You look at a life that does not need a reason outside itself to justify it, at the old story of Martha and Mary, and at why Eckhart will not let you bargain with God for results.
Week eight brings all of this down into an ordinary day. You look at suffering that is not wasted, at God present in the smallest hours of a life, and at what a rule of life might look like once the eight weeks are behind you.
Eckhart in his own words
Every module quotes Eckhart directly, clearly marked as his words, never softened into paraphrase and passed off as his.
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The narration explains what each passage is doing in its own sermon or treatise before asking what it might mean for someone praying or sitting with it today.
What you take with you
By the end of the eight weeks you will have spent real time with Eckhart's own writing rather than summaries of it, and you will have a working sense of what he means by detachment, the ground of the soul, and living without a why.
You will not come away with a system. Eckhart did not leave one, and the course does not try to invent one for him.
What you get
- Eight weekly modules with three narrated video lessons each, twenty four lessons in total.
- Direct quotation from Eckhart's sermons and treatises in every module, not just commentary about him.
- Quotations drawn from C. de B. Evans's 1924 translation of Pfeiffer's edition, public domain and clearly sourced.
- Lessons short enough to watch in one sitting, built to fit around a normal week rather than take it over.
- Access to all eight weeks, to move through in order or revisit later at your own pace.
Or get all five, the book, the course, the devotional, the journal and the guided audio, as The Complete Meister Eckhart Collection for $89, and save $29. Get the collection
The 30-day guarantee
Take 30 days with it. If it is not right for you, email Gregory@meistereckhart.com and you will get a full refund. You do not need to give a reason. The details are in the refund policy.
Questions
Do I need a Christian background to take this course?
No. It helps to be willing to sit with words like God and soul, but you do not need any particular church background or prior theology.
Is this course live or self-paced?
It is a narrated video course you watch on your own schedule. There are no live sessions.
Do I need to have read Eckhart before?
No. The course assumes no prior reading and introduces each idea from the start.
Which translation do the quotations come from?
C. de B. Evans's 1924 English translation of Franz Pfeiffer's edition, volume 1. Sermon numbering follows that edition, which differs from the later Quint and Walshe numbering some readers may know.
How long will the lessons take each week?
Each module has three lessons, and each lesson is kept short enough to fit into a normal day.
Will I still have access after I finish the course?
Yes. You can return to any module whenever you want, in whatever order suits you.
Or get all five, the book, the course, the devotional, the journal and the guided audio, as The Complete Meister Eckhart Collection for $89, and save $29. Get the collection