Question by Just Be: From the Mystics perspective, what does it truly mean to be born again?
I’m not simply looking for the Christian perspective, but the understandings of others also.
The Bible speaks of becoming a new creature, What would be the Mystics understanding?
Not my usual type of question but thank you for taking the time to answer.
I do not TD, I do give TU!
Many Blessings!
Best answer:
Answer by Mike November
Sorry man. I’m still mystified by the first one. Can you put the baby back in?
You know. On the off chance I’m right, I really wouldn’t put this off. Right away would be optimal, although you may have to roofie your mom. I’m not too cool with that. Whole thing kinda creeps me out.
Maybe your wife. Could you have two birthdays? Wow, could you be rererereborn?
Reborn regifting?
Next stop, late night television wealth building program!
Next ten callers only 99.99 if you act now!
Frickin’ genius! Thanks man. 🙂
Give your answer to this question below!
A communion with the ultimate reality.
Mystically speaking of course.
Being “born again” goes back many, many years before christianity. It is in the Mediterranean “Mystery Religions” dating back at least to Isis/Osiris/Horus in Egypt some 3,000 years before Jesus. Possibly even earlier than that.
The basic idea that we “die” to our physical nature and are “reborn” to our spiritual nature. The whole body/spirit dichotomy has been around for a very long time, too, at least as long as the Mystery Religions. The rituals for this “rebirth” or “born again” process range from highly complex (such as being washed in the blood of a bull) to relatively simple, such as the christian thing of accepting Jesus as savior, a simple verbal process. (But notice the “washed in the blood of the lamb” verbiage in christianity as well.)
Personally, I do not believe the “body” and “spirit” are separate, but a great many of the western religions do. The eastern religions do not make this distinction and are much healthier for it, I think. And of course they also do not need the “born again” process, it’s irrelevant to them.
Blessings on your Journey!
Every one is a type in creature, new and born again is form of gathering were the creature-self is lifted full by another with in him, thus being born again, thus a new You- them. To be truly born again takes the two elements in a love, in the born again in the new.
“unless one is born of water and the Spirit” one in this scrip is the two elements of water(H2O) is in the creatures abilty in the one and the Spirit is the creature in his spirit in one them.
“and [that which ( one)] is born of the Spirit is spirit.” It (0ne) work the Spirit (one) this spirit , the Father alone
The eyes of the soul are everlasting before each as a born again experience.
Carey
Our memories are the only thing that connects our past to our present so metaphorically speaking, each of us is born again every time we re-awaken in this reality. Those who possess the ability to liberate themselves from self imposed negativity and the emotional harnesses of others probably find recreating themselves a lot less challenging than the rest of us. Or perhaps they don’t have a need to do so.
Great question.
.
We are Spirit, soul with a body. Pure then born into human form. In that being born into human form, there was a “forgetting” and disconnect from reality of authentic Love. A forgetting what we truly are.
In the remembering, “awakening” of that Knowledge is found the “born again”.
.
Human beings are twice born, the first birth into the world of others we born into and the second etched out by our own experiences as we grow along that can include the access to the world beyond what we have been dished into by others which could even lead to a resurrection sort , rising from the ashes of the dead(of all past) like a mythical Sphinx bird.
Anything that changes you is your parent. A mystic should be born again many times a day. In fact I think nearly everyone is born again at least once a day. It’s just that the mystic takes notice 😉
There was a crystal moment after church one day when I was a Lutheran teenager, when the final prayer had been said. In our church the pastor would ring a very small bell at the end of the last prayer, as a signal that services were concluded. I stood there and realized that I had searched for God for many years, ever since earliest childhood, and that in the sound of that bell I realized that He was not to be found that way, by saying the group prayers, by reading the Bible (I’d just finished my fourth complete reading of that book) or by singing the songs.
It was after that, when I began searching for Him directly, by asking for Him, wishing every day for His company, that the miracles began in my life. I was born again in the knowledge that He wasn’t far away at all, but heart of my heart, life of my life, instantly accessible because there was no distance involved.
