Ektaji, some sages have said after self-realization that, ‘I took so many births, in different forms, and now the cycle has ended, and I have recognized myself’. (paraphrased here). I used to think the sage is saying he-the-person took many births. But now I realize there is no person. So that is the witness saying that I projected numerous forms and assumed to become them. Is that correct? Why is each sage giving a different account of the forms they projected in the numerous births when there is only one witnessing awareness field?

Answer:

One should be aware that the cunning mind can replace the idea of a reincarnating person with the idea of a gigantic cosmic Witness who personally travels through innumerable bodies.

• • The person does not reincarnate as an enduring entity,
  • Neither does pure Awareness literally become one form after another.

When a sage says, “I have taken innumerable births,” the sage is not necessarily saying that this present person’s body-mind travelled through all those bodies. In fact, the present person itself is only one arising within the Waking projection. What appears to continue is a stream of impressions, tendencies, and identifications within Consciousness. According to the impressions that become active, a particular body-mind-identity in a world appears, and Consciousness temporarily assumes, “I am this.”

So the statement can provisionally be understood as, “I-the-Consciousness, have appeared through innumerable forms and repeatedly assumed myself to be those forms.” But even this is not the final truth. Consciousness never actually became any of those forms. The forms appeared within Consciousness and were witnessed by it. Therefore the deepest realization is not, “I was all those previous people,” but, “None of those people was ever what I truly am.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj would probably go one step further. He would ask, “Who exactly has had these previous births?” Birth and rebirth belong to the movement of Consciousness, samskaras, and manifestation, not to the Absolute.

• • Caged by personal identity-view, Consciousness says, “I was born.”
  • Caged by religious identity-view, it may say, “I have been born many times.”
  • Liberated from duality, the Consciousness recognizes, “All these births appeared within me-the-Consciousness.”
  • Pure Non-duality enables the transcendence to the recognition, ‘You are Prior to Consciousness itself‘. From that standpoint, the question “How many births have I had?” loses its foundation. You were never born even once.

Therefore, the phrase “I projected numerous forms” can be corrected to “There is no cosmic doer projecting forms. The Absolute does not sit somewhere intentionally producing bodies and worlds. Manifestation spontaneously appears within Consciousness. You are prior to both the appearance and the one claiming to have projected it. Hence, there is the knowledge of all appearances.”

Ashtavakra would say, ‘Awareness was never born, never bound, and therefore never liberated’. The statement, “I had thousands of births and have finally become free,” still belongs to the story appearing within consciousness.

• • A king may appear,
  • a beggar may appear,
  • an animal may appear and
  • a sage may appear.

But Awareness does not become any of them. Therefore, Ashtavakra would reduce the matter to something very simple: there are not innumerable births of Awareness. There are innumerable appearances in Awareness. Awareness remains untouched by every appearance.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that many births have passed for both of them, but Krishna knows them whereas Arjuna does not. Krishna nevertheless declares himself unborn and imperishable. So the Gita allows different levels of truth to operate simultaneously.

• • At the level of the jiva, there is continuity of karma, tendencies, and embodiment.
  • At the level of Ishvara, the whole movement of manifestation, with countless bodies, beings, and worlds, belongs to one cosmic Consciousness.
  • At the level of the Supreme, there has actually been no birth at all.

If there is only one Witnessing Awareness, why do different sages describe different previous births?

Because the oneness of Awareness does not mean that every body-mind has the same contents, memories, or samskaras.

• • There may be one light, but it shines through innumerable instruments.
  • One window reveals a mountain, another reveals an ocean, another reveals a tree. The scenes differ, but the light illuminating them is not divided.

Realization also does not necessarily mean that the body-mind suddenly gains access to every memory or every form that has ever appeared in manifestation. Realization is the recognition of what you are, not omniscient access to all the information contained within Consciousness.

One Witnessing Awareness => innumerable streams of impressions, innumerable apparent bodies, and innumerable apparent histories. Different memories may arise through different instruments, while the Awareness witnessing all of them remains one and untouched; just like there may be many different performances on the same single stage!