I wrote this and hesitated to post because I didn't write it perfectly. And like so many things, I hesitate because it isn't good enough. So here it is, I'm putting it out, imperfect. With apologies to my English Teacher friends...

The term “born again,” I believe in Christianity originates with a discussion between Nicodemus and Jesus in the Gospel of John, Chapter 3. There Jesus explains that there are two births, one literal or natural birth of a baby, and one that comes when the person is ready to see “God” as he really is, “the True Face of God” (as it is sometimes translated). I used quotes around God here because I want to distinguish between what I believe Jesus meant and what the dominant religion believes. God can mean life, nature, or the mysteries. I’m not trying to disprove the position of the Christian religion, but to show that, religion or not, there is a practical “born again” experience that can happen.
Christianity isn’t the only religion that has this transformation. What Hindus call Maya (Sanskrit) or illusion, is seen only upon this transformational experience. Poets, artists, atheists, and pagans can have this experience, and indeed much is written, eloquently and otherwise about it.
It is said that the child or child state of mind is this place but not yet hard won or appreciated. Jesus said that one has to have the eye of a child to see Hosanna, to see who Jesus is. Society, religion, school, and family eventually has its way of imposing its vision of the world upon the child and the child grows up deluded, lost from his original nature. As in the story of the “Emporer’s New Clothes,” the masses of people come to accept what’s told to them by the pundits, media, or Hollywood, without seeing for oneself. Even when one has the chance to see, as “Emperor” exposes (pun intended), enculturated folks are blinded to it. Perhaps a modern therapist would say “they choose not to see.”
Without question the child attends his religion, his school, obeys the family rules, and tries to fit in the culture with style, corporate climbing, and dominance over nature. If we aren’t famous or big income earners we honor those who are in People Magazine, living vicariously. We climb the ladder of success in corporations as we were trained in public education. We go attend our religious institutions without question and we are admonished if we don’t.
The example of Jesus is that of questioning. He had a practical approach to religion, that the “law was made for man, not man made for the law,” and he discouraged hypocrisy, where others were blind to it (while being a devote unwavering Jew). As the story goes had awakened, like Buddha, to see life as it really is and wasn’t afraid to call it out, face to face.
In psychotherapy, my patients brave the territory of the inner world to break down the accumulation of illusions, to reclaim their lives, finding consciously the early life knowing of “Hosanna,” or seeing God as if for the first time, or society and nature as they really are, seeing what is in this moment. Instead of a future world to come, a world of money and power, a world of dominance over others, men over women, adults over children, mankind over nature, we find ourselves in a world of our own making. We need to clean up after ourselves, leaving the place better than when we found it. We need to help one another to love, find joy in being, live simply, facing truth as it is. We don’t need to sugar coat. We’ve evolved with the capacity to take this life as it is.
Being born again, is once again having direct contact with raw life unattenuated by the way Buddha, Jesus, or Socrates sees the world. A vision that is not assisted by those priests, ministers, imams, and rabbis who might tell us what Jesus, Socrates, and Buddha want us to believe. It is a difficult climb, arriving upon the mountaintop and seeing what is for ourselves with our own eyes as though for the first time. Mentors, mystics, clerics, and therapists should guide us to see, not tell us what we are seeing. We do not believe unless we can see it clearly with our own eyes, feel it within our own being.

I’m writing about this because I had a lively discussion with Steve Thomsen, my computer guru at Nebraska Furniture Mart (totally go see him and trust him with your computer needs, he’s very honest and will steer you right). We began this dialog and this is the essence of our discussion. We built upon each other’s stories as always happens when we get together.