There is one real birth and one real death. You are born once, and you really die only once.
What is real birth? It is the birth of a “drop” in the Ocean of Reality. What is meant by it? It is the advent of individuality, born of indivisibility through a glimmer of the first most-finite consciousness, which transfixed cognizance of limitation into the Unlimited.
What is meant by real death? It is consciousness getting free of all limitations. Freedom from all limitations is real death. It is really the death of all limitations. In between the real birth and the real death, there is no such reality as the so-called births and deaths.
What really happens in the intermediate stage known as births and deaths is that the limitations of consciousness gradually wear off until consciousness is free of all limitations. Ultimately, consciousness totally free of all limitations experiences the Unlimited Reality eternally. Real dying is equal to real living. Therefore I stress: Die for God and you will live as God.
Baba further commented:
You are first a child, then grow old and drop the body, but you never die and were never born. In the East, Vedantists believe in reincarnation, in numberless births and deaths until one attains God.
The Muslims believe in one birth only and in one death only. The Christians and the Zoroastrians believe the same. All are right. But Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad and Zoroaster all meant what I mean by real birth and real death. I say, You are born once and die once.
All the so-called births and deaths are only sleeps and wakings. The difference between sleep and death is that when you sleep, you awake and find yourself in the same body. But after death, you awake in a different body. You never die; only the blessed ones die and become one with God. Sourced from Lord Meher, online edition, pp. 4388-4389.