One Day You Will Stand on a Cliff, and Face the True Reality of Life and Death, And Be Born Again

“In the rays of the sun, and in love, I am born, anew-”

“-to be born again-” Van Morrison

“this world, newly born, is-”

“glory, glory glory/somebody touched me”- as sung by Stanley Brothers, Bob Dylan, and many others.

Stories of being “born again” are everywhere. For example, the former president George W. Bush has his own conversion story, in this case to Christianity. Basically, he realized that he needed to stop snorting cocaine, drinking, and generally acting like an idiot, and so he did.

Some people love to mock these kinds of stories. How can you know they are true? What does it mean, to be “born again”? I will never mock them. All of these stories are true. Every single one. In that they express some secrets, some aspect of the world, or at least of human consciousness, they are more true than true. You can touch the apple on your counter, and it has physicality, and it is easy to see the truth of that apple. It exists. William James said of mystical states, that you can neither affirm nor deny their existence.

I am with James. If you tell me you talk to God, your God, I will know that you do. If you tell me your prayers are answered, I will know…