It wasn’t the acceptance of Jesus that brought on the continuing God experience, but the demand that I have the Father’s company. I was knocking on the door that Jesus had described, that the door might be opened unto me.
When people say that by confessing that they need Jesus that they are born again, I think no, it takes more than that. You have to want God’s presence like you want air to breathe.
And after you have found Him, you have to want to be His hands, to act as if He sent you into every situation to make changes He would have wanted to see. Just as a great King might send his beloved daughter to an outlying province to do His bidding and improve a situation, you have to feel that kind of mission in every act you do, from putting love in your voice to helping all beings with your labors, to changing people’s minds to Right Thought.
In eastern philosophies, the concept is widely held. It means that,
once a person has come to know the truth of themselves, they
must go back through the past from their conception up to the
moment of realization and review the events of their life from this
new perspective. This process bears no resemblance to any
western thought on the subject. Since I do not know the “Mystics”,
I have no idea what their thoughts on the subject might be.
A mystic is one who knows God through experiencing and knowing, not simply through belief. So a mystic may have a supernatural spiritual experience, like meeting spiritual beings, that forever changes their belief system and they way they live life. To them, that may be akin to being born again.
People who have had Near Death Experiences (NDE) or Out of Body Experiences (OBE) commonly claimed being born again because their life is radically altered by the mystical experience. Native Americans have vision quests that produce very similar experiences.
To be born again, you have to die to your first spiritual life and your inherited sin nature which is characterized by ignorance, narcissism, fear, and doubt. Without being born again, you could die a spiritual death. Most people are too wrapped up in the material world to pay much attention to the spiritual. That is why materialism and capitalism are in direct opposition to spiritual life.
salaam wa alaikum wa barakatuhu wa rahmatullahi dear sister:
that is the best salutation that i can come up with at the moment. i have thought about your question and certainly did not have an answer… but i think i might have a clue.
when Jesus our Master… if we choose to follow him… insha’Allah… said, “you must become as a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
i believe that he told us the unvarnished Truth. we can choose to listen or ignore his wise words that were/are a Gift of Allah (swt) through the Holy Spirit. that is how i see it.
Alhamdulillah.
i think you know as well as any of us… insha’Allah.
wishing you the very best. you have some excellent Q&A’s.
shalom and namaste. vaya con Dio!
🙂
xx
edit: this is one man’s idea…?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd1CQEtrQMY&feature=related
Bob Marley – Forever Loving Jah
“All the sun-gods, with their symbol, the visible sun, are the creators of physical nature only. The spiritual is the work of the Highest God — the Concealed, the Central, Spiritual SUN, and of his Demiurge — the Divine Mind of Plato, and the Divine Wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus — the wisdom effused from Oulom or Kronos.”
“After the distribution of pure Fire, in the Samothracian Mysteries, a new life began.” This was the “new birth,” that is alluded to by Jesus, in his nocturnal conversation with Nicodemus. “Initiated into the most blessed of all Mysteries, being ourselves pure . . . we become just and holy with wisdom.”
“He breathed on them and saith unto them, ‘Take the Holy Pneuma.’ ” And this simple act of will-power was sufficient to impart vaticination in its nobler and most perfect form if both the initiator and the initiated were worthy of it.”
Not having experienced rebirth, I cannot say. I have had major re-framings of perception and perspective (attention meditations); I have also had experiences of floating out into the air around me; and a radical perspective of being distanced from existential absurdities and finding everything humorous, even tragedy. (That last one lasted for several weeks.)
But nothing has happened in the nature of any kind of rebirth, so sorry, I cannot say.
LOL!
To be born again means to be twice-born. To be born again means to get into second childhood. The first birth is only the physical birth, the second birth is the real birth: the spiritual birth. You have to come to know yourself, who you are. You have to ask this question: Who am I? And while life is there, why not enquire into life itself? Why bother about death? When it comes, you can face it and you can know it. Don’t miss this opportunity of knowing life while life surrounds you.
One birth has been given to you by your parents, the other birth is waiting. It has to be given to you by yourself. You have to father and mother yourself. Then your whole energy is turning in — it becomes an inner circle.
You need a new birth yourself, you have to become a womb to yourself so you can become twice born. There are two types of people: once born and twice born. Those once born remain in misery, but those who are twice born become blissful. That’s what Jesus means when he says that unless you are born again nothing is going to happen. A rebirth is needed. You have the capacity and the energy is there, but blocked, fragmentary not one piece. It can come into one tremendous force.
If you want to be born again, then give up all your ambitions, because if your ambition is so great that it cannot be fulfilled in this life, then you will create an afterlife. You will create heaven, you will create the concept of rebirth. I am not saying that there is no rebirth. I am saying that you believe in rebirth not because it is there but because your ambitions are so great that they cannot be fulfilled in one lifetime. Your belief in rebirth, reincarnation, is not because it is a fact.
Give up all your Ambitions and you will see yourself reborn again, being born again, arising out of the past, out of the clouds and confusion—thoughts, prejudices, egos, minds, conditionings—arising out of them, virgin, pure. Then you will again see the power that you are, the being that you are.
To be born again means to become a child again, to become innocent again. If you can become a child again, you have achieved all. If you cannot become a child again, you have missed all. And firstborn children are not real children because they will have to grow up. The second birth is the real birth, because when somebody is twice-born he has given birth to himself. It is a transformation, he has again become a child.
One birth is given by your parents, another birth you have to manage by yourself. The second birth is the birth which matters. The first birth is going to end up in death. The second birth is the beginning of eternity: no death, no end, no beginning.
The second birth is the real birth, not out of a father and a mother. This is out of your own self, not out of two bodies meeting, not out of duality. It is through your self that you are born.
One birth is from the mother and the father; another birth is that which happens between the Seeker and the God . And the second birth opens all the doors and all the secrets to explore. Life becomes a continuous adventure, a moment to moment excitement, a day and night ecstasy.
Rebirth is a totally different phenomenon: you again become innocent like a child, but this time you are not dependent, this time you are not helpless. This time nobody can enforce anything on you: you have enough intelligence, enough logic, enough argumentative power — it is not easy to force stupid beliefs on you. That’s your safeguard. The second birth is the beginning of a new life.
The first birth is BOUND to be unconscious. And if you live only with the first birth, you will remain a perfectionist.Once you are twice-born, consciously born, and have erased all the pain-memory of the first birth, you will live the life of totality.
Just being born is not enough; necessary, but not enough. One birth, the first birth from your parents is just a possibility, a potential phenomenon, not actual yet. A second birth is needed. It is what Jesus calls resurrection: a second birth in which you break all the shells, all the eggs, all the egos, all the past, the familiar, the known, and you move into the unknown, the strange, the existence full of dangers. Every moment there is the possibility of death. And with the possibility of death, every moment you become more and more alive.
The first birth is only physical; it happens through the parents. The second birth happens through the God; it is spiritual. Get ready for the second birth, get ready to be reborn. And life can become paradise. It is paradise: all that is needed are eyes, free eyes, to see it, and a free heart to feel it.
God Bless
I am in alignment with Grashopper’s first sentence in relation to experiencing and knowing, and with This Is Not My Account who speaks of the mystic noticing daily.
The mystic has direct experience. Born again is a misnomer in relation to the mystic. The mystic knows. They do not learn as such and then become something they were not previously. The mystic always is, always was, and always shall be. It is the birthright of that individual soul, and is their sole purpose to be so in this lifetime. The mystic brings through many lifetimes of experience to this point in time, as it were, and intimately and profoundly knows their own way.
If only one could find a True Mystic!
Such a one is rare!
a simple perspective….
“One must die before death catches hold of them.”
One must die before the “Angel of Death” catches hold of them.
One must go within oneself and discover just what it is that must be eliminated or discarded.
The “being” cannot die, so it must be something else that must die.
What is it that a human being clings onto?
Human beings cling onto the most unnecessary of things.
Desires (nafs) for the most part are unnecessary things.
Human beings always desire something.
When one desire has been satisfied, another desire comes frantically rushing to take its place.
One must develop the ‘wisdom’ to understand the difference between that which is a need and that which is a desire.
This will eventually allow one understand the true definition of “Contentment”.
This subtle knowledge will allow one to become as a child.
A newborn child has a pure heart, is it not so?
If one is to become born again or twice born one must strive to develop a pure heart.
“Home is where the heart is.”
~~~
One must not let words get in the way.
Jesus (pbuh) called it “being” born again.
Buddha called it “being” twice born.
The inner meaning is the same.
~~~
The human heart must melt in order to become pure.
That begins the transformation process needed to be born anew.
If the human heart stays cold and frigid, the Angel of Death will surely catch one before one goes through the re-birthing process.
One must die before death catches hold of them.
One will have then evolved into a True Human Being.
Ones, old things will have passed away.
New things will replace them.
One must be open to change, if one is to evolve.
Peace be always with you.
Salaams,
to become a new creature
is the same concept/goal
as in many other faiths/belief systems
buddhism teaches to “not desire”
the way of tao is “allowing everything to flow”
((uninterupted))
the reason … to become a new creature
the bible says to crucify the flesh
((ego centric mind))
the same result from learning to live without desiring
living a life of compassion, virture and honor
through unconditional love and forgiveness
((regardless of faith))
you will indeed become a new creature
i think its our nature to be spiritual beings
learned behavior teaches us how to feed our ego
the spiritual lessons christ tried to teach
was the importance of ones relationship with the holy spirit
to walk completely in the spirit
in doing so you walk completely in the gifts of the spirit
discernment, knowing, wisdom/understanding, prophecy ect
you would LOVE “the gonstic paul”
I bow down salutations to every answer, and the question
I bow down salutations to every reader, and their flow of IT
I bow down, please forgive my mistakes
Shiva is a mystic not me.
Shiva says being born again is about embracing everything you have been through till now, Shiva says being born again means to let go of memories which holds you back, Shiva says being born again is forgiving yourself, Shiva says being born again is allowing your believe to believe, Shiva says being born again is not about stirring IT for every answer but being with that till you are stirred.
Shiva says being born again is about getting used to the peace, Shiva says it is also learning how to protect the peacefulness so that you become an anchor for others to hold on to when there is turbulence in their lives. Shiva says being born again is allowing THAT to be your friend,partner. Shiva says being born again is learning to move together with IT and not against IT. Shiva says being born again is simply another level and from that level the unspoken level will be known
Shiva says being born again is allowing yourself to teach when the time arises, Shiva says being born again is about allowing yourself to be a student even of a 10 years old teacher, Shiva says being born again is knowing there is nothing left to be claimed to the world. Become,Become
Shiva says being born again is to JUST BE
Shiva says to JUST BE you have to BECOME
Shiva says to BECOME you have to COME
———————————————————————————————————————————
Hmmmmmmmmm, hey blue man, come where ? Shiva come where ???. Tell me ! don`t do this ! What you mean she knows ? Great ! keep everything from me. You are not being fair man !
To find the Omega in the Alpha, a crown upon the head, to bring the Omega higher and the Alpha lower, the first and last of the two under the one true God, Justus here on earth. The two symbols A and O, the Omega the ohms symbol, a crown upon the A, the Eve of the house.
Spot on “this is not my account”! And Nine Bows to you. I needed to hear that right now. Short, sweet and impossible to top. I’ll add my far more discursive 2 cents.
Whoever you are, and whatever form the “cross” you were nailed to took, after it worked you over you came back. Improved and forever changed. Death and rebirth are symbolic of great transformation and change. Usually painful.
The universe wants growth, the same way a giant tree will push it’s roots and branches through obstacles to reach water and sun. The tree doesn’t think about how the individual parts feel, the individual bruised roots, or stones thrust aside. It is concerned with the greater totality.
People don’t ask to be reborn or have a life changing spiritual experience. My first smacked me upside the head in a grocery store parking lot, and my life was never the same again.
With all due respect to many Occidental traditions, they have a tendency to mistake symbols for literal fact. The great spiritual traditions speak to us in the language of myth and metaphor, the same language used by artists and the dreams you have every night. If we interpret things in the bible like the Flood or the Ascension as something that took place in time, like hurricane Katrina, we miss entirely the depth and power of the true messages these traditions preserve.
What ALL mystical traditions have in common, occidental, oriental, or shamanic, is that from time to time people undergo an experience that either changes them or starts the process. As the Buddhists say:
That the self advances and confirms the ten thousand things
is called delusion;
That the ten thousand things advance and confirm the self
is called enlightenment.
– Zen Master Dogen Zenji
This is being reborn. The universe replaces you for a time, and after that the word “you” has a very different meaning. It’s an experience that is earthshaking in its simplicity and cannot be described.
Another way of saying the same thing:
“God only visits when you are not at home”
Every seen a true live birth? If not, watch “Birth Day” on tv. It takes time for the baby to come forth. That is the same with us spiritually. As you search for the one true God, there will come a point all of a sudden you will push and fight your way into the kingdom of God. When you think you can take no more, you will open your eyes for the first time and see that your surroundings are different. You are different. You have arrived. You will understand the doctor holding you is God himself. He is the one who gives you life. Your being is in his hands. His love permiates your small frame, and you realize that his love far surpasses all other kinds of earthly love.
This is being born again. Your heart will break as you soon realize many babies get aborted before being born. Too many will never experience the life you have grown to know.
My Secret
http://heraldoftruth.webs.com/apps/videos/videos/show/8358100-isn-t-it-enough-paul-washer-s-secret-
Actually there is a coherence between some things that are in the Bible, and the mystical view. But not with the orthodox Christian interpretation that is put upon those words (naturally)
To be reborn of spirit means to reach that stage of spiritual growth that you can fuse with the fragment of God that inhabits your mind. This creates a totally new spiritual creature, one that is a Christ Spirit, divine and eternal. This new creature does not inhabit the “heavens” that most people go to, and is not a material being, and does not reside in time-space. As such, it has found the narrow gate out of the Spirit Spheres.
It is possible to complete this process while a living human, and Jesus did so (but it is incredibly rare). However he deliberately chose not to exit this world on reaching that point, and thus probably delayed in some way the fusion event. Because if it happens to a living person, their body is destroyed, and they do not pass through physical death. Jesus reached this point at the baptism event, although that event was not material to his progress.
I have explained the path and the destination, now I will explain how you can know if you are walking that path. There are, in point of fact, only two paths. You either walk this path to rebirth, or you do not. You are walking this path if you can “on demand” experience the bliss, or the “peace that knows no understanding”. It comes ONLY in response to a fervent desire to SHARE love with Father. You either EXPERIENCE this, or you do not.
You will know you have completed this path when you are one with God, and KNOW you are eternal.
This is the same as seeking union with God through devotion to God, which is the Hindu approach and explanation.
BTW, there seem to be more folks claiming to represent the mystical POV than I believe are on this forum.
As Sara above says:
>>It was after that, when I began searching for Him directly, by asking for Him, wishing every day for His company, that the miracles began in my life. I was born again in the knowledge that He wasn’t far away at all, but heart of my heart, life of my life, instantly accessible because there was no distance involved.
It wasn’t the acceptance of Jesus that brought on the continuing God experience, but the demand that I have the Father’s company. I was knocking on the door that Jesus had described, that the door might be opened unto me.
When people say that by confessing that they need Jesus that they are born again, I think no, it takes more than that. You have to want God’s presence like you want air to breathe.<< RIGHT ON.
In general, being or becoming born again is diametrically opposed to the mystical views and the way of the mystic. … To be born again implies a sense of time and a faithful transformation; albeit transcending into an eternal state of ………….. For the mystic, on the other hand, it’s all about the inherent interconnectedness and the entangled manifestations of dispersed Oneness. … To a mystic being born again merely equates with a delusional state, brought on by the spiritual [or otherwise] forgetfulness of the cardinality of Being One.
