This is a tough topic to tackle. It's very big. So rather than try to tackle it in its entirety I'll simply try to open it up to the floor.
You must be 'born again' in order to be saved. That means you must die. I mean, how can you be born again if you don't die first?
Of course, when I say you must die, I don't mean you. I mean that which you think you are. I mean your ego-self. It has to die and then be
reborn in order for your deeper identity to come forth. It has to die so that you can see that the ego-self is just an illusion.
Salvation is a mystical experience. Not a conscious decision to believe the 'right creed' at the 'right church' and say the 'right words' from the
right translation of the Bible and make a few lifestyle changes. Jesus was trying to tell people that they have to achieve an altered state of
mystical consciousness...'ego-death'...during which their identity is dissolved and united God. Then, their identity is
re-assembled...'born-again'... as the altered state of consciousness wears off.
This is something that people have been doing for tens of thousands of years, since the early days of primitive shamanism. The ego is swallowed by the
unconscious, torn into a million pieces...identity as you know it is dissolved... and put back together again by God.
"...the old has passed away, behold the new has come."
This doesn't mean a new paradigm or a new belief-system or a new attitude or a new religion or a new church or a good fuzzy feeling.
It's a whole new ego-self. It's an anomaly of identity.
It's mysticism. Not orthodoxy and dogma and conformity.
So if you are a Christian and you haven't under gone ego-death (you would know if you did) and you think you are born-again, you should think again.
Filling a pew once a week doesn't cut it. Reciting some words and getting a warm fuzzy feeling and a pat on the back doesn't cut it.
Run to your church and ask your preacher why the church isn't showing people how to become mystics so that they can kill their ego, become one with
God (at-one-ment), and be born again the way Jesus intended.
edit on 26-6-2012 by BlueMule because: (no reason given)
I've experienced ego death a couple years ago, and I'm so glad I did. It was like a second chance at life. I'm sure a lot of people on this site have
experienced it.
edit on 26-6-2012 by RightInTwo because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by BlueMule The ego is swallowed by the unconscious, torn into a million pieces...identity as you know it is dissolved... and put back together again by
God.
From my own experience I can vouch to the truth of this statement. In a true ego death all the projections of ego are systemically, literally
disassembled in the mind's eye. All the seemingly infinite faces of the ego will flash before your Eye like a light speed film reel. They lash out in
their desperate attempt to cling on, but the kundalini serpent will have none of it and will absolutely vanquish them in the fire. It is a very real,
literal sensation.
I had a full blown, spontaneous kundalini awakening in the year 2007. The fire swelled and shot through my chakric conduit like a jagged lightening
bolt and utterly dismantled all my blockages and ego forms. It was incredibly intense ; I was out of body for 30-45 Earth minutes and literally
traveled beyond the veil and back through to other side. It was as though traveling through a wormhole. Inside the wormhole I saw my ego forms
obliterated as though in a light speed reel, as I said, then as the kundalini exploded through my crown I became complete with the everything, became
one with the All/God and witnessed a series of visions detailing alternate realities/dimensions that I won't go into.
So I would add to your post that the true ego death goes hand in hand, indeed is mandated, by the total kundalini awakening.
edit on 26-6-2012
by Qi Maker because: (no reason given)
edit on 26-6-2012 by Qi Maker because: (no reason given)
Last year, during my apocalypse as I now call it, there was a 24 hour period where I felt completely dead, as if my soul had gone. It was a terrible
feeling because I was still conscious (but so, so negatively empty). But after that day, I joyously cried at all the love I had been missing no longer
-- I came back into myself, and it carried with it at-one-ment. I realized what was within me all along, that at-one-ment. It never left, it was
always there. It was knowledge uncovered.
Now I'm not sure if one would call that ego-death, probably not, nor was it a kundalini experience, but I understand so much more than I had
previously understood. Actually, it was more like lifting off the tarp of a vehicle that you left in the garage but completely forgot about, and then
riding it out on the street once again, free and genuine. It was always there, revealing itself to me through most of my life in small spurts before I
finally dove right in.
Whatever one would call that (awakening, apocalypse, revelation...), it lead me to the things I had always known about deep down inside. I lived as a
monk, I asked to "know", and what I found was One, you am I. I don't consider myself separate of anything, but part of the fullness that is
everything.
edit on 26/6/12 by AdamsMurmur because: (no reason given)
I was sort of expecting a small army of Christian fundamentalists to charge into this thread to assert that mystical ego-death & rebirth has nothing
to do with salvation and is 'of the devil'.
/shrug
edit on 26-6-2012 by BlueMule because: (no reason given)
christianity is about hating the gays, thinking you're superior and pointing your finger. (unfortunately, this is the idea most "christians" give
others about them)
you can take your spiritual mumbo-jumbo elsewhere, amen.
the lines are so blurred, waters so muddy and masses so lost that the truth sounds less tangible than the lies we've all been told. your presentation
sounds so far out there that no one's even gonna tell you why you're wrong.
sad, really...the truth sounds so crazy it's not even worth arguing, even to an argumentative lot.
father, forgive them...
edit on 6/27/12 by ICEKOHLD because: (no reason given)
This is an fascinating thread, so kudos for starting it!
I guess I'm just having a hard time wrapping my mind around it, probably since I've never experienced an "ego-death" before. Say if a person were to
have had their ego shattered, I'm assuming it would be a complete life-altering change in their lives, and I assume they would recollect the exact
moment and/or environment in which it happened, correct?
Edit: Or, perhaps, would it be akin to something like change occurring in a process?
edit on 1/17/13 by insightout because: (no reason
given)