To be born is the phenomenon in which self-awareness recognizes “I have been born”.

At that moment, it feels as if the perception of the subjective world has just begun.
But in reality, it is a restorative state following the discontinuity of consciousness that occurs when death is recognized.

From that point, recognition of a new subjective world begins.
But from the soul’s perspective, this is merely a continuation of experience, with a break and recovery in between—an extension of the soul’s journey.

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To die is the phenomenon in which self-awareness recognizes “I have died”.

Because self-awareness understands “the end of the body = death,”
the end of the body manifests as death within the subjective world.

When death is experienced, what happens to self-awareness?
It goes through a near-death experience that aligns with its understanding of what death means,
and then a discontinuity of consciousness occurs. This is death from the soul’s perspective.

For self-awareness that holds the concept of death,
death is experienced as an ending—hence, a break in consciousness.
And because it’s perceived as an end, memory is also cut off.

This is why we are unable to remember past lives.

But in truth, nothing has actually ended.
Self-awareness continues to exist, and so does the information it holds—its soul memory.
Thus, based on that soul memory, a new subjective world is constructed, and the experience of being “born” begins again.

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We experience life and death because our self-awareness holds that structure within the subjective world.

Since self-awareness recognizes “life and death exist,”
that recognition becomes part of its subjective reality.

This recognition isn’t simply an emotional feeling like “I think this” or “I feel that”
—it appears with certainty, as a reality that feels unquestionably real within the subjective world.

That is because it is self-awareness that creates the subjective world.

For more on this, see The Essence of Reincarnation.