The Official Alan Watts appreciation thread

[johnnie]

Anyone else read his books?

Some quotes:

"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth."


"As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated "egos" inside bags of skin."



"Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations."


"No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve in quality as it goes along,or that the whole object of playing it is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing
and listening to it.
It is the same, I feel,with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them--
we may forget altogether
to live them."

[quispquake]

1. I read "Be Here Now" years ago...

Freaked out on the lemonade story!!! I also got ahold of his 1969 album "Why Not Now" which is fantastic! (Very spacy meditative sounds with some cool chants).

[regularguy]

3. I believe that "Be Here Now" is by Ram Das /Richard Alpert

Read it a long time ago...can't recall the details of the lemonade story...

[quispquake]

8. Whoops..yer right...

It WAS awhile ago :)

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. The Book on the Taboo Against Being WHo You are

was the first one of his books I read....it stayed with me...great book

[htuttle]

4. I read him while in High School

He didn't give me 'The Answers'.

However, his books were vital in helping me formulate 'the questions'.

[johnnie]

5. For some reason

He never has the answer. He just keeps asking questions.

[regularguy]

6. I went through a serious Alan Watts phase in my late teens.

Read "The Book...", "Does it Matter", and a few others that I can't recall. Good stuff although it got a little repetitious. I dropped the whole eastern thing a while ago, but books by Watts, Ram Das, Trungpa, the Beats, etc really helped me form a decent real-life philosophical outlook.

[johnnie]

7. I never picked up the whole eastern thing

It was just there I guess.