“Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be

born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said unto him, How can
a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s
womb, and be born?”
John 3:3-
3:3-4

Today, many “Christians” are struggling. Large numbers have stopped attending services.
In some cases, they are questioning some of the most crucial doctrines and tenets that
they believed for many years. Many of them are seeking a more authentic spirituality and
want to experience God tangibly in their lives. To put it another way, they are far more in-
terested in personally experiencing the spirituality of Jesus and less and less interested in a
religion about Jesus. In this quest, they are discovering interpretations of Jesus’ teachings
that are new to them but very old, time wise.

They are discovering that universal truth isn’t

contained in any one religion and that the
“spirituality of Jesus” can be experienced by those
far outside the wal ls of Christianity.

One of the great examples of these different interpretations involves the "second birth" or
"being born again," a phrase that is a "mantra" of fundamental Christianity. To be "born
again" within the fundamental Christian world is a) to recognize that you are a sinner, es-
tranged from God and doomed to hell, b) recognize and accept that Jesus died for your
sins and c) in so doing, one is born again, saved from hell and d) one now has "eternal
life" and will spend eternity with God. It is this experience that actually makes you a Chris-
tian. By the way, this was my definition of the second birth or being born again for about
25 years but.....
I am one of those that found myself rethinking the teachings of Jesus. I now have a very
different interpretation of what Jesus' words in John 3:3-4 truly mean.
As I looked at the “words in red” in the Bible, a problem emerged… Jesus' own teachings
didn't support my concept of being “born again.”
When asked in Matthew 19, Mark 10 and Luke 10 and 18 about eternal life, never once
did Jesus respond with what would have been my fundamental Christian answer. Never

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once does he tell people that they must accept him as Saviour. Never once does he tell
people that their destiny is to burn in hell for all of eternity if they don’t. What he does do
is point them to the commandments of God and tell them to “follow him” meaning follow
his teachings. About 15 times in the gospels Jesus says "Follow me!" A first century Jewish
"rabbi" saying "Follow me" is simply saying "Come and follow my teachings and become an
image, an imitator, of me!"
In John chapter 3 Jesus makes an statement that we rarely think about. He basically ques-
tions Nicodemus' standing as a "teacher" of Israel because Nicodemus doesn't understand
what Jesus is saying about being born again or born from above. If Jesus was presenting
some amazing and startling new truth, would it be reasonable for Jesus to expect Nicode-
mus to know anything about this concept? Obviously not! Therefore the only conclusion
that can be reached is that Jesus' teaching regarding the second birth or being born again
was not new. It was ancient and taught in the past.
Let's go back to the definition that I carried with me for 25 or so years. If we use the Old
Testament as our source since it would certainly be Nicodemus' holy book and it is part of
the Christian Bible, is escaping from hell a component of "salvation?" In hours and hours of
study I looked at every verse in which hell is mentioned in English. In Hebrew it is the
word, sheol. I cannot find a single verse in which one would interpret sheol as a place of
eternal torment.

Salvation isn’t about escaping hell.

It is the process of becoming the image of God!

When one looks at salvation in the Old Testament within the context of the Hebrew lan-
guage, it isn’t about escaping some place called hell. Instead it is about being made whole
and complete and being free. It is freedom from the bondages that beset us, i.e. the carnal
mind or ego. It is about wholeness and being healed in body, mind and spirit. It is about
deliverance from our enemies though that deliverance may come in surprising forms, i.e.
not so much conquering our enemies as conquering our "self." Salvation isn’t about escap-
ing hell but instead is about becoming the “image of God.” It is becoming in the physical
realm what you already are in the spiritual realm. It is about being here “below” all that
you are “above.”
Simply put, I suggest to you that salvation is spiritual transformation which will result in
transformation on the physical level as well.

“Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven”

Perhaps no prayer is said more than what is called the Lord’s Prayer. Multitudes pray that
the will of God will be manifest in earth as it is in heaven. Unfortunately too many see

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those words relating to some ethereal place out in space called heaven and this big ball we
call earth. Instead, realize that the kingdom of heaven is within us and we are all made up
of earth when it comes to our physical being. The will of God will never be a reality ex-
pressed upon this planet until it is a reality manifest in our own “earth/body” and that will
only come about when we discover who we are spiritually.
In the book of Romans, chapter 7, the apostle Paul makes what one could say is a
“ridiculous” statement. In essence Paul says that the things he should do, he doesn’t do,
and the things he shouldn’t do, he does do. Nothing ridiculous in that but then he says that
it isn’t him doing what he doesn’t want to do and not doing what he should. Paul blames it
on “sin” in him but he is clear that the “sin” isn’t him. In fact, Paul says that the “real Paul”
loves God and loves the commandments of God.
What is this entity that Paul calls “sin” in Romans 7? He sees a war taking place inside
himself and in Romans 8 Paul states the carnal mind is at war with God. Paul also, in his
writings, speaks about the lusts of the flesh. I would like to suggest that the lusts of the
flesh arise in the carnal mind and all of it can be called the ego. It is the ego that con-
stantly wants and desires (the lusts of the flesh) and it is the ego that constantly strives to
keep you from discovering who you truly are which would destroy the false image of you
that the ego seeks to maintain. Simply put, the ego never wants you to discover who you
are because it would then cease to exist as your identity.
I am going to suggest to you that your second birth occurs when you become aware that
you are not your ego or your physical body. Being born again is when you become aware
that you are not, as Wayne Dyer puts it, a human being, i.e. a physical being, having an
occasional spiritual experience but you are an eternal spiritual being having a human ex-
perience. It is when you wake up to the fact that you are a spiritually divine being, who
has been, is and will be one with God forever in the realm of timelessness or the NOW. It
is when you take the red pill instead of the blue pill and wake up and escape the Matrix.

Are you going to take the red

pill or the blue pill ?

This awakening, this second birth or being "born again" or better "born from above" is the
moment when enlightenment occurs as to who we truly are. Eckhart Tolle tells of his mo-
ment of awakening or enlightenment in his book, The Power of Now. At age 29 he was
contemplating suicide. Waking up in the middle of the night suffering from a severe case of
depression, Tolle states that the following thought ran through his mind -- "I cannot live
with my“self” any longer." As that thought repeated itself he suddenly had this awakening
that if that sentence was true, then there were two of him so to speak. There was the "I"
and the "self" that the "I" could not live with anymore.
The question was -- Who was/is the real Eckhart Tolle? Eckhart came to a wonderful state
of enlightenment where he realized that the "self" who was so depressed and contemplat-
ing suicide wasn't truly him. It was his ego and accompanying “pain bodies” masquerading
as the true Eckhart. Some may think that very strange but this is what Paul was saying in

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Romans 7. Paul recognized that there was a part of him that was the true Paul. He recog-
nized that the carnal mind or ego was a major problem that had to be overcome. It is that
self that needs to be crucified daily.
It is ironic that the idea of enlightenment or awakening, recognizing ourselves as eternal
spiritual beings etc. is often labelled "new age" thinking when it is phenomenally "old age."
Though it may be expressed differently, I would suggest to you that this concept of being
born again or being enlightened is very much a part of Jewish mysticism or kabbalah. The
idea of enlightenment or awakening to who you truly are is certainly a major component of
Christian mysticism and without question it is a large part of eastern mysticism as well.
Deepak Chopra in his book, The Book of Secrets, states:

“Awareness has become fully aware of itself. When we

reach this stage of freedom, life starts over, which is
why enlightenment is rightly called a second birth.”

He continues with the following:

"Who am I? You are the totality of the universe acting through a human nervous system.
Where did I come from? You came from a source that was never born and will never die.
Why am I here? To create the world in every moment.
To gain this knowledge for oneself is like being pushed through the birth canal again. You
may utter a cry of surprise - and perhaps of shock and pain - at finding yourself in an un-
known world."
The second birth - is it being saved from hell - or something entirely different? Could it be
an entrance into a whole new world, a new way of thinking and living? Is it when one
“wakes up” from the Matrix and truly begins to experience a new life, i.e. the eternal life
Jesus spoke of? If so, it truly is an ancient teaching, something even Nicodemus should
have known.