You Project Your Life

You often hear the phrase ‘to be born again’, both in songs and spiritual paths, as something that we should all aim for. The idea has been around for thousands of years. Anything that has lasted that long has great significance for your life – if you understand what it is trying to reveal.

But nobody ever explains to you exactly what it means.

Some therapists, who offer regression work, suggest that you are born again when you free yourself of any birth trauma.

Others suggest it is a religious transformation, when you move from an ordinary level of consciousness to some exalted state.

There is a whole collection of different ideas surrounding it, from past lives to going from failure to success in some area of life.

The phrase, which is used in the Bible, comes from John’s Gospel. This was originally written in Greek, and the Greek word translated as again can also mean: from above. So perhaps a more accurate meaning is ‘you must be born from above’.

This would signify that you are ‘born’ or ‘reborn’ from the Superconscious, which is anything to do with the higher things of life.

Let’s look and see what is really going on in a human sense, because it is very important for your own development and, in fact, your whole life.

If you think about it carefully, to be born again means that you suddenly, one day, fully awaken to your ‘new’ life.

The implication of the phrase, born again’ must include the fact that you have been living as something previously, and then ‘died’ in some way and have been resurrected.

This is why the religions have focused on this idea.

But let’s bring it down to a more practical reality. Every single person, particularly those who follow a personal development path, once they reach adulthood, discovers that they have been living out their parents and early life influences.

The patterns have been laid down and are being played out.

This may be in a very subtle way, or very overt. Maybe they have lived similar or even identical experiences to their parents. As, say, Rupert Murdoch lived out his father’s (the great journalist and newspaperman) Sir Keith Murdoch’s patterns.

Or it may just be the emotional patterns that people live out, that are projected on their job, or money or anything else in life.

So if you felt insignificant throughout your school life, because you were close to the bottom of the class, and your parents did not encourage you in any area so you felt important or good at something else, then that insignificance becomes an emotional addiction that is embedded in your psyche.

Your subconscious then makes sure you make choices that ensure you feel insignificant in your adult life.

The patterns don’t care, just so long as they get the ‘emotional feed’ from the events of a person’s life.

This is unavoidable and a normal part of being human. The only problem is that, regardless of the choices you make, seemingly consciously, you eat up years and even decades living out these parental and other early life impressions.

This is because all conditioning is like hypnosis and puts everyone in a trance of some sort.

This is why real personal development teachers are always encouraging people to ‘wake up’ from the trance of life. The trances we all live in are very much created by our parents and teachers, even though it is unlikely they were conscious that they were doing it.

So you could easily say that your ‘firstborn’ life is that of your conditioning and, in order to be reborn, or born again, or born from above, you have to move beyond that conditioning and let all those impressions go, by waking up from the trance.

This, by the way, does not mean walking away from your life as it is at present. It means developing more consciousness of your life as it is, and improving it in whatever ways you can.

Life is, as always, a consciousness game. The only thing worth doing, and the only thing that really brings the rewards we all want and look for, is to increase our level of consciousness.

So to be born again means that you have come to the realization that you have been living in the automaton or trance state of your parental, social and cultural impressions.

Most people, of course, go to their graves with this ‘set up’ still firmly in place and running their lives. But a few grab the bull by the horns and begin the process of bringing themselves to more consciousness.

This is why the idea of being born again has currency in any society, and always has, and always will. Because what born again means is actually to wake up from the trance of one’s conditioning, so that you can actually be a fully conscious being.

All civilisations have shown that real progress is created by those who have devoted their lives to becoming more conscious. They have revealed, by their work and example, a better way to live.

The necessity of waking up from the trance has always been known by at least a few alert people as necessary. You only have to stand outside a railway station, and look at the people walking out, to see that they are in a daydream, watching the inner workings of their minds.

So how can you wake up? Those that have been keen to awaken from the trance have focused on becoming conscious of a particular art or science, or creative act, or becoming great parents, or really good husbands or wives, or business activities, or anything else.

They understood that you need a ‘form’ to work with in your life. Anything will do. But it must be something that you can work with. It can’t just be an idea or one of the imaginings of the ‘be here now’ crowd. You need the feedback of an activity.

If you do have an activity as a goal it is very sensible, because it really will change your life for the better.

Of course the royal path to more consciousness is to use everything you do in your everyday life, as activities to become conscious of. The first step of this is to examine yourself.

