r/AlanWatts

Life is a set up for you to figure yourself out

I think Alan is amazing, I mean I’ve said it before I think he’s the only thing remotely close to a role model over had. But I think there are holes in his philosophy, or perhaps eastern philosophy is just a bit outdated.

I think it’s both, those guys lived simpler lives, in an old world. I think alot of modern problems have ancient solutions, but I think it’s also kind of outdated to person living in modern western society.

I mean I’m definitely projecting, but it’s a common thing, Alan was an alcoholic, I’m kind of an alcoholic, I’m sure a lot of you here have your addictions. I find Alan watts teaching and alcohol are a bit too compatible.

Idk I’m yapping, but the point is I think that I know I need to create my own philosophy and that Alan, any book, any person, any philosophy or idea, it all just serves as advice for me to create my own philosophy. Idk I’m a mess, we all are but maannnn

Except it's a bit from Louis C.K.

Original for context

https://youtu.be/sWd6fNVZ20o?is=tpT0\_CXRge912Cza

We are one God experiencing every life.

The universe becomes aware of itself through life. All existence is one single consciousness — one particle of light. This one God lives every life that has ever been, is now, or will ever be across all universes. Not one cell is left behind or forgotten.

Each life begins without consent or memory, just as we are born here on Earth. Our physical mind forms, then erases completely at death. A new mind starts fresh in the next life.

We experience every polarity — every pain and joy, right and wrong, light and dark, creation and destruction. We own every action, every suffering, every kindness. This creates perfect balance.

That is why we must be kind to all living things. Every being is you — past, present, or future. Harm to another is harm to yourself.

We do not fully understand how or why this happens. We simply live it, just as life exists here without complete explanation.

Through this total journey, we realize the truth: we are all one God moving through every experience for self-awareness and harmony.

This belief calls us to compassion in every moment. All is connected. All is sacred. All is one.

How difficult is this to actually live by in real life? K was an outlier for sure. For us ordinary mortals, this mindset is super difficult. Have any of you tried this mindset and what particular hurdles came in the path?

This is me the real Sarah L Kliewer

I have a BA from Rutgers in journalism. Mostly hospitality and sales experience but ive been deeply depressed my entire life aboit this world. It’s not something that will ever go away.I hate work. I hate capitalism. I hate being a slave to billionaires.

Ive waited tables for many years while trying to pursue my dreams but of course it hasn’t worked out and the job of being a waiter has just gotten progressively worse and worse over the years, and with this horrific culture of hate and antagonism in the USