Don't Think That This Is Casual
Alan Watts is basically telling me (through "The Book") the same thing that Grant Morrison told me a few years back, that the ego, the self, is an illusion. I listened to Morrison and opened my eyes to other possibilities, other world views, which led me to Neuro-linguistic programming. That opened me to endless points of view but also seemed to emphasize that there WERE endless points of view, that we ARE all different, that ego is real. And now hearing the same ideas from Watts that the ego isn't real, but explained much more thoroughly creates this clarity/confusion that won't stop.
The best and most memorable line so far is that in the same way that the ocean ripples, the world peoples. We are NOT new beings by any means. We are all as old as anything else, both the material we are made up of and the energy that keeps us going is ancient. In that way, the self really isn't true. My body has been alive before, in thousands of different pieces of thousands of different plants and animals. Think about that for a while. We are not beings that wake up one day run around in circles yapping about unimportant things and then go away okay maybe we are to some degree but the point is that we were here before, and when we die, we will still be here. You can not create nor destroy energy. It's TRANSFERRED.
The problem that I run into there is that we are now embalmed and concreted into a hole. Screw that, if cremation is the only other option in our culture then I choose that. It would be nice if people would realize that being buried under a tree naturally, or fed to the sharks would make much more sense and would complete rather than defeat the circle of life. I digress.
The problem with the ego of the self is that it makes us feel isolated, separate from the rest of the world, and lonely. This isolation leads to hostility. We separate ourselves into teams and violently oppose the others that we see none of ourselves in. Religion is the most common team. It connects you to a lot of people so that you feel less isolated, and provides a moral code to live by and some sort of explanation (however silly and outlandish) of the world and why we are here, one feels that there is meaning to life.
"Religions are diverse and quarrelsome. They are a form of one-upmanship because they depend upon separating the "saved" from the "damned," the true believers from the heretics, the in-group from the out-group. Even religious liberals play the game of "we're-more-tolerant-than-you." - Alan Watts
"Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, open-ness an act of trust in the UNKNOWN." - Alan Watts
Everything is a part of the whole. You were once a part of the mountain that you once saw in a geography book, part of you once swam down the stream that you fished in as a kid, the air you breathe is made up of the exact same molecules that the Voltaire and Rasputin once breathed in. Light isn't light without darkness, so it's a process light/dark, and even that doesn't exist without your eyes and brain to interpret it. A wave is a wave/trough its one thing. Life is life/death. Music is just as much the intervals in-between the notes as the notes themselves. Matter can only be measured by using the space around it, its part of a whole.
"Thus for thousands of years human history has been a magnificently futile conflict, a wonderfully staged panorama of triumphs and tragedies based on the resolute taboo against admitting that black goes with white."
No one part of the universe is separable from the whole.
Even Hate is hate/love. The things that you hate are part of you, just as the things that you love are. And what's even more interesting to me is that it took millions of years of multiplex causality to cause both of them. That band that you hate so much (who by the way has reached the goal of getting into your subconscious) and the book that you love so much are the products of infinite chain reactions. of which your matter and energy has been a part of all along. If we understand that going back in time and killing an animal, or setting a fire, or teaching a philosophy would forever alter the course of the world. Then we also must understand that had the matter that we are made of and the energy that we are using not been in the exactly right place in the exact right time for the last billion years, then none of this would be the same!
Understanding that says to me that we are not temporary and we are not separate from the whole by any means.
RUMI had a great line that I'll never forget
"The waves from the words I am speaking are pounding on the drums inside your ears, so dont think that this is casual."
By that same line of thought The words that I am typing, which are being transferred all over the world by means of 1's and 0's are being seen by your eyes and causing an electrical storm in your brain, which is making images, understanding and disagreeing, recording information and making new connections. It is now a part of your subconscious thought, like it or not. So don't think that this is casual.
Alan Watts is basically telling me (through "The Book") the same thing that Grant Morrison told me a few years back, that the ego, the self, is an illusion. I listened to Morrison and opened my eyes to other possibilities, other world views, which led me to Neuro-linguistic programming. That opened me to endless points of view but also seemed to emphasize that there WERE endless points of view, that we ARE all different, that ego is real. And now hearing the same ideas from Watts that the ego isn't real, but explained much more thoroughly creates this clarity/confusion that won't stop.
The best and most memorable line so far is that in the same way that the ocean ripples, the world peoples. We are NOT new beings by any means. We are all as old as anything else, both the material we are made up of and the energy that keeps us going is ancient. In that way, the self really isn't true. My body has been alive before, in thousands of different pieces of thousands of different plants and animals. Think about that for a while. We are not beings that wake up one day run around in circles yapping about unimportant things and then go away okay maybe we are to some degree but the point is that we were here before, and when we die, we will still be here. You can not create nor destroy energy. It's TRANSFERRED.
The problem that I run into there is that we are now embalmed and concreted into a hole. Screw that, if cremation is the only other option in our culture then I choose that. It would be nice if people would realize that being buried under a tree naturally, or fed to the sharks would make much more sense and would complete rather than defeat the circle of life. I digress.
The problem with the ego of the self is that it makes us feel isolated, separate from the rest of the world, and lonely. This isolation leads to hostility. We separate ourselves into teams and violently oppose the others that we see none of ourselves in. Religion is the most common team. It connects you to a lot of people so that you feel less isolated, and provides a moral code to live by and some sort of explanation (however silly and outlandish) of the world and why we are here, one feels that there is meaning to life.
"Religions are diverse and quarrelsome. They are a form of one-upmanship because they depend upon separating the "saved" from the "damned," the true believers from the heretics, the in-group from the out-group. Even religious liberals play the game of "we're-more-tolerant-than-you." - Alan Watts
"Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, open-ness an act of trust in the UNKNOWN." - Alan Watts
Everything is a part of the whole. You were once a part of the mountain that you once saw in a geography book, part of you once swam down the stream that you fished in as a kid, the air you breathe is made up of the exact same molecules that the Voltaire and Rasputin once breathed in. Light isn't light without darkness, so it's a process light/dark, and even that doesn't exist without your eyes and brain to interpret it. A wave is a wave/trough its one thing. Life is life/death. Music is just as much the intervals in-between the notes as the notes themselves. Matter can only be measured by using the space around it, its part of a whole.
"Thus for thousands of years human history has been a magnificently futile conflict, a wonderfully staged panorama of triumphs and tragedies based on the resolute taboo against admitting that black goes with white."
No one part of the universe is separable from the whole.
Even Hate is hate/love. The things that you hate are part of you, just as the things that you love are. And what's even more interesting to me is that it took millions of years of multiplex causality to cause both of them. That band that you hate so much (who by the way has reached the goal of getting into your subconscious) and the book that you love so much are the products of infinite chain reactions. of which your matter and energy has been a part of all along. If we understand that going back in time and killing an animal, or setting a fire, or teaching a philosophy would forever alter the course of the world. Then we also must understand that had the matter that we are made of and the energy that we are using not been in the exactly right place in the exact right time for the last billion years, then none of this would be the same!
Understanding that says to me that we are not temporary and we are not separate from the whole by any means.
RUMI had a great line that I'll never forget
"The waves from the words I am speaking are pounding on the drums inside your ears, so dont think that this is casual."
By that same line of thought The words that I am typing, which are being transferred all over the world by means of 1's and 0's are being seen by your eyes and causing an electrical storm in your brain, which is making images, understanding and disagreeing, recording information and making new connections. It is now a part of your subconscious thought, like it or not. So don't think that this is casual.