Why are you like you are? Why is your life unfolding as it does? What is it that has happened in the past to make you and your life as it is today?

For instance, in my case, I really wanted to be a writer when I was in my teens. I don’t know why that idea arose, I suspect it was because I got some good marks at school and praise for writing stories when I was younger. Vanity is usually the driver of many decisions.

However, my mother was very interested in spiritual matters and she taught meditation right up till she was nearly 80. And my father was employed in the film industry for many years.

So, for me, it was not surprising that I entered into the film industry for 20 years, as an employee just like my father, and then I spent another 20 years teaching meditation and exploring all types of spiritual life.

Added to that, for many of the earlier years of my adult life, I found myself pulled between the material world of the film industry, and the spiritual world of meditation. I would go from one to the other continually, over several years, and neither of them would fulfill me, simply because the other side was always pulling in the opposite direction.

I would go to India and study at an ashram, and while I was there a little voice inside my mind would say ‘it’s time to go back and work on a film’.

And then when I was working on a film another little voice would appear my mind and say ‘you are far better off in the ashram, you need to go back there and study more deeply’. And I would go.

I couldn’t see, at that time, how my life actually worked, because not only was there the parental division, but also everywhere I looked, in society, I could see that the choice was often between either the material world or the spiritual world. It was a split.

This went right back to ancient Rome, where the phrase from the Bible said: ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s’. In other words we were all sold the idea that there were two choices in life, spiritual or material, and you had to decide on one of them.

Included in all those downloads from my parents and society, were a variety of other impressions that I had picked up from my parents, to do with relationships, money and creativity, which I also lived out.

I managed to improve on my parents successes, thanks to their encouragement, but I was still ‘on the run’ subservient to the power of the patterns.

So this is how one’s life is swallowed up. And in reality, it is only with vigorous and committed personal development training, that you can lift your head out of the water of the trance and see what else is available.

In a way it is very surprising, if not shocking, when you wake up to the fact that you have been living out variations on your parental themes.

Some people are really amazed, and even very disappointed, when they realize they have basically been living on automatic, and several decades of their life have gone by.

They suffered the consequences of their lack of self-development.

But actually it is a wonderful thing to wake up. When you have done enough personal development work to know that you are actually in charge of your life, then the opportunities to become everything you want to be, are now available to you.

And, when you start living this new life, you realize and feel that you have been ‘born again’. You are a much more conscious being. You have decades of experience. You have personal power. And, as long as you continue on the path of conscious growth, you have the whole world to play in.

What I found was that all parts of my life integrated into one single whole. There was no split between spiritual life and material life, or my father’s job and my mother’s interests anymore.

Everything weaved together and, accompanying that, was the direct knowledge that I could create whatever I wanted to live out.

So, what it meant for me was that all the aspects of my life integrated into one. I now write, I make films and I teach meditation. And, interestingly enough, they are all aspects of the Superconscious. Integrating with the Superconscious is the real secret of true success.

Everything, for me, is now tied into that. So you could say I have been ‘born again from above’, because I have opened myself to the Superconscious which is the main game in life.

So by integrating the three drives within me (teaching, writing and films) I have come into my own expression and personal power.

I had to go through a series of vigorous challenges as these old patterns loosened their hold over my psyche. This is quite normal, because the past loves to keep you in its grip.

Just keep yourself aimed at the main goal, which is am I becoming a more conscious being? Am I committed to the path of waking up from the trance, which is known as personal development?

So what is it for you? Can you recognise the streams of impressions that have come into you from your parents, or parental figures? Can you see how you might be living them out in various ways?

Really have a look at yourself and your behaviours, at the thoughts and images that stream through your mind. Examine how you express yourself, what it is that pleases you and what it is that frustrates you, and where in your life you feel challenges and difficulties.

See which of these are imitations or variations on your parents’ self-expression and behaviours.

Start to see if there are any divisions or splits, when you are pulled in one direction and then another. Observe what it is the dissatisfied you. Frustration with one’s life tends to come from not being clear about what you want.

Learn how to read life like a book. See what it is trying to tell you, or rather reflect back to you, about the things you need to become conscious of and understand.

What happens in your outer life is all reflection of your inner world. You and life are one.

As you follow the real personal development teachings, which are all to do with becoming more conscious, then you will find that, slowly but surely, everything will integrate together and a new source of power naturally awakens for you to help create your life to be whatever you want.