One the most powerfully profound messages around: "It all goes together" - Alan Watts

Whoever cut this did a masterful job with Alan's words. For those who are unfamiliar, Watts is best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Many of his lectures were recorded and can be found in full on YouTube (with countless short clips edited from them, as well). This clip was uploaded a few weeks ago, and I think it's my favorite. Without further ado:



If you'd like to see more of Watts's material (full lectures and clips), I've got a good deal of them collected in a couple the YouTubes channels:

Alan Watts

Alan Watts 2

"To know that you are God is another way of saying that you feel completely with this universe. You feel profoundly rooted in it and connected with it. You feel, in other words, that the whole energy, which expresses itself in the galaxies, is intimate. It is not something to which you are a stranger, but it is that with which you, whatever that is, are intimately bound up. That in your seeing, your hearing, your talking, your thinking, your moving, you express that which it is that moves the sun and other stars. And if you don't know that, if you don't feel that, well naturally you feel alien, you feel a stranger in the world. And if you feel a stranger you feel hostile, and therefore you start to bulldoze things about, to beat it up and to try to make the world submit to your will, and you become a real troublemaker." - Alan Watts

Edit to add: One more video that belongs in the OP:

Genesis 3:4-5
New King James Version (NKJV)
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

And the lie continues to this very day...


Did she become like God? Did eve become spiritually enlightened? NO! You can seek truth where there is none to be found, and you will end up believing lies. That is what the evil one wants from you, he says "you can be god, you don't need Jesus." but he is the father of lies who masquerades as an angel of light.

reply to post by iSHRED


Check the context of the quote, don't just stop at "To know that you are God..." He is saying it in the sense that you are fundamentally one with the you universe. The same energy that pervades through the universe pervades through you. He also put it like this:

"But the other people say there was a primoridial explosion, an enormous bang billions of years ago which flung all the galazies into space. Well let's take that just for the sake of argument and say that was the way it happened.

It's like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it's dense, isn't it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns, see? So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang. We are the complicated little patterns on the end of it. Very interesting. But so we define ourselves as being only that. If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlique, way out on the edge of that explosion. Way out in space, and way out in time.

Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are. Depends how you define yourself. You are actually--if this is the way things started, if there was a big bang in the beginning-- you're not something that's a result of the big bang. You're not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are still the process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are. When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as--Mr so-and- so, Ms so-and-so, Mrs so-and-so--I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know I'm that, too. But we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it."

Further, through "you" the entire universe is being played. You are not God in the sense of omnipotence and omnipresence, of total and absolute control, or of an expanded ego. But it is "you" who turns vibrations in the air to light, shape, and sound. The universe plays through you like music plays through the diaphragm of a stereo. Or, to put it another way, you are an aperture through which the universe experiences itself. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor put it this way:

"We are the life-force power of the universe, with dexterity."

reply to post by deometer


Sound very well but it still remains the philosophy of a man. There cannot be multiple different/opposing truths. The Spirit has confirmed truth in my heart therefore is my way of testing any other teaching as truth or lies. You can receive spiritual and supernatural experiences from God or demons. What you receive from demons you can recognize by whether it points you to Christ or not.

EDIT: I confused Alan Watt with Alan Watts..

Here's Alan Watt:

www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com...

HERE'S Alan Watts:

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by iSHRED


You are not your physical body. Your body fears death, not your eternal soul.
I'm curious to know if people truly believed they are experiencing their one and only incarnation why would they not be fully embracing the experience?

Originally posted by starshift
reply to post by iSHRED

 

You are not your physical body. Your body fears death, not your eternal soul.

I agree

I'm curious to know if people truly believed they are experiencing their one and only incarnation

Are you implying this is what I believe.

why would they not be fully embracing the experience?

How better to embrace it than to bring pleasure to the One who brought me life?

reply to post by iSHRED


The quote saying the serpent says surely you will not die and you said the lie continues. I just find it odd that you mentioned this in response to a video and related it to what Eve experienced.
After reading a bit more of your first post in regards to man or woman being god negates the need for Jesus, I think I have a better understanding of our discernment, but I do reject your interpretation that if the information does not point to Christ, that its of demonic origin. That just seems so polarized. We are not separated from God.

Originally posted by starshift
reply to post by iSHRED

 

The quote saying the serpent says surely you will not die and you said the lie continues. I just find it odd that you mentioned this in response to a video and related it to what Eve experienced. 
After reading a bit more of your first post in regards to man or woman being god negates the need for Jesus, I think I have a better understanding of our discernment, but I do reject your interpretation that if the information does not point to Christ, that its of demonic origin. That just seems so polarized. We are not separated from God. 

edit on 28-1-2013 by starshift because: Add

Anyone who comes to the conclusion that they are "god", naturally would feel that salvation is not needed. Why would there be a need for salvation if one is "god"? Therefore, the person rejects it. When one is convinced that there is no need of salvation, one rejects the concept of sin, and when one rejects the truth of sin, one comes to reject that there is evil and good. This is the common belief produced by meditation and eastern 'spiritual' practices, now flooding the lands of the descendants of Christians who have been fed a diet of evolution and science and love of sin. What would be more attractive to such individuals? A religion which tells them that their sins aren't really sin, that their perverse desires are neither intrinsically good or evil and that they are god or Jesus telling them that they will die in their sins? Disobedient spirits refuse to obey and they insist that they know better than God Himself.

It's the whole parable of Adam and Eve. Raise desires for something which Our Creator has forbidden. God made that fruit attractive, but it went unnoticed until the serpent sold it's "benefits". At which point, desires for those "benefits" were raised and they began to SEE that the fruit was attractive to gain what the serpent promised. In other words, they desired for those "benefits", this desire made them perceive the fruit to be good and in order to eat it, they had to convince themselves that God lied (you will die) and the serpent was telling the truth  (thou wilt not die). 

All of us do this - and those running the lying signs and wonders today know it. Sex sells, fear of terrorism, fear of death, fear of nuclear Armegeddon, fear of cancer, fear of the flu! Fear of disease! What if nuclear weopans don't really exist? What if everything that we've been told is but lies?

It's the same with meditation. The yogi's promises appeal to the sensuous desires of man. If you'll only eat this fruit (meditate) you'll come to understand that you are one with the universe, that you are god and that we have multiple chances through reincarnation to get it right. So a person who this appeals to, tries  it. They have experiences through their senses - hallucinations, astral trips, encountering beings, bliss, trips to other planets, sex with beings etc - and lo and behold, their desires for these things to be true coupled with the signs and wonders convinces them that the yogis were truthful ! They are god! They have psychic powers! Their desires and senses proved a lie as truth. Scriptire could not have been clearer - do not judge based on what you SEE, Eve SAW that the fruit was good, the sons of God SAW that the daughters of men....blessed are those who believe without SEEING...

The serpent is a liar and deceiver. His children know how to control the world and keep their power - make their converts twice the children of hell. These converts love to wallow in sin and are ruled by their desires. As such, their highest priorities are carnal based. Fear of death, sex, food, money. Go to India and see the results of such philosophy - people taking a dump on the side of the road in front of all, bathing in the rivers next to floating dead bodies, men consumed by sensuality displayed in bisexuality, masses oppressed and not cared for because they believe that suffering is needed to get out of karma, and yogis in catatonic states having their nappies changed and spoon fed their meals because they've reached the 'highest' state of enlightenment - the complete removal of consciousness. Well, I can tragically view this in any mental hospital, so no thanks. 

And yet, millions are buying these lies by abandoning their God given common sense and rational thinking - the two very things that eastern spirituality removes from an individual. Adam KNEW better, he knew the TRUTH but he threw it all away because of love of inequity. Jesus Christ took back everything that Adam lost, yet the world wants Adam instead of the one who freely gives it to those who learn to love the truth instead of the lie. As Our God of Heaven and Earth repeatedly states, we reject HIM, not the other way around. Sin does separate you from Him, for God is GOOD. You must reject evil.

Thanks a lot for sharing! Maybe it´s just me, but lately I have seen how more and more people start to identify with the whole Universe, feeling connected and not only vougly spiritually, but also trough scientific knowledge about Universe. How we are all one ocean of atoms taking different forms, evolving. This is so beautiful and inspiring. For me this is real evolution of the mind.
The world is growing bigger and bigger from your own little village and tribe to the planet and now to the Universe. Though we are just in the beginning on the cosmic scale.

reply to post by WhoKnows100


Very well said.

When you say "Parable of Adam and Eve" are you saying it is only that?

Thank you OP I think I will check out the other videos, To be one with the universe or to have god in you does not
deny his existence. I believe people can be a little dogmatic which is a disservice to the thinking mind and feeling soul with which we were created. If we all try to be a little open minded to consider other ideas and points of view it is not a threat to our own beliefs but rather a tool in which we can confirm or expand upon them. S&F Op.

reply to post by deometer


You jacked it up. Taylor was NOT saying anything about you (all of us) being an "aperture." She was in fact saying you ARE divine and powerful, not in any metaphorical, poetic way, but in actuality.

Alan Watts is The Freaking Man! But you should not throw bible quotes in a Watts thread. Pointless.

reply to post by MarsSentinel


I didn't say that's exactly what Taylor said, but it was meant to imply that she was expanding on the theme. And I see it as a "both and..." reality. Alan Watts himself made the "aperture" reference/metaphor on multiple occasions:

"You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself."
...
“The individual is an aperture through which the universe becomes aware of itself.”

And where did I throw bible quotes in? Or was that not directed at me?

reply to post by WhoKnows100


Hear, hear!

One of the most powerful, but also vague, therefore meaningless.

reply to post by FlowThruSpace


Well, Watts would probably be the first to tell you that it's one thing to contemplate this intellectually, and another to experience it directly (which is what makes it more convincing/concrete):

"He has arrived, by chance or by some such discipline as Yoga or Zen meditation, at a state of consciousness in which he experiences directly and vividly what our own scientists know to be true in theory. For the ecologist, the biologist, and the physicist know (but seldom feel) that every organism constitutes a single field of behavior, or process, with its environment. There is no way of separating what any given organism is doing from what its environment is doing, for which reason ecologists speak not of organisms in environments but of organism-environments. Thus the words "I" and "self" should properly mean what the whole universe is doing at this particular "here-and-now" called John Doe."
...
"It isn't just a theoretical thing that we know about, as ecologists, for example, know about the identity of the organism with its environment, but becomes something that we actually experience."

That being said, I don't think his message was vague at all. Sure, you can get into the way the elements are "forged" and spread throughout the cosmos like Neil deGrasse Tyson, or the interconnection of an ecosystem from the trillions of bacteria and fungi in the soil, to the plants and seed dispersing/fertilizing/pollinating animals, or the hydrologic cycle of the biosphere, but that's exactly what "it all goes together" implies (which Watts does expand upon in that clip). It is not meaningless because, when apprehended, it can fundamentally transform one's way of living. What one believes, their fundamental assumptions in life (or, as Watts put it, their "common sense"), is the foundation for the way they view themselves and the world and what governs their actions and behaviors. The understanding Watts offers is not only a new "common sense," but a new sense of identity. And the lack of awareness of this basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination (which leads to devastating results).

This recent RSA clip - from a computer programmer - is just an example of how this way of thinking/understanding can have wide-ranging effects:



And, if you'd like to hear Watts go more in-depth on the matter, I suggest this lecture: