We are at the moment looking at space as something to be entered by the tremendous thrust of a rocket because that is the attitude of attacking the unknown. And that causes us not to realize that we are already on the most magnificently equipped spaceship, which could hardly be improved upon. It has got a source of temperature and energy just at the right distance from it. It's beautifully equipped with oxygen, with food supplies, with all kinds of delightful things to do while on the journey.... and it's traveling through space at a colossal speed... and it's called the planet Earth.
Alan WattsSomeone once described โChristian Secularismโ as the assumption that there is nothing at all to life except a pilgrimage between the maternity ward and the crematorium, and that it is within that span that Christian concern must be exercised because that is all there is.
Alan WattsIf, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.
Alan WattsWe tend to regard ourselves as puppets of the Past, driven along by something that is always behind us.
Alan WattsInability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilization equipped with immense technological power, the sense of alienation between man and nature leads to the use of technology in a hostile spiritโ-to the โconquestโ of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature.
Alan Watts