Showing posts with label Born again. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Born again. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Spiritual reading - Maturity, Being Born Again

Chapter four

 Being born again 

Osho has said,

 “Whenever you understand that you have missed life, the first principle to be brought back is innocence. Drop your knowledge, forget your scriptures, forget your religions, your theologies, your philosophies. Be born again, become innocent—and it is in your hands. Clean your mind of all that is not known by you, of all that is borrowed, all that has come from tradition, convention. All that has been given to you by others—parents,teachers, universities—just get rid of it. Once again be simple, once again be a child. And this miracle is possible by meditation.” 

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press.p.xii

Comments:

Among “born again” Christians, the conversion experience is highly encouraged and supported. This experience seems to mean different things to different people, and other than some sort of altered consciousness brought about by some sort of emotional hypnotic effect, it is unclear what is meant by this term.

 Osho is clear in his description that being born again is an emptying and an opening of oneself to one’s Higher Power. Osho’s description seems to be similar to Jesus’ statement that unless a person become like a little child again, the person cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.

It seems paradoxical in our Western world with its cognitive thought system based on Aristotelian logic, to think that maturity, growing up, comes from a shedding of one’s socialization and conditioning.

In Alcoholics Anonymous this shedding of socialization, conditioning, is known as the third step which is a decision to turn our will over to the care of our Higher Power as we understand It.

It seems counterintuitive for Osho to suggest that the path to maturity is to drop our knowledge and empty ourselves so we can experience the Divine Spark within by meditation. However, this same insight has been taught by the mystics of all major religions and is a key practice encouraged by the perennial psychology.

 

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Born again on the path of the spirit

It is interesting how Unitarian Universalists get all steamed up about social justice issues. The question of what makes social justice issues so attractive to UUs leads one to the shadow side  of the UU denomination. We tend to get upset with things about others that we find distasteful and upsetting in ourselves.

People take their own self accusations and project them onto external objects. I hate in others what I find most abhorrent in myself.

It's interesting how we project our own problems and concerns on to other people. If we are worried, afraid, disgusted, or happy, amused, enchanted, we assume ( which makes an ass out of you and me) that other people must think the same, feel the same, behave the same.

We become upset and confused when we learn that the other person onto whom we have projected our thoughts, feelings, intentions, and behavior don't live up to our expectations.

This failure to meet our expectations generates all kinds of feelings of blame, accusation, disappointment, anger, fear, and sadness.

Our projections, misperceptions, misunderstandings, faulty generalizations are easily blamed on the other person who we further misperceive as having failed us, thwarted us, refused to love us the way we want to be loved by them.

We, in our ego mind, are very reluctant, or even refuse, to take responsibility for any of this. It is much easier initially to avoid responsibility by attacking the other for their failure to satisfy us.

Our inappropriate expectations that others should meet our expectations fills us first with fear and then with fury, and with rising of fear and fury, hell is created.

As lesson five in A Course In Miracles teaches us, "I'm never upset for the reason I think."

The reason I am upset is that I have identified with the ego and have engaged in its expectations and once again the ego has brought me anguish and suffering.

At this point we ask, "What's wrong with me!?"

At the spiritual level the answer is, "There is nothing wrong with you. You are the beloved creation of the Divine, loved unconditionally, and perfect in every way."

At the ego level the answer is, "You are unaware of what you are. You don't understand who you are, why you are here, and what you should be doing with yourself. You have been tricked into believing in idols and thinking they are real, you have made your life a hell."

The better question is not "What's wrong with me!?" but "What's the better way for me to live my life?"

To which Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God, your Higher Power, the Spirit of Life answers, "Do not give dogs what is holy; do not throw your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces. 7Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Mathew 7:7

It is this dawning that there must be a better way that precipitates our seeking. It is in deciding to seek with a joyful curiosity that we are reborn.

Monday, February 12, 2018

If we are to be happy we must be born again

In our contemporary times, Unitarian Universalists would probably never say that they are born again and yet they covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles the fourth of which is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Consciously, intentionally embarking on this search with integrity requires that they become born again and turn from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit.

I could be happy if only you would do what I think you should do and if you don't, you are holding out on me because you could do what I want you to do if only you would but you won't because you don't love me. This is how we create hell.

We assign roles to people and expect them to do certain things and when they don't do them we get angry and attack them and get sad, resentful, full of grievance and recrimination. They, of course, are not doing anything to us, we, in fact, have done it to ourselves.

We are playing the game of "give to get." And then we play, "one or the other." These games litter the path of the ego. From these games great drama is created, emotions aroused, pain and suffering inflicted up to and including death.

We come to a point when we realize we don't want to play these games any more. They aren't worth it to us and we say to ourselves "there must be a better way." This slight glimmer of awareness is called, "The Dawning." It starts to dawn on us that we deserve to be happy and have a high quality life full of peace and bliss.

Recognizing that we are meant to be happy and have a high quality life, we begin to search. We become seekers and it is this turning from the path of the ego to something else that marks the beginning of a new life. It's like we're born again and like babies have to learn how to live in this world as spirits and no longer egos.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

How many UUs are born again?


Osho says:
“Once you are aware, you start seeking and searching for a second birth.
And the second birth becomes possible only through meditation.
The first birth is through the mother, the second birth is through meditation:
hence in ancient scriptures, meditation is called the real mother. Jesus says to his disciples,
“Unless you are born again you will not enter the Kingdom of God.”
In the East, the person who has attained to God is called dwija, twice born.
The second birth releases the fragrance.”


Osho. Last in the Evening: 365 Relaxing Moments to Enter the Night Consciously p.12
Osho Media International.
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