The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually โgraspโ reality.
Alan WattsNo worthwhile life can be lived without risks, despite current American superstitions to the contrary.
Alan WattsTo know that you are God is another way of saying that you feel completely one with this universe.
Alan WattsJesus Christ knew he was God. So wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, theyโll say youโre crazy and youโre blasphemous, and theyโll 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, โMy goodness, Iโve just discovered that Iโm God,โ theyโll laugh and say, โOh, congratulations, at last you found out.
Alan WattsTo look at life without words is not to lose the ability to form words- to think, remember, and plan. To be silent is not to lose your tongue. On the contrary, it is only through silence that one can discover something new to talk about. One who talked incessantly, without stopping to look and listen, would repeat himself ad nauseam. It is the same with thinking, which is really silent talking. It is not, by itself, open to the discovery of anything new, for its only novelties are simply arrangements of old words and ideas.
Alan WattsIf to enjoy even an enjoyable present we must have the assurance of a happy future, we are โcrying for the moon.โ We have no such assurance. The best predictions are still matters of probability rather than certainty, and to the best of our knowledge every one of us is going to suffer and die. If, then, we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are certainly not adapted to living in a finite world where, despite the best plans, accidents will happen, and where death comes at the end.
Alan Watts