It's never as good as the first time, though there is something to be said for a star-studded comeback. Just ask Cher. Or Shiva. Or Yeheshua Ben Nashri, AKA Jesus of Nazareth. Now there's a resurrection. Just when you think life is absolutely at its most excruciating, suddenly, you're born anew. And while Cher may need a team of expert stylists to turn back time, the Anointed One only needed to leave his mortal body in order to become God the Son. Much like Ganapati becoming Ganesh. NB: Both are the products of virgin birth. I'll give you my life's in a turnaround.
To be born again in its most literal sense is not only the first move towards enlightenment, but also part of an essential step on the career path away from fear and nepotism and towards understanding the true power of the self. A prime pre-Yeheshua example of the power and challenge of being twice born is Dionysus, son of Zeus and the mortal Semele. When Zeus' actual wife Hera found out about her lothario hubby's canoodling, she sought to destroy both babymama and child. Disguised as an old hag, she persuaded Semele to beg Zeus to present himself to her as his divine self, which he did, and as no mortal can behold a god in his true form, Semele died, forcing Zeus to nab the baby and sew it into his mighty thigh for incubation purposes. Thus was Dionysus, whose power would later rival that of his own father, born again, or should I say, delivered twice by C-section. As a side note, Lord Dionysus who wore his hair long like a girl and was somewhat of an esoterrorist, would later retrieve his mother from Hades and make her a goddess, thus Semele, like Mary, is also twice born. Rebirth: it's not just for men anymore.
Meantime, let's consider the modern mythos: Luke Skywalker with his beloved Rabbi, Yoda, in the Dagobah Yeshiva. Luke enters the Tree of Knowledge to fight his mortal enemy: his father, Darth Vader. Only when Luke manages to flick off Darth's mask with his manly light saber, does he finally see his true enemy: himself. Oy vey! Thus, by understanding his Shiva Nature, Luke is able to lift his rattrap X-Wing from the bog of past consciousness and be reborn as a Jedi Warrior. Only, to quote my dear friend Mary Childers, "Sometimes you have to cleave to leave." IE, in order to be reborn, ya gotta get radical, as in e radice-- from the roots. And ya gotta dig real deep to detach those stubborn buggers. And sometimes it feels like a break-up or a murder or an evisceration, your guts spooling from your belly like a sacrificial lamb to some cause you can't quite articulate; Think of YHWH--insert the Hebrew letter Shin and YHWH becomes Yeheshua and you basically have the New Testament. It's so much more than a copy-writing coup; it's the reification of an entire religion with just one little letter. It's simple but it sure aint easy.
Just imagine Paul in Damascus. It's not like the big change just happens, you must make it happen and then keep that bad boy going. IE: Rebirth is not only evolution, it's revolution and it's bloody and you gotta get with a whole new crew. Not to mention rebirth's absolutely an inside job, an esoteric metamorphosis from which you emerge, bleating and tender as a lamb.
All right, I'll buy that it already feels like you've died and been reborn a gabillion times, but you're not Cher or Ganesha or Luke Skywalker and you don't have any of Jesus' street cred. But the beauty of rebirth, at least in the yoga tradition, is that you get to pick yourself up after every savasana, roll up your mat and be reborn with every practice, nay, every breath. As Shakti needs her Shiva, so creation needs destruction. Either that or a bigger closet.
rock on. Thank you for talking about the process. There's a lot in books about what it is like to be "reborn"... full of grace... Seems, not so much documented about the gritty parts. Maybe I'm reading the wrong books, but I find myself wanting more info about the whack voyage in ADDITION to all that praise of the foreign shore. Like, if Hafiz could just throw in a few poems about the days he isn't BFFs with God...it would be helpful. Much appreciated, Emily, namaSTE.