BTW: I’m NOT a mystic, I just occasionally run into the mystic!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVAnlke_xUY
(((((Just Be)))))
.
Being “born again” is an eternal conversation that you have within yourself-
an internal conversation that simply states
you are the initiator,
you are the mustard seed that contains all the power
and there is no outside messenger that dishes out small amounts of this power
when you do good,
instead it is in you already.
Once you become mystic you see abundance as a condition of raising your spirituality.
Trees are abundant in leaves that reach up and absorb goodness from the skies- when the leaves shed and fall to the earth- it contributes that goodness to the earth.
The roots of trees absorb many nutrients but it is not a bad thing for the tree to do, it contributes by giving nutrients from its roots as well. And tree roots help break up rocks in the way so other smaller plants can take up the rocks nutrients.
When a person is aware that wealth is abundance and it is shared naturally and doesn’t need to be forced into being shared- they becoming all knowing of truths without fear based beliefs.
Washing away fear-based beliefs is being born again.
i agree
to start a life on a new leaf
How sad that most of us think that our particular religious faith formula is the only way to step into the spiritual realm accessed by being ‘born again. I have read with great interest the contributions of people of other religious ‘paths’ than mine.
I have had a born again experience by sincerely asking Jesus into my heart and life and BELIEVING that a core change would take place – and it did! I think this is one of the easiest ways for rebirth. But it is still a start however amazing..
When Jesus said that one ‘must be born again’ the Holy Spirit had not yet been released to in-dwell the believer and most Christians believe that the Holy Spirit (who came at Pentecost) started the possibility of new birth – but when you listen to people around the world you realise that God is not
the restricted being our religions tend to teach us – he is always wanting to relate to his human family in any place and at any time.
Evangelical Christians believe that you have to have head knowledge about Jesus and his ‘good news’ message before you can respond to him, receive him into your life and follow his Way, however, it is wonderful to learn through Jesus that God’s forgiveness is full and free – for anyone who cries out to God in need.
It is a very impotent God who cannot respond to the genuine heart cry of a anyone, anywhere who longs to draw close to him and live life on the higher plane where the values of the world are reversed.
We are spirit and God is Spirit therefore it is possible for our spirits to merge – like air or water. Certainly the teaching of true believers and mystics is an invaluable/necessary help.
Jesus taught that we must surrender fully to God and discipline our bodies; but it can be said that
a passionate love for all peoples and creation (except evil and hate) is the core principle of true belief and the test of the true spiritual life.
To be born again means to ask God for forgiveness and ask Jesus to become your personal saviour. After that you need to live a life that was different from the previous one. e.g. if you used to smoke or drink you have to quit and also preach the word of God to other sinners. Pray to God during hard times and temptation instead of turning to the world for solution.
A communion with the ultimate reality.
Mystically speaking of course.
Just Be,
In an instant a life can be transformed without warning. From a personal experience, my own transformation happened within 5 seconds, but it was not until over a year later did I realize what had happened.
A new life began, but this time without parents. As an outsider looking in on this new life (me being the outsider looking in on my new life) sees a profoundly opposed spirit of her former “self”. The new born discovers she has many identities by the perceptions of others.
A “self-actualization” has taken place as she realizes she is many in ONE. There is a constant flow of awareness even in the times of darkness. The third eye is opened to life in 3D. Once it has opened it cannot be closed. Instead of living in 1D or 2D the new life now sees in panoramic hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling and smelling the vivid colors of life.
Peace to all!
Amanda
To a true mystic, being born again is Enlightenment.
It’s all of the other people who quibble about “what is Enlightenment?”
It truly means, “To be ready to die.” Not that you desire death, but you know it’s going to happen and you’ve prepared a way for yourself into you next incarnation. If you can accept this you are born again.
It seems you would like to read The Lost Symbol. That speaks to your question.