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We are all as much extraordinary phenomena of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars and the form of a galaxy.

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
Water
Arrangements
Running
Trees
Nature
Patterns
Form
Clouds
Much
Extraordinary
Flickering
Tree
Arrangement
Fire
Galaxy
Stars
Phenomena

More quotes by Alan Watts

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More and more we try to effect an adaptation to life by means of external gadgets, and attempt to solve our problems by conscious thinking rather than unconscious 'know-how'. This is much less to our advantage than we like to suppose.
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Think about a piece of music - some great symphony - we don't expect it to get better as it develops, or that its whole purpose is to reach the final crescendo. The joy is found in listening to the music in each moment.
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We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.
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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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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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Insecurity is the result of trying to be secure.
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You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are.
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When you get free from certain fixed concepts of the way the world is, you find it is far more subtle, and far more miraculous, than you thought it was.
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So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.
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The morning glory which blooms for an hour differs not at heart from a giant pine that lives for a thousand years.
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LSD is simply an exploratory instrument like a microscope or telescope, except this one is inside of you instead of outside of you.
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Our view of reality is like a chart of the sea - the truer it is, the less likely we will become lost.
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Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe.
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... nets, grids, and other types of calculus.
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Through our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its glory, of its magnificence.
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Do you have any control over being conscious? Do you know how you will?
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Your body does not eliminate poisons by knowing their names. To try to control fear or depression or boredom by calling them names is to resort to superstition of trust in curses and invocations. It is so easy to see why this does not work. Obviously, we try to know, name, and define fear in order to make it “objective,” that is, separate from “I.
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But my dear man, reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.
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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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They are enlightened who join in this play knowing it as play, for people suffer only because they take as serious what the gods made for fun.
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