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The point is seeing that THIS - the immediate, everyday and present experience - is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe. I believe that if this state of consciousness could become more universal, the pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of the world would dissolve in laughter.

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
Would
Point
Laughing
Passes
World
Happiness
Consciousness
Immediate
Universe
Joy
Nonsense
Business
Serious
Laughter
Experience
Present
Everyday
Become
Seeing
Entire
States
Existence
Ultimate
Dissolve
Believe
State
Universal
Pretentious

More quotes by Alan Watts

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A less 'brainy-culture' would learn to synchronise its body rhythms rather than its clocks.
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But the disappearance of the effort to let go is precisely the disappearance of the separate thinker, of the ego trying to watch the mind without interfering.
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Without birth and death, and without the perpetual transmutation of all the forms of life, the world would be static, rhythm-less, undancing, mummified.
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You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.
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If we are unduly absorbed in improving our lives we may forget altogether to live them.
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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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The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it - aliens.
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The soul is something which contains the body. The body doesn't contain the soul. The soul, if we put it into modern language, is the entire complex of relationships in whose context this organism exists.
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The truth is revealed by removing things that stand in its light, an art not unlike sculpture, in which the artist creates, not by building, but by hacking away.
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What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it's a drag? But you see, that's what people do.
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Philosophy is man’s expression of curiosity about everything and his attempt to make sense of the world primarily through his intellect.
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No one's mouth is big enough to utter the whole thing.
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There's an interdependence between flowers and bees. Where there are no flowers there are no bees, and where there are no bees, there are no flowers. They are really one organism. And so in the same way, everything in nature depends on everything else.
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And so when the essential idea of love is lost there comes talk of fidelity. Actually, the only possible basis for two beings, male and female, to relate to each other is to grant each other total freedom.
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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.
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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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Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.
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To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.
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The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple.
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What was it like to wake up after having never gone to sleep? That was when you were born.
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