Tears and Spiritual Transformation

[Alexander]

Some quotes on mystic tears from John Climacus, in his book The Ladder of Divine Ascent:

6. The man who has withdrawn from the world in order to shake off his own burden of sins, should imitate those who sit outside the city amongst the tombs, and should not discontinue his hot and fiery streams of tears and voiceless heartfelt groanings until he, too, sees that Jesus has come to him and rolled away the stone of hardness from his heart, and loosed Lazarus, that is to say, our mind, from the bands of sin, and ordered His attendant angels: Loose him from passions, and let him go to blessed dispassion. Otherwise he will have gained nothing.

6. Greater than baptism itself is the fountain of tears after baptism, even though it is somewhat audacious to say so. For baptism is the washing away of evils that were in us before, but sins committed after baptism are washed away by tears. As baptism is received in infancy, we have all defiled it, but we cleanse it anew with tears. And if God in His love for mankind had not given us tears, few indeed and hard to find would be those in a state of grace.

7. Groanings and sorrows cry to the Lord. Tears shed from fear intercede for us; but tears of all-holy love show us that our prayer has been accepted.

12. He who has obtained heartfelt tears will find any place convenient for mourning.

18. I cannot be silent about the story of Hesychius the Horebite. He passed his life in complete negligence, without paying the least attention to his soul. Then he became extremely ill, and for an hour he left his body. And when he came to himself he begged us all to leave him immediately. And he built up the door of his cell, and he stayed in it for twelve years without ever uttering a word to anyone, and without eating anything but bread and water. And, always remaining motionless, he was so rapt in spirit in what he had seen in his ecstasy that he never changed his place but was always as if out of his mind, and silently shed hot tears. But when he was about to die, we broke open the door and went in, and after many questions this alone was all we heard from him: ‘Forgive me! No one who has acquired the remembrance of death will ever be able to sin.’ We were amazed to see that one who had before been so negligent was so suddenly transfigured by this blessed change and transformation.

[Jhanananda]

This is one aspect of eastern mystics on which I do not agree.  I do not see the value in living so detached, but I can definately understand their way of thinking.   Keep in mind, I am making a distinction between being detached and the non-duel experience.   I see many who stay detached as suppressing innate human desires and instincts.  That suppression is only a denial mechanism, and many times you see it come out in ways the person is unaware of, and they feel a little too cold.  Whereas someone who embraces their emotion you feel the love that comes from them.

Yes, I agree there does seem to be an aspect of repression in the eastern way, which may not be very successful, since the various eastern religions seem to have corrupted their own religions in their own way.

Thank-you, Alexander, for posting the quotes from John Climacus on weeping.  I found reading them very comforting.

[Jean]

I went through a similar process of shedding tears throughout the years. It took me years to understand it was a purification process.

I remember the first time I cried with joy in a dream...it was during a very strange dream where I met a goddess and before her I had a vision of a newborn baby. I continued to cry when I woke up.

The second time, I was leaving a town and someone was following me. There was an alley of trees, and in front of me was a gigantic tree in the shape of a fir tree, but all in rose bloom - I felt a very strong emotional shock, without understanding what was happening. I cried out: what does this mean? The person behind me was smiling and silent. Still crying when I woke up... I understood what the tree meant a couple of weeks ago.

Unexpected tears happened in waking life as well

A friend mentioned Rudolf Steiner and sent me a list of titles of books he wrote. Reading the list I suddenly wept without understanding what was the reason. It happened again months later when I was in a restaurant and had a glass of wine (this was before my body rejected alcohol). I didn't understand then I looked at the bottle and saw that it was a biodynamic wine using organic farming and where soil supplement were prepared according to Rudolf Steiner's formulas, following a planting calendar that depends upon astrological configurations, and treating the earth as "a living and receptive organism."

Before my second little death in 2016, I had intense emotional release in dreams living different life experiences of extreme despair, loss, etc.
For almost 2 years I woke up almost every day weeping with a wet cushion.

Over the last years, tears still came occasionally unexpectedly with inner joy. Then the feelings of joy fade away, but I continue to feel content and mindful. Sometimes happiness is there sometimes not. I'm mostly focused and present as if sitting by a peaceful lake, undisturbed by the world. I don't feel much emotional disturbance at the moment.

My grandfather and his father died very young from a heart attack. I have a deep feeling they didn't cry and let go of the accumulated pain. That's why so many men are dying this way. The sadness needs to pour out and the emotions need to flow. It's part of the water purification.

[Jhanananda]

Yes, Jean, I find crying very cleansing. I am glad you have found it as well.

[Jean]

I just stumbled upon a nice quote by Jeff Foster on that topic :

"THROUGH CLEANSING TEARS
Grieve out the past you ‘could have had’.
Grieve out the terrible lie of ‘better yesterdays’.
Understand that grief is a direct portal to presence.
And you are bigger than you know.
Surrender ‘what could have been’.
Offer it up now to the sky, the moon, the mountains.
Feel the ground so solid beneath your feet.
Hear all the sounds of the morning around you.
Yes, enter the morning with fierce loving attention:
The familiar church bell knows no ‘could haves’.
The soaring skylark sees no ‘might have beens’.
The longing in your belly does not know time.
Turn towards this day, grieve out the fantasy of another.
You are here. It is now. Life must be lived forwards.
Touch the simplicity of a single exhale.
Find gratitude for existence itself,
even if it breaks your heart.
A new life will be built from today.
Out of the rubble of the old.
Through cleansing tears, you awaken:
No other past was possible."

[Jhanananda]

Thank you, Jean, for the on-topic reminder to be in the present moment, to remind everyone here that our problem as humans stuck on the earth-plane is we tend to obsess over both the past and the future, and if we want to experience the bliss and joy of the present moment, then we have to stop obsessing over both the past and the future, and just live our life in the here and now, and when we do that then when we sit in meditation daily, then it will be much easier to experience the even greater bliss and joy to be found in a still mind which is just a doorway to much greater bliss, joy and ecstasy, which is what the forum is all about.