Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we're not alone.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of vulnerability and shared experiences in human connection.
Alan Watts suggests that by openly sharing our deepest fears and secrets, we can alleviate the burdens of isolation and recognize our shared humanity. This act of vulnerability not only fosters connection but also reassures us that we are not alone in our struggles and shortcomings.
In practice
During a support group meeting, this quote could be used to encourage members to share their stories.
Jesus Christ knew he was God. So wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.
What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained - though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.
There is only this now. It does not come from anywhere; it is not going anywhere. It is not permanent, but it is not impermanent. Though moving, it is always still. When we try to catch it, it seems to run away, and yet it is always here and there is no escape from it. And when we turn around to find the self which knows this moment, we find that it has vanished like the past.
Many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment.
There are two specific objections to use of psychedelic drugs.First,use of these drugs may be dangerous.Howev er,every worth-while exploration is dangerous-climb ing mountains,testi ng aircraft,rocket ing into outer space,or collecting botanical specimens in jungles.But if you value knowledge & the actual delight of exploration more than mere duration of uneventful life,you are willing to take the risks.
The Godhead is never an object of its own knowledge. Just as a knife doesn't cut itself, fire doesn't burn itself, light doesn't illuminate itself. It's always an endless mystery to itself.
The idea that public safety, the safety of the innocent, is an absolute which trumps every other consideration, is tacitly abandoned in the way we live.
Mary's life was a perfect imitation of Jesus. She was humble, hidden, sorrowful and afflicted, but she also knew joys that never entered the heart of man. She is all things to all men that she might understand their failings, though she failed not.
Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.
The most dangerous kind of man is not the one who spent his youth shoving others around. That kind of man gets lazy, and is often too content with his life to be truly dangerous. The man who spent his youth being shoved around, however … When that man gets a little power and authority, he often uses it to become a tyrant on par with the worst warlords in history.
There was a time when time did not yet exist. … The rejection of birth is nothing but the nostalgia for this time before time.
To write an autobiography, you've got to expose other people. I hope to get out of this world as gracefully as possible, without embarrassing anyone.
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