If we are not totally blind, what we are seeking is already here. This is it. Alan Watts More Quotes by Alan Watts More Quotes From Alan Watts The world is a marvelous system of wiggles. Alan Watts marvelous world There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, and the whole art of poetry is to say what can't be said. Alan Watts poetry-is said art Once you've learned to think you can't stop. And an enormous number of people devote their lives to keeping their minds busy and feel extremely uncomfortable with silence. Alan Watts numbers people thinking Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live. There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly. Alan Watts missing motivational reality When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment. Alan Watts meditation-and-yoga journey discovery The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive. Alan Watts unique past art To the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it. Alan Watts technology wise men The question "What shall we do about it?" is only asked by those who do not understand the problem. If a problem can be solved at all, to understand it and to know what to do about it are the same thing. On the other hand, doing something about a problem which you do not understand is like trying to clear away darkness by thrusting it aside with your hands. When light is brought, the darkness vanishes at once. Alan Watts light darkness hands Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way. Alan Watts problem inspiring way Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it's just doing it. Alan Watts not-knowing omnipotence knowing 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. Alan Watts love-is two ideas The biggest ego trip is getting rid of your ego, and of course the joke of it all is that your ego does not exist. Alan Watts ego-trip ego It takes time for an acorn to turn into an oak, but the oak is already implied in the acorn. Alan Watts acorns take-time turns To understand music, you must listen to it. But so long as you are thinking, “I am listening to this music,” you are not listening. Alan Watts listening long thinking But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be. Alan Watts faith letting-go inspiring How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god. Alan Watts eye faith inspiring I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time a rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution , where the wave of life bursts into individual, sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment... only to vanish forever. Alan Watts wave-of-life light forever When your eyes are functioning well you don't see your eyes. If your eyes are imperfect you see spots in front of them. That means there are some lesions in the retina or wherever, and because your eyes aren't working properly, you feel them. In the same way, you don't hear your ears. If you have a ringing in your ears it means there's something wrong with your ears. Therefore, if you do feel yourself, there must be something wrong with you. Whatever you have, the sensation of I is like spots in front of your eyes - it means something's wrong with your functioning. Alan Watts imperfection eye mean Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets -- is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together. Alan Watts different secret together Here is the vicious circle: if you feel separate from your organic life, you feel driven to survive; survival -going on living- thus becomes a duty and also a drag because you are not fully with it; because it does not quite come up to expectations, you continue to hope that it will, to crave for more time, to feel driven all the more to go on. Alan Watts circles survival expectations
