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Real religion is the transformation of anxiety into 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
Religion
Real
Transformation
Anxiety
Laughter

More quotes by Alan Watts

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There is an ineffable mystery that underlies ourselves and the world. It is the darkness from which the light shines. When you recognize the integrity of the universe and that death is as certain as birth, then you can relax and accept that this is the way it is. There is nothing else to do.
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You don't look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you.
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If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.
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I too realize that the less I preach the more likely I am to be heard.
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What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it, we don’t like it.
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Nothing is more creative than death, since it has the whole secret of life. It means that the past must be abandoned, that the unknown cannot be avoided, that 'I' cannot continue, and that nothing can be ultimately fixed. When a man knows this, he lives for the first time in his life. By holding his breath, he loses it. By letting go he finds it.
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In a certain sense, Zen is feeling life instead of feeling something about life.
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As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.
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The greater the scientist, the more he is impressed with his ignorance of reality, and the more he realizes that his laws and labels, descriptions and definitions, are the products of his own thought. They help him to use the world for purposes of his own devising rather than understand and explain it.
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Yet again, the more you strive for some kind of perfection or mastery—in morals, in art or in spirituality—the more you see that you are playing a rarified and lofty form of the old ego-game, and that your attainment of any height is apparent to yourself and to others only by contrast with someone else's depth or failure.
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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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Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by somekind of cosmic lawgiver.
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Many people think that the Bible is the authentic word of God and they worship the Bible, making it an idol.
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A philosopher is a sort of intellectual yokel who gawks at things that sensible people take for granted.
Alan Watts
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Everyone is the fabric and structure of existence.
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What we need to realize is that there can be, shall we say, a movement, a stirring among people, which can be organically designed instead of politically designed.
Alan Watts
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If you love a person, you say to that person, Look, I love you, whatever that may be. I've seen quite a bit of it and I know there's lots that I haven't seen, but still it's you and I want you to be what you want to be. And I won't be happy if I've got you in a cage. You'd be a bird without song.
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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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Our normal sense of the person as a lonely island of consciousness, is a dramatic illusion based on theological imagery.
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For a decision-the freest of my actions just happens like hiccups inside me or like a bird singing outside me.
Alan Watts