1. You who wish to celebrate a birthday, inquire first who was born. One’s true birthday is when one enters into the Eternal Being which shines forever without birth or death.
2. Of all days on one’s birthday one should mourn one’s fall (into samsara). To celebrate it as a festival is like adorning and glorifying a corpse. To seek one’s Self and merge in it is wisdom.
From “Collected Work of Sri Ramana Maharishi”, Ch. 8 (“Miscellaneous Verses”)