Watch the play!

In deep sleep, you are not a self-conscious person—yet you are alive. When you are alive and conscious, but no longer self-conscious, you are not a person any more.

During the waking hours, you are as if on the stage, playing a role—but what are you when the play is over? You are what you are: what you were before the play began, you remain when it is over.

Look at yourself as performing on the stage of life. The performance may be splendid or clumsy, but you are not in it, you merely watch it; with interest and sympathy, of course, but keeping in mind all the time that you are only watching while the play-life is going on.

~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj