Kirpal Singh not only became known to be a theologian, Yoga teacher and a 'saint' in India, but also in many western countries. However, in addressing this comparative study and biography from a psychological scientific perspective, then the concept of 'second birth' appears to be a problematic expression - as well as that of 'spirituality' itself, and 'light' and 'sound' - as this spiritual process of 'second birth' does not have much in common with natural birth nor with the item birth in general.
The word 'birth' in its meaning of a mother giving birth to a child is rather misleading than useful in this context. Though the expression is not badly chosen allegorically, one would understand it to mean that an analogous process is meant, namely that of entering, and thereby, being born into completely new worldly and 'spiritual' relations. But right away one feels that active entrance would express better what is actually meant than a mere passive 'being born into'.
'Second Birth' is more an active awakening, more of a personal engagement in social, spiritual and cultural activity in the broadest sense, than a passive 'being born' or mere allowing something to happen. But in general, you would probably find the expression 'second birth' to be too flowery, diffuse and too intangible than to use it in a scientific work.
Particularly in modern psychological science or in psychological development research you will find the birth of a human child to appear as such a complex process, that one could say that the neuropsychological events in a baby at birth and in its first years of development are themselves an echo of labor pain, and that a baby's first cry reflects the entire human drama offered by life itself. "A baby is not born as a monad, but is fostered by environment from the beginning of its life on. Its environment consists of thousands of objects, of which the mother, especially her eyes and her breast, count as particular".1 Therefore, first birth coincides with second birth. Second birth inscribes itself into the first in the form of a trauma (a psychic injury that remains unconscious), or as a considerable change, re-structuring, entwinement2 of the entire organism (psychism) from the beginning. Second Birth is established as a reflection (mirroring) and resonance (echo) of the first, and quite so, of the processes surrounding it. With mirroring I would like to relate to 'light', or visual, and in using echo I am referring to 'sound', or symbolism, and would like to enrich and deepen these two terms with others in order to utilize them in a language that supplies connectivity between East und West.
1 Altmeyer, M., Forum der Psychoanalyse, Heft 1 (2005), pages 43-57.
2 I chose to use this peculiar expression here, because such structural definitions will be playing an important role in the forthcoming text. Actually, Freud's pupil O. Rank described considerable re-structuring in the neuropsychological area of the newly born in his work 'Das Trauma der Geburt' (The Trauma of Birth) and stated it to be traumatic for the child.