Tau—the Cross of Resurrection , excerpted from Do You Like Jesus—Not the Church? Jesus: His True Message Not the Lie of Christianity.
“I am the Alpha (Al) and Omega (Taw)…the bright Morning Star.”[i] These two statements have caused confusion and misinterpretation. In simple terms, “alpha and omega” means in ancient Hebrew, “the power (al) of new beginnings (taw).” The first is the last and the last is the first. Alpha is contained within omega. Alpha is the first and omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, while aleph or al is the first and tau or taw is the last letter of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Aleph also represents unity as well as power, and tau may also represent the perfection of creation. In simple terms, alpha and omega means in ancient Hebrew, “the power of new beginnings.”
The morning star is Venus in its morning phase and symbolizes rebirth. It is the star of hope and enlightenment. The sun and the moon, the two great eyes of God, represent the male and female dualities of the oneness of God, but the morning star—the planet Venus—as the most brilliant star in the heavens, signifies God’s Spirit. This Holy Spirit, symbolized by the divine dove of Venus, brings balance to the dualities of life, resulting in a spiritual wholeness or a holiness of existence.
This balance resulting in a holiness of existence is to be found within the symbology of the Tau and the cross. Originally, the Tau was known as the Egyptian cross and “was used in the Bacchic and Eleusinian Mysteries. Symbol of the dual generative power, it was laid upon the breast of the initiate, after his ‘new birth’ was accomplished, and the Mystae[ii] had returned from their baptism in the sea… The Tau was a magic talisman at the same time as a religious emblem.”[iii]
To the ancient Hebrews, the staff, column, and tree of life are all related to the Tau Cross. The Tau Cross shows us the human spirit bound to the cross of matter and is our crucifixion tree of suffering. We only suffer if we are locked within a dualistic, illusionary world of sensory gratification and materialism. Awakening from our egocentric sleep, our cross is no longer needed as one of crucifixion but is replaced and transformed from our tree of pure and impure into our tree of life and wisdom. Our tree of life now contains the wisdom of the radical nonduality of pure and impure or defilement and purity, just as the pure lotus grows within the “mud” of life. Since the “trees” are internal, the radical nonduality is of our body (heart) and mind and not external in any religion’s dogma surrounding what is pure and impure, such as the religious segregation of men and women, doctrine against abortion or same-sex marriage, or dietary restrictions: “It is not the thing that enters the mouth that defiles a man, but the thing that proceeds from the mouth that defiles a man.”[iv]
One step further, if we look to the hidden knowledge of the tarot, we discover the twenty-second card—the World. It is related to the Hebrew letter tav with a numerical value of four hundred. This numerical value, “the number 4 with the two ciphers, symbolizes in number mysticism the whole material Creation, the entire universe with the Creator, with GOD.”[v]
We may then realize Tau as the symbolic representation of the divine human where “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
[i] This is paraphrased from Revelation 22:13 and 22:16.
[ii] Ancient term for initiates.
[iii] H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, 254.
[iv] Matthew 15:11 (Aramaic Bible in Plain English [2007]).
[v] Elisabeth Haich, Wisdom of the Tarot, 167.