I think many christians would take issue with that; the experience of being 'born again' is about transformation following an encounter with the Holy Spirit; the language of being 'reborn' indicating that a completely new person arises replacing forever the original person. It is often claimed that this transformation comes unexpectedly out of the blue, not in response to 'searching', and is fully and only truly explicable in terms of God's grace, ie it is nothing whatsoever to do with self development, self realisation or human worthiness.
Self Realization is also about transformation. Its about allowing a higher personality to take over from a lower personality. It actually happens at one point or one period in time....but to get to that point it requires constant discipline and faith. There is an actual change of inner personality.
I have written many times on the little story in the Upanishads about two birds. One bird sits quietly on a high branch. The second bird sits on a lower branch eating away at the fruits. The second one suddenly bites into a bitter fruit ...it looks up at the first bird in envy and hops a little closer. It then forgets its bitter experience and gets back to eating the fruits. It again bites into a bitter fruit...looks up at the first bird and hops a little closer. This goes on till finally both the birds merge.
IMO they refer to the same experience.
