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The moralist is the person who tells people that they ought to be unselfish, when they still feel like egos, and his efforts are always and invariably futile.

Alan Watts

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Alan Watts
Age: 58 †
Born: 1915
Born: January 6
Died: 1973
Died: November 16
Anglican Priest
Author
Dramaturge
Musician
Philosopher
Theologian
Videographer
Writer
Kent
England
Person
Efforts
Feel
Ego
Feels
Tells
Always
Ought
Moralist
Like
Effort
Egos
People
Stills
Futile
Still
Unselfish
Persons
Invariably

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To feel that life is meaningless unless “I” can be permanent is like having fallen desperately in love with an inch.
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Enlightenment or awakening is not the creation of a new state of affairs but the recognition of what already is.
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Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal, for the present moment is infinitely small before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists forever.
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There is nothing wrong with meditating just to meditate, in the same way that you listen to music just for the music. If you go to concerts to get culture or to improve your mind, you will sit there as deaf as a doorpost.
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The style of God venerated in church, mosque, and synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.
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Chaos is always losing, but never defeated
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And although our bodies are bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, they cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment.
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Spiritual awakening is the difficult process whereby the increasing realisation that everything is as wrong as it can be flips suddenly into the realisation that everything is as right is it can be. Or better, everything is as It as it can be.
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You know that if you get in the water and have nothing to hold on to, but try to behave as you would on dry land, you will drown. But if, on the other hand, you trust yourself to the water and let go, you will float. And this is exactly the situation of faith.
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The world is filled with love-play, from animal lust to sublime compassion.
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To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it.
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We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.
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One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said of guilt.
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If you can't meditate in a boiler room, you can't meditate.
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The Godhead is never an object of its own knowledge. Just as a knife doesn't cut itself, fire doesn't burn itself, light doesn't illuminate itself. It's always an endless mystery to itself.
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You must not be afraid of playing wrong notes. Just forget it, play it wrong! But play!
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You can't get wet from the word 'water.'
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If you cannot trust yourself, you cannot even trust your mistrust of yourself - so that without this underlying trust in the whole system of nature you are simply paralyzed
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Cows scream louder than carrots.
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