To be born again is to have access to another living state of reality, another state of consciousness, another level of being. It is not a question of transformation only; it is rather abandoning one milieu to another. This world in which we live, with all its imperfections and miseries, while remaining in a sense the same, has become a completely different world, precisely because we now have new eyes.
— Jean Maalouf, Jesus Laughed and Other Reflections on Being Human