God's Presence as the Wellspring of Being
Devotion finds its truest, though perhaps not its sweetest, expression in recognizing the very presence of the divinity that is the source of our own being. The impulse to connect, to surrender, to love what we deem sacred arises not from a fundamental separation that needs bridging, but from the inherent recognition of the one, boundless reality that constitutes our very essence. The journey of devotion, therefore, is not a striving towards a distant God, but an unfolding realization of the God essence at the heart of existence.
The insight of the 14th century German theologian, Meister Eckhart, who famously prayed—“God, rid me of God”—illuminates this subtle understanding. His prayer was not a rejection of the divine, but a radical recognition of the inherent unity of being. As long as he stood as a devotee towards God, he perceived a duality, an “I” standing apart from the object of devotion. This very act of devotion, beautiful and heartfelt as it may be, inadvertently asserts a separate being, a devotee distinct from God’s being. In the nondual understanding, such a separation, however lovingly intended, ultimately veils the fundamental truth of oneness.
The longing for the divine is, in essence, the longing of the One to recognize itself in its myriad forms.
The very capacity for devotion, the love that swells in the heart, the yearning for the infinite—these are all manifestations of God's own presence within us. The divine is not the destination of our love, but the very source from which love springs.
The difficulty for the devotee lies in the deeply ingrained sense of individual self, the “I” that feels like a separate actor reaching out. The ego, with its insistence on its own independent existence, perpetuates this sense of duality, making it challenging to perceive the underlying unity. Yet, true devotion transcends this subject-object relationship. It is the recognition that the love we offer is the love of the divine, expressing itself through our finite form.
To recognize oneself as a facet of the one, infinite being, not a subject standing apart from it, is the ultimate act of devotion. It is the whirlpool realizing it is the river.
This understanding dissolves the subtle separation inherent in the devotee-God dichotomy, revealing the seamless unity of all existence in the divine presence. The beauty of devotion remains, but it is now understood as the joyous recognition of our shared essence.
Meister Eckhart's prayer is not about being freed from God. It is about being freed from the limitations of an earthly mind and the constructs built around the concept of God.
The experience of devotion is ultimately the experience of self-recognition, the homecoming of the One to itself.