Meister Eckhart says we should be free from our own things and our own actions, to be really free in this world. This does not mean that we should neither possess anything nor do anything; it means we should not be bound, tied, chained to what we own and what we have, not even to God.
Eckhart approaches the problem of having on another level when he discusses the relation between possession and freedom. Human freedom is restricted to the extent to which we are bound to possession, our works and lastly to our own egos. By being bound to our egos, we stand in our own way and are blocked from bearing fruit, from realizing ourselves fully. Freedom as a condition of true productivity is nothing bud giving up one's ego, as love is free from all egoboundedness. Freedom in the sense of being unfettered, free from craving for holding onto things and one's ego, is the condition for love and for productive being. Our human aim according to Eckhart is to get rid of the fetters of egoboundedness, egocentricity, that is to say the having mode of existence, in order to arrive to full being.
In the having mode of existence what matters is not the various objects of having, but our whole human attitude. Everything and anything can become an object of craving: things we use in daily life, property, rituals, good deeds, knowledge, and thoughts. While they are not in themselves bad, they become bad; that is, when we hold onto them, when they become chains that interfere with our freedom, they block our self realization.
Eckhart uses "Being" in two following different though related meanings -
1. Being denotes the real and often unconscious motivations that impel human beings, in contrast to deeds and opinions as such and separated from the acting and thinking person. He says, "People should not consider so much what they are to "do" as what they "are"...Thus take care that your emphasis is laid on being good and not on the number or kind of things to be done. Emphasize rather the fundamentals on which your work rests." Our being is the reality, the spirit that moves us, the character that impels our behaviour; in contrast, the deeds or opinions that are separated from our dynamic core have no reality.
2. The second meaning is wider and more fundamental: being is life, activity, birth, renewal, outpouring, flowing out, productivity. In this sense, being is the opposite of having, of egoboundedness and egotism. Being, to Eckhart, means to be active in the classic sense of productive expression of one's human powers, not in the modern sense of being busy. Activity to him means "to go out of oneself", which he expresses in many word pictures: he calls being a process of "boiling", of "giving birth", something that "flows and flows in itself and beyond itself." Sometimes he uses the symbol of running in order to indicate the active character: "Run into peace! The man who is in the state of running, of continuous running into peace is a heavenly man. He continually runs and moves and seeks peace in running." Another definition of activity is : The active, alive man is like a "vessel that grows as it is filled and will never be full".
In Eckhart's ethical system the supreme virtue is the state of productive inner activity, for which the premise is overcoming of all forms of egoboundedness and cravings.
(PS - This article is taken from the chapter 3 of the book - To Have or to Be, by Erich Fromm. The point 1 and 2 above are critical. Just by going with the point 1, one might mistake the state of being as a state of inaction. One might go the wrong way of detaching oneself from the material world of activity. The second point completes the state of Being, beautifully. It is not about detaching from the world of action. But it is about using action, to escape from one's egoboundedness and craving of having. One needs to remind oneself is that being in a state of inaction, is not the state of being. It is a dead state of mind, where one is stuck with a given set of beliefs and biases. Such a state is also another manifestation of Having - this time a bit more dangerous and camouflaged.
So, it is nothing wrong in having more, or doing more. It is neither bad to have less, and to have done less. But the point is about going beyond the attachment and boundedness with one's having and doing domains. The point is about being in spontaneous activity to be able to affirm who one really is - one's true self. This activity might be anything, and has to be free from the hidden agenda to have or accomplish something. It is just a process. It is interesting to remind oneself, similar thought expressed by Krishna in the Bhagavat Gita. The point is not how much you have in your plate. But whether you are able to experience Beingness, through freedom, love, productivity, expressing your real self. This state of one's being is related to be being one with God by the ancients. Bhagavat Gita talks about this state of beingness as the state of Sattva. I have discussed this in my earlier article - http://criativ-mind.blogspot.in/2012/06/on-action-and-law.html)
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