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Like love, the light or guidance of truth that influences us exists only in living form, not in principles or rules or expectations or advice, however widely circulated

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
Light
Expectations
Truth
Rules
Love
However
Like
Advice
Circulated
Influence
Widely
Principles
Influences
Living
Guidance
Form
Exists

More quotes by Alan Watts

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The real Zen of the old Chinese masters was wu-shih, or no fuss.
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Our pleasures are not material pleasures, but symbols of pleasure – attractively packaged but inferior in content.
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Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.
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To be alive spiritually man must have union with God and must be conscious of it. Apart from this union his religious life will be an empty drudgery, a mere imitation of true spirituality.
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The question is not what I should do in the future to get it, but rather, what am I presently doing that prevents me from realizing it right now?
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I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.
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You can't make love without art.
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The Universe is the game of the self, which plays hide and seek forever and ever.
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This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
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By going out of your mind, you come to your senses
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...mysticism and empiricism go together in opposition to scholasticism...they base themselves on the non-linear world of experience rather than the linear world of letters.
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Western religions are more concerned with behavior, doctrine, and belief than with any transformation of the way in which we are aware of ourselves and our world.
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The animal tends to eat with his stomach, and the man with his brain. When the animal's stomach is full, he stops eating, but the man is never sure when to stop. When he has eaten as much as his belly can take, he still feels empty, he still feels an urge for further gratification.
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But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.
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People become concerned with being more humble than other people.
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Sexual love is a troubled and problematic relationship in cultures where there is a strong sense of man's separation from nature, especially when the realm of nature is felt to be inferior or contaminated with evil.
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But when no risk is taken there is no freedom. It is thus that, in an industrial society, the plethora of laws made for our personal safety convert the land into a nursery, and policemen hired to protect us become selfserving busybodies.
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To remain stable is to refrain from trying to separate yourself from a pain because you know that you cannot. Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brave is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought. There is no escape.
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The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
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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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