Alan Watts

Alan Watts lectures on mystical vision via art, aesthetics, and Buddhist and Daoist philosophy. He advocates the stripping away of unnecessary illusions about who and what we are, in accordance with Buddhist principles. “You and I have all conspired with ourselves to pretend that we are not really God, but of course we are. That is perfectly obvious. We are all apertures through which the universe is looking at itself. Only it is so arranged that we don’t know that in exactly the same way as we don’t look at our own eyes.” One needs to understand what one needs to do in order to attain liberation but the method must be free of self-delusion. Even if one is trying to be passive, one is still striving to do something: one must understand clearly what is going on in the mind. Our self-consciousness can cause a problem: spontaneous and unpremeditated thinking forestalls unnecessary worrying and responsibility.