You go and see a movie or play or drama of say two hours duration. After two hours the movie is over, but the perceiver of the drama is not over, he remains even after the movie is over. The movie or play is a time bound event, which remains that it has birth and death. But the perceiver has nor birth or death – it is the changeless element.
If you imagine that you are a character in the drama, then the moment the drama is over you are dead, you suffer death, but if you do not allow yourself to identify with any character or personality in the drama, then when it is over you have no death and you remain as the eternal witness of the drama – birthless and deathless.
When you wake up from sleep you have the consciousness that is the source of the three gunas with the five elements, and with these gunas and elements the world is formed – and this is so instantaneously. From this, the intellect is formed from the sattva element. We must be at all times firmly aware that we are aloof from the consciousness or movie or drama which is time bound.
In deep sleep, we rest, and then when we wake up the I am appears and the drama continues – this is the cycle. I am is your first threshold or gate, you must firmly establish yourself there and take full advantage of it, and from there it will be fully revealed to us that we are completely aloof from, or a witness to, the activities of the gunas and even consciousness itself.
Whatever you observe you must know that it is not you – you must disown these things and this must be firmly established. You must have full confirmation that you are not the body. This must be firmly felt otherwise it is difficult to pursue this knowledge.
Whatever practical pursuits you have to do in the world in order to earn your livelihood, think only about them and when they are over return to this thoughtless, formless contemplation of I am. Whatever activities you have to do, carry them out – but remember that You are Godly and completely untarnished by these activities. When you are in this Ishwara state all these activities in the world will go on spontaneously.
Source – book titled Gleanings from Nisargadatta