“” Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”, (John 3:3). Jesus tells Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit, is spirit.” This illusion, so unintelligible in itself, is explained in the Satapa-Brahmana. It teaches that a man striving after spiritual perfection must have three births: 1st, Physical, from his mortal parents; 2nd, Spiritual, through religious sacrifice (initiation); 3rd, His final birth into the world of spirit – at death. Though it may seem strange that we should have to go to the old land of the Punjab and the banks of the sacred Ganges, for an interpreter of words spoken in Jerusalem and expounded on the banks of the Jordan, the fact is evident. This second birth, or regeneration of spirit, after the natural birth of that which is born of the flesh, might have astonished a Jewish ruler.
Nevertheless, it had been taught 3,000 years before the appearance of the great Galilean prophet, not only in old India but to all the epoptae of the Pagan initiation, who were instructed in the great mysteries of LIFE and DEATH. This secret of secrets, that soul is not knit to flesh, was practically demonstrated in the instance of the Yogis, the followers of Kapila. Having emancipated their souls from the fetters of Prakriti, or Mahat (the physical perception of the senses and mind – in one sense, creation), they so developed their soul-power and will-force, as to have actually enabled themselves, while on earth, to communicate with the supernal worlds, and perform what is bunglingly termed “miracles”. Men whose astral spirits have attained on earth the nehreyasa, or the mukti, are half-gods; disembodied spirits, they reach Moksha or Nirvana, and this is their second spiritual birth.
Buddha teaches the doctrine of a new birth as plainly as Jesus does. Desiring to break with the ancient Mysteries, to which it was impossible to admit the ignorant masses, the Hindi reformer, though generally silent upon more than one secret dogma, clearly states his thought in several passages. Thus, he says: “Some people are born again; evil-doers go to Hell; righteous people go to Heaven; those who are free from all worldly desires enter Nirvana”, (Precepts of the Dhammapada, verse 126). Elsewhere Buddha states that, “it is better to believe in a future life, in which happiness or misery can be felt; for if the heart believes therein, it will abandon sin and act virtuously; and even if there is no resurrection, such a life will bring a good name and the regard of men. But those who believe in extinction at death will not fail to commit any sin that they may choose, because of their disbelief in a future.”
The Epistle to the Hebrews, treats of the sacrifice of blood. “Where a testament is”, says the writer, “there must be of necessity the death of the testator. …Without the shedding of blood is no remission.” Then again: “Christ glorified not himself to be made High Priest; but He that said unto him, “Thou art my son, TODAY HAVE I BEGOTTEN Thee” (Hebrew 1:5). This is a very clear inference, that, 1, Jesus was considered only in the light of a high priest, like Melchizedek – another avatar, or incarnation of Christ, according to the Fathers; and 2, that the writer thought that Jesus had become a “Son of God” only at the moment of his initiation by water; hence, that he was not born a god, neither was he begotten physically by Him.
Every initiate of the “last hour” became, by the very fact of his initiation, a son of God. When Maxime, the Ephesian, initiated the Emperor Julian into the Mithraic Mysteries, he pronounced as the usual formula of the rite, the following: “By this blood, I wash thee from thy sins. The Word of the Highest has entered unto thee, and His Spirit henceforth will rest upon the NEWLY-BORN, the now-begotten of the Highest God. …Thou art the son of Mithra.”
“Thou art the ‘Son of God’”, repeated the disciples after Christ’s baptism. When Paul shook off the viper into the fire without further injury to himself, the people of Melita said, “that he was a god” (Acts 28). “He is the son of God, the Beautiful”, was the term used by the disciples of Simon Magus, for they thought they recognized the “great power of God” in him.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 