Alan Watts Quotes
“Regard yourself as a cloud, in the flesh, because you see, clouds never make mistakes. Did you ever see a cloud that was misshapen? Did you ever see a badly designed wave? No, they always do the right thing. But, if you will, treat yourself for a while as a cloud or a wave and realize that you can’t make a mistake whatever you do. Because even if you do something that appears totally disastrous, it will all come out in the wash somehow or another. Then through this capacity you will develop a kind of confidence. And through confidence you will be able to trust your own intuition.”
Alan Watts, Taoism: Way Beyond Thinking
“Our difficulty is that human consciousness has not adjusted itself to a relational and integrated view of nature. We must see that consciousness is neither an isolated soul nor the mere function of a single nervous system, but of that totality of interrelated stars and galaxies which makes a nervous system possible.”
Alan Watts, Sunbeams (Page 28)
Alan Watts Quote on The Present and How It’s Not A Result Of The Past
“Everyone automatically assumes that the present is the result of the past. Turn it around, and consider whether the past may not be a result of the present. The past may be streaming back from the now, like the country as seen from an airplane.”
Alan Watts, Sunbeams (Page 14)
Beyond the Quote (Day 388)
Seeing the past as being the cause of your present steals from you the accountability that’s needed to take ownership of your future. For, you can’t change the outcome of your future if you’re busy blaming what happened in the past. You have to realize, as Watts outlines above, that it’s the present that caused the past, not the past that caused the present.
Read More »Alan Watts Quote on The Present and How It’s Not A Result Of The Past“For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality. Until this has become clear, it seems that our life is all past and future, and that the present is nothing more than the infinitesimal hairline which divides them. From this comes the sensation of ‘having no time,’ of a world which hurries by so rapidly that it is gone before we can enjoy it. But through ‘awakening to the instant’ one sees that this is the reverse of the truth: it is rather the past and future which are the fleeting illusions, and the present which is eternally real.”
Alan Watts, The Way of Zen, via Sunbeams (Page 12)
“A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts, so he loses touch with reality and lives in a world of illusions.” ~ Alan Watts, via Ego is the Enemy
“How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god? And, when you consider that this incalculably subtle organism is inseparable from the still more marvelous patterns of its environment – from the minutest electrical designs to the whole company of the galaxies – how is it conceivable that this incarnation of all eternity can be bored with being?” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“If we want justice for minorities and cooled wars with our natural enemies, whether human or nonhuman, we must first come to terms with the minority and the enemy in ourselves and in our own hearts, for the rascal is there as much as anywhere in the ‘external’ world – especially when you realize that the world outside your skin is as much yourself as the world inside.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“To play so as to be relaxed and refreshed for work is not to play, and no work is well and finely done unless it, too, is a form of play.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“Peace can be made only by those who are peaceful, and love can be shown only by those who love. No work of love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“You have been hypnotized or conditioned by an educational processing-system arranged in grades or steps, supposedly leading to some ultimate Success. First nursery school or kindergarten, then the grades or forms of elementary school, preparing you for the great moment of secondary school! But then more steps, up and up to the coveted goal of the university. Here, if you are clever, you can stay on indefinitely by getting into graduate school and becoming a permanent student. Otherwise, you are headed step by step for the great Outside World of family-raising, business, and profession. Yet graduation day is a very temporary fulfillment, for with your first sales-promotion meeting you are back in the same old system, being urged to make that quota (and if you do, they’ll give you a higher quota) and so progress up the ladder to sales manager, vice-president, and, at last, president of your own show (about forty or forty-five years old). In the meantime, the insurance and investment people have been interesting you in plans for Retirement – that really the ultimate goal of being able to sit back and enjoy the fruits of all your labors. but when that day comes, your anxieties and exertions will have left you with a weak heart, false teeth, prostate trouble, sexual impotence, fuzzy eyesight, and a vile digestion.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax. There is no point whatever in making plans for a future which you will never be able to enjoy. When your plans mature, you will still be living for some other future beyond.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected – and by physical relations of fascinating complexity.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’ Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book
“Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most important things which seem to distinguish men from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons.” ~ Alan Watts, The Book