“The ‘gift of tears’ was always considered by the masters of Christian spirituality as a grace from the Holy Spirit.” Meditations on the Tarot

The Gift of Tears: Divine Grace Made Manifest

“Christian mysticism speaks also of the ‘gift of tears’—as a precious gift of divine grace. The Master cried in front of the tomb of Lazarus. Thus the outer characteristic of those who choose the other mystical way, that of the God of love, is that they have the ‘gift of tears’. This is in keeping with the very essence of their mystical experience. Their union with the Divine is not the absorption of their being by Divine Being, but rather the experience of the breath of Divine Love, the illumination by Divine Love, and the warmth of Divine Love. The soul which receives this undergoes such a miraculous experience that it cries.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p36

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew v, 4).

When Image and Likeness Touch

“Firstly, the relationship between image and likeness: What is the intimate experience of this, and how does it reveal itself? The following is a straightforward answer: The contact established between image and likeness is experienced as inner weeping. Weeping is the reality of the fact that the two sisters—the image and the likness—touch. The usual experience rendered by the expression: ‘I am moved to tears’ is only a reflection of what happens when image and likeness touch. They then mingle their tears—and the inner current which results from this is the life of the human soul.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p387

The Threefold Mystery: Tears, Sweat, and Blood

“Tears, sweat and blood are the three substances of the threefold mystical-gnostic-magical Mystery of man. To be touched from above is ‘tears’; the effort to conform to that which is above is ‘sweat’; and the consummated marriage of grace from above and effort from below is ‘blood’. Tears announce the engagement of the eternal and the temporal; sweat is the trial that this entails; and blood is the region where the wedding of eternity and the moment is celebrated and where their marriage is consummated.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p387

“The Mystery, I repeat, is whole and indivisible: tears, sweat and blood—engagement, trial and wedding—faith, hope and love.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p388

Intensity of Inner Life

“The fact that there are tears of sorrow, joy, admiration, compassion, tenderness, etc., signifies that tears are produced by the intensity of the inner life. They flow—whether inwardly or outwardly is not important—when the soul, moved by the spirit or by the outer world, experiences a higher degree of intensity in its inner life than is customary. The soul who cries is therefore more living, and therefore fresher and younger than when it does not cry. The ‘gift of tears’ was always considered by the masters of Christian spirituality as a grace from the Holy Spirit, for it is thanks to this gift that the soul surpasses itself and ascends to a degree of intensity of life which is certainly above that to which it is accustomed.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p388

The Flow of Inspiration

“Inspiration is the principle acting in tears. Just like weeping, inspiration takes place in the guise of ‘flowing between two vases’. In inspiration, whatever its true source of origin may be, a flow is active, which is produced between the higher Self or image and the lower self or likeness. … This means to say that higher understanding and lower understanding, being in contact, vibrate in unison, each with its own voice and in terms of its own language, and thus together produce a concrete inspiration.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p391

The Tears of God: Source of Conscience

“[J.G. Bennet] starts out by saying, the factors for the being impulse of objective conscience arise in three-brained beings from the localization in their presence of particles of the emanation of the sorrow from our all-loving and long-suffering endless creator. In other words, the seeds of conscience lie in the highest realm. They’re the remains of the tears of God.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Building 2nd Body June 2022, 33:15 3-transub-spiritual-substances.

“Remember [Bennet] was talking about, he was trying to say where objective conscience comes from and where remorse comes from, and he says it grows out of the tears of God because there must be struggle.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Building 2nd Body June 2022, 9:00 4-alchemy-of-suffering.

Each Conscience: A Pixel of Divine Tears

“The factors for the being impulse of objective conscience arise in three brain beings from the localization in their presence of particles of the emanations of the sorrow of our all-loving and long-suffering endless creator. That is why the source of manifestation of genuine conscience in three brain beings is sometimes called the representative of the creator. In other words, it’s the viceroy, the divine receptor planted in our own being consisting of nothing else but the sorrow of the divine. … this is the origin of objective conscience in us. The tears of God, if you want to put it in metaphoric form.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 2020 Oct Gurdjieff-Teilhard II, 30:34 013-Outside of Gurdjeffs Pessimism.

“To it in simple much more poetic language, conscience as it remains in you is the tears of God, and they emanate from a very, very high place in the world. … they’re way, way, way back up, nearly at the primordial beginnings of the ray of creation. So each one of us, our individual conscience, is a pixel of a tear of God.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Encounter With Evil April 2023 NC, 39:00 05b-Thurs am Teaching Evil.

The Cost Born by Both Created and Uncreated

“The tears of God are not just because human beings screwed up, or not even because they suffer in it, and that they go through all sorts of anguish and torment that probably could have been relieved by just the flick of a hand, but you wouldn’t get what you were aiming for if that happened. The conditions are perfect across the world for the manifestation of the vital revelation of the divine heart in love, in form, but they’re costly conditions and they’re born alike by the uncreated and the created order.

“And in Christian mystical theology, Jesus Christ is the sign and the covenant and the token of the fact that these conditions that must be as they are, are born equally. And he comes as the big tear of conscience, if you want to put it that way, allowing us to see and to touch and to taste in ourselves and other, the cost at which everything is born, and the love which is the painful issue of the suffering and struggle to hang with it. So conscience comes from this pedigree.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Encounter With Evil April 2023 NC, 46:45 05b-Thurs am Teaching Evil.

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Logion 28
Yeshua says…
I stood to my feet in the midst of the cosmos,
appearing outwardly in flesh.
I discovered that all were drunk
but none were thirsty,
and my soul ached for the children of humanity,
for their hearts are blind.
They cannot see from within.
They have come into the cosmos empty,
and they are leaving it empty.
At the moment you are inebriated,
but when freed from the effects of wine,
you too may turn and stand.

Logion 87
Yeshua says…
Miserable is the body that depends upon a body,
and the soul that depends upon both.

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Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985

Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)

Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.

Read the Impression on Meditations on the Tarot.