Meister Eckhart was a late-thirteenth- and early-fourteenth-century preacher and mystic, yet like Rumi and Hafiz, he remains relevant today. He speaks to so many and touches people’s hearts. In this short excerpt from his new book Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Warrior for Our Times, bestselling author Matthew Fox shares his insights on intuition.

Eckhart honors intuition as the highest of all faculties. Eckhart calls it “the spark of the soul,” a term that derives both from Sufi and from Jewish mysticism of the Middle Ages. It implies wisdom — and is that not the direction education needs to move in? Away from knowledge factories and toward wisdom schools? Wisdom incorporates heart and head, body and feeling, intuition and values. Einstein warns us that intellect gives us not values but only methods. Values derive, he says, from intuition and feeling.

It is our responsibility, as teachers and students, to bring heaven and Earth, cosmos and psyche, together in order to, as the Jewish medieval mystical book the Zohar puts it, “raise those sparks hidden throughout the world, elevating them to holiness by the power of your soul.” Our minds and creativity unveil the hidden sparks of the world, for they lie hidden everywhere — in our hearts and in all things.

The Kabbalah tells us that “there is no greater path” than to bring sparks alive in life and to educe the spark that lies within. Ordinary things become extraordinary. The profane becomes sacred. Here lies an insight to Deep Education: its etymological meaning is to educe, to discover inner wisdom, to, as the Kabbalah says, “draw out the holy spark that dwells within.” Is this not Eckhart’s teaching, that we are to birth the Christ in all our works? Wouldn’t it be wise to aim high and to seek to educate along a path that is “greater” than all other paths? This is the kind of Deep Education we need.

I am convinced that what Eckhart means by the “spark of the soul” is what we mean today by “intuition.” Eckhart’s term derives from the Christian language of the doxa, or divine radiance (or Cosmic Christ), coming alive in all things as sparks. Eckhart develops his own version of the “spark of the soul” concept throughout his sermons. He refers to the term time and again, though he never fully defines it for us. In two sermons he calls it “synderesis,” which means a prelude or threshold to conscience. It is not conscience but it is a doorway into conscience. For Thomas Aquinas, conscience is a judgment, a decision, and synderesis is the intuition we have that precedes our acts of conscience.

Moreover, Eckhart repeatedly relates the “spark of the soul” to the presence of angels, and according to Aquinas, angels learn only by intuition. Therefore, to speak of angels and the sparks that accompany them is to speak of intuition. Furthermore, Eckhart names this special place where the spark exists as the “apex” of the intellect (or mind or human spirit); it’s a special, powerful “corner” of our consciousness. One might say it is the “sweet spot” where the human mind or spirit links up to the Divine Spirit (in the presence of angels); it also equates to the seventh chakra, which represents a kind of apex or culmination of our spiritual and physiological powers, and from which our light pours forth into the world to link up with other light beings in community making. Eckhart also refers to the spark as the “kingdom of God,” meaning the place where justice and compassion flow.

Thus, for me, Eckhart’s greatest contribution to education is his emphasis on intuition, which is what Einstein felt was so lacking in our culture. Returning intuition to the center of education would mean a revolution in teaching. A truly transformative event. Eckhart, by repeatedly mentioning the “spark of the soul where God is born,” is telling us that we need to democratize intuition and conscience, giving them the prominence they deserve in our lives and consciousness and culture.

The great ecumenical Catholic monk Thomas Merton speaks of the spark of the soul in almost the exact language Meister Eckhart uses — one more proof of Eckhart’s deep impact on Merton. In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Merton writes:

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us….It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely….I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

An awakened education will make room for the ancient and indigenous forms of education, which worked for tens of thousands of years. By that I mean ceremony and ritual. Ceremony and ritual are how our ancestors taught the younger generation the important stories of life, including creation stories and stories of what it meant to become an adult (rites of passage), what values mattered, and more. A rebirth of ritual and ceremony is essential for a rebirth of education in our time, for that is the bedrock of community awareness and the sharing of joy, grief, transformation, and creativity. Values are named and practiced in ceremony and ritual.

A truly Deep Education would train the intuition, the mystical brain, the place where, as Einstein teaches, values are born and conscience takes hold. Intuition is where wisdom is born, where the Divine Feminine plays and from which creativity emerges.

Few educators I know and few serving on our all-powerful and all-mighty accrediting bodies are daring to ask the real questions: What are we educating for? What values do we want to communicate? Who is profiting from education as we execute it today? Are people happy educating and being educated? Where is the joy? As the Dalai Lama observes, “Education is in crisis the world over.” The forms and structures we have so mightily constructed for about 150 years in the West are not up to the task. Values and creativity are rarely addressed; instead, politicians shout for “more tests” and “more math” and “more science.” Today, the Internet’s potential for sharing information is obvious. But can it also impart values? More to the point, what values are important, in education and in life, that we need to pass on for the sake of our, and our planet’s, survival?

Matthew Fox is the author of over 30 books including The Hidden Spirituality of Men, Christian Mystics, and most recently Meister Eckhart. A preeminent scholar and popularizer of Western mysticism, he became an Episcopal priest after being expelled from the Catholic Church by Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI. You can visit him at matthewfox.org.

Excerpted from the book Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Warrior for Our Times ©2014 by Matthew Fox. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com

Meister Eckhart was a late-thirteenth- and early-fourteenth-century preacher and mystic, yet like Rumi and Hafiz, he remains relevant today. He speaks to so many and touches people’s hearts. In this short excerpt from his new book Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Warrior for Our Times, bestselling author Matthew Fox shares his insights on intuition.

Eckhart honors intuition as the highest of all faculties. Eckhart calls it “the spark of the soul,” a term that derives both from Sufi and from Jewish mysticism of the Middle Ages. It implies wisdom — and is that not the direction education needs to move in? Away from knowledge factories and toward wisdom schools? Wisdom incorporates heart and head, body and feeling, intuition and values. Einstein warns us that intellect gives us not values but only methods. Values derive, he says, from intuition and feeling.

It is our responsibility, as teachers and students, to bring heaven and Earth, cosmos and psyche, together in order to, as the Jewish medieval mystical book the Zohar puts it, “raise those sparks hidden throughout the world, elevating them to holiness by the power of your soul.” Our minds and creativity unveil the hidden sparks of the world, for they lie hidden everywhere — in our hearts and in all things.

The Kabbalah tells us that “there is no greater path” than to bring sparks alive in life and to educe the spark that lies within. Ordinary things become extraordinary. The profane becomes sacred. Here lies an insight to Deep Education: its etymological meaning is to educe, to discover inner wisdom, to, as the Kabbalah says, “draw out the holy spark that dwells within.” Is this not Eckhart’s teaching, that we are to birth the Christ in all our works? Wouldn’t it be wise to aim high and to seek to educate along a path that is “greater” than all other paths? This is the kind of Deep Education we need.

I am convinced that what Eckhart means by the “spark of the soul” is what we mean today by “intuition.” Eckhart’s term derives from the Christian language of the doxa, or divine radiance (or Cosmic Christ), coming alive in all things as sparks. Eckhart develops his own version of the “spark of the soul” concept throughout his sermons. He refers to the term time and again, though he never fully defines it for us. In two sermons he calls it “synderesis,” which means a prelude or threshold to conscience. It is not conscience but it is a doorway into conscience. For Thomas Aquinas, conscience is a judgment, a decision, and synderesis is the intuition we have that precedes our acts of conscience.

Moreover, Eckhart repeatedly relates the “spark of the soul” to the presence of angels, and according to Aquinas, angels learn only by intuition. Therefore, to speak of angels and the sparks that accompany them is to speak of intuition. Furthermore, Eckhart names this special place where the spark exists as the “apex” of the intellect (or mind or human spirit); it’s a special, powerful “corner” of our consciousness. One might say it is the “sweet spot” where the human mind or spirit links up to the Divine Spirit (in the presence of angels); it also equates to the seventh chakra, which represents a kind of apex or culmination of our spiritual and physiological powers, and from which our light pours forth into the world to link up with other light beings in community making. Eckhart also refers to the spark as the “kingdom of God,” meaning the place where justice and compassion flow.

Thus, for me, Eckhart’s greatest contribution to education is his emphasis on intuition, which is what Einstein felt was so lacking in our culture. Returning intuition to the center of education would mean a revolution in teaching. A truly transformative event. Eckhart, by repeatedly mentioning the “spark of the soul where God is born,” is telling us that we need to democratize intuition and conscience, giving them the prominence they deserve in our lives and consciousness and culture.

The great ecumenical Catholic monk Thomas Merton speaks of the spark of the soul in almost the exact language Meister Eckhart uses — one more proof of Eckhart’s deep impact on Merton. In Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Merton writes:

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us….It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely….I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

An awakened education will make room for the ancient and indigenous forms of education, which worked for tens of thousands of years. By that I mean ceremony and ritual. Ceremony and ritual are how our ancestors taught the younger generation the important stories of life, including creation stories and stories of what it meant to become an adult (rites of passage), what values mattered, and more. A rebirth of ritual and ceremony is essential for a rebirth of education in our time, for that is the bedrock of community awareness and the sharing of joy, grief, transformation, and creativity. Values are named and practiced in ceremony and ritual.

A truly Deep Education would train the intuition, the mystical brain, the place where, as Einstein teaches, values are born and conscience takes hold. Intuition is where wisdom is born, where the Divine Feminine plays and from which creativity emerges.

Few educators I know and few serving on our all-powerful and all-mighty accrediting bodies are daring to ask the real questions: What are we educating for? What values do we want to communicate? Who is profiting from education as we execute it today? Are people happy educating and being educated? Where is the joy? As the Dalai Lama observes, “Education is in crisis the world over.” The forms and structures we have so mightily constructed for about 150 years in the West are not up to the task. Values and creativity are rarely addressed; instead, politicians shout for “more tests” and “more math” and “more science.” Today, the Internet’s potential for sharing information is obvious. But can it also impart values? More to the point, what values are important, in education and in life, that we need to pass on for the sake of our, and our planet’s, survival?

Matthew Fox is the author of over 30 books including The Hidden Spirituality of Men, Christian Mystics, and most recently Meister Eckhart. A preeminent scholar and popularizer of Western mysticism, he became an Episcopal priest after being expelled from the Catholic Church by Cardinal Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI. You can visit him at matthewfox.org.

Excerpted from the book Meister Eckhart: A Mystic Warrior for Our Times ©2014 by Matthew Fox. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com