  What is key is that by freedom Eckhart understands nothing other than self-consciousness or the I. It is never the case that the I wants something other, rather it wants only itself; the I never knows something other, rather it knows only itself; the I is never open for anything other, rather it is open for itself alone.  Thus, the I is both cause of itself and conceives itself alone in itself. The itself known and wanted by the I, as well as defining its fundamental openness, is the other I—that is, the moment of self-relationality constitutive for the realm of the spirit.