Author: Mike Colagrossi / Source: Big Think
- Alan Watts wrote more than 25 books on the subject of philosophy and religion.
- He was among the first to bring Zen Buddhist thought to the west.
- Subjects ranged from dualism in philosophy to the troubles of modern man.
Alan Watts was a gifted philosopher who tasked himself with the near impossible, putting that which transcended the knowable into words.
A counterculture mystic and a spiritual entertainer with an eye on the divine, it’s no surprise that Watt’s philosophy and wisdom filled a number of books.Watts didn’t ask for you to follow any creed, or to look to him as a guru or any other self-defeating self-help drivel. He simply asked just for you to be. The following Alan Watts books cover a number of different topics — a messenger of Zen, Watts bridged the gap of understanding between the East and West — and paint a full picture of a well-lived life in a whimsically poetic way. One that compels you to gaze within yourself and the cosmos around you.
Many wonder what Alan Watts book they should read first. A centerpiece in the bibliography of Watts is a piece usually referred to just as The Book. It is here where Watts sets out to discover what he believes to be the fundamental misunderstanding of who we really are. The idea of the “Ego” or self as an isolated being not connected to the rest of the universe has given us a hostile view of the world “outside of ourselves.”
Watts works to do away with all of these arbitrary divisions, which are products of our language and upbringing. Working from the Hindu Vedanta and other assorted Eastern works, Watts crafts a new way to view the self and the universe together:
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.
With language that is inherently playful and conversational, Watts expertly pokes fun at the belief of viewing the Self as a contained and separate entity from the whole.
You’ll find a number of Watt’s philosophy have been disseminated online through a hodgepodge of lectures taken throughout the years. Become What You Are is a unique set of essays that can be read in a few sittings. The book reads as a disconnected set of ideas as commentary on ways to live.
You may believe yourself out of harmony with life and its eternal Now; but you cannot be, for you are life and exist Now… there is no coming toward it or going away from it; it is, and you are it. So become what you are.
This wonderful kernel of truth blossoms throughout the rest of the book and acts as another introductory entryway into his more deeper and comprehensive works. His grasp and ability to express abstract ideas in such a way that anyone can understand it, is a gift that is expertly shown throughout this book.
Long before yoga studios and hip Zen maxims flooded the Western streets, Alan Watts was explaining and practicing the principles of Zen Buddhism to a new audience of readers. The…
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