Emotional Release · “Die to Be Reborn”
Inner Poverty
To empty the inner self of grasping desire, self-important ‘knowing,’ and clung-to possession — Eckhart’s threefold ‘spiritual poverty’ — so the self stops being crowded with self and becomes free and open.
In 5 lines: Notice where you grasp — at outcomes, at being right, at “mine.” Loosen the grip, not the action: want nothing (no clutching, even of holiness), know nothing (hold views and self-image lightly), have nothing (own without clinging). Empty the inner place so you are free and open. Let it be a letting-go, not a feat — then live and love more freely, unclenched.
What it is
In his most daring sermon — Beati pauperes spiritu (German Sermon 52) — Eckhart redefines “poor in spirit.” He sets aside outward poverty and names an inner poverty: “a poor man is one who wants nothing, knows nothing, and has nothing.“ This is a practice of emptying the self of self.
Wants nothing: to be so free of self-will and craving that you are not even grasping after God or your own holiness — acting “without a why.” Knows nothing: to hold your knowledge, opinions, and spiritual self-image lightly, not clutching them as “mine,” not standing on your own cleverness.
Has nothing: to keep an inner place so empty that nothing — not possessions, not even your own spiritual experiences — is clung to as a possession of the ego. This is the active, deliberate counterpart to the broad releasement of Gelassenheit: a focused emptying-out of grasping desire, proud knowing, and clung-to having, until (Eckhart says) the self is poor enough to be free.
It is filed under emotional release because its felt work is the loosening of the craving-and-clinging knot that constricts the heart.
The Method
Eckhart preaches a disposition, not a checklist; this distils his three “poverties” into something doable (faithfully described, short quotes only):
- Want nothing — release the grasping motive. Notice where you are clutching a desired outcome (even a spiritual one) and consciously loosen the grip, not the action. Eckhart: live and love “without a why,” not in order to get. Let the wanting fall quiet.
- Know nothing — hold your views and self-image loosely. Set down the need to be right, expert, or spiritually advanced. Catch the inner voice that says “I know,” and let it open into not-clinging. (This is humility of knowing, not anti-intellectualism.)
- Have nothing — un-grip your possessions and even your experiences. Inwardly let go of treating things, status, relationships, and your own spiritual highs as mine. Eckhart locates “having” in the inner grip, not the inventory — you can own much and be free, or own little and clutch.
- Empty the place where God would enter. Eckhart’s image: become “free and empty” so the divine can act unobstructed; even cling to no representation of God (“I pray God to rid me of God”). The point of emptying is openness, not numbness.
- Let it be a breakthrough, not a feat. He frames the deepest poverty as a letting in which the ego’s “something” dissolves — not a willed accomplishment. Strive less; release more.
- Return to ordinary life freer. The emptied self is not idle; Eckhart expects it to act and love more freely, unclenched. (Sourcing note: attributed paraphrase and short quotation from Sermon 52 and On Detachment; not full reproduction.)
Source & Lineage
Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1328), German Dominican preacher and mystic of the Rhineland. Sermon 52, on “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” is among his boldest: it pushes detachment all the way to a “poverty” in which the self lets go of self.
The sermon’s vocabulary (“wants nothing, knows nothing, has nothing”) shocked his hearers and contributed to the later suspicion of his teaching. It belongs with his treatise On Detachment, where he ranks detachment above the other virtues.
The Traditions' versions
The same move — empty the self of grasping, knowing, and having until it is “nothing” and therefore free — recurs across the mystical and contemplative streams: - Marguerite Porete — the annihilated soul that “wants nothing.” The soul so emptied of self-will it “takes no more account of itself.”
- John of the Cross — nada (the dark night). The systematic emptying of desire and attachment (“to come to possess all, desire to possess nothing”).
- Eckhart’s own Gelassenheit. Inner poverty is the active emptying edge of his broader letting-go disposition.
- The Cloud of Unknowing — the “cloud of forgetting.” Letting all knowing and having fall away beneath bare intent.
- Buddhist non-clinging. Releasing craving (taṇhā) and identification as the root of freedom from suffering.
Common refinements
Reading it as self-erasure. “Poverty” means un-clinging, not deleting your needs, mind, or boundaries. The aim is freedom, not numbness or doormat passivity.
- Suppressing instead of releasing. “Want nothing” is not white-knuckled denial of desire; it is the grip relaxing. Forced suppression rebounds.
- Spiritual bypassing. Using “I have nothing / want nothing” to dodge responsibility, grief, or relationship is a counterfeit. True poverty frees you toward love and action.
- Grasping at emptiness. Striving to achieve the “nothing” is more grasping. The deepest poverty is a letting, not a feat.
- Anti-intellectualism. “Know nothing” is humility about clinging to opinions and self-image — not contempt for learning.