The Meaning of Life in Eckhart's Viewpoint

Man is a communicative being and the meaningfulness of his life can be explained according to his relation with himself, God, the world and other people. In Eckhart's thought, the highest level of the meaning of human life is realized in his union with divine truth. Eckhart considers selfishness to be the biggest obstacle to the union between man and God. In his opinion, overcoming selfishness is achieved through a kind of cognitive uplifting and complete understanding of man's existential poverty; in the sense that all existence is nothing and all that exists is God. He believes that achieving this stage is possible only by removing all personal attachments. In Eckhart's viewpoint, removing the dependencies or the worldly attachments brings love to the Origin (mabda‘) and this love strengthens the will to forsake other dependencies and as the will becomes stronger, the love becomes more intense to the extent that, at last, man would reach the level of complete detachment as well as union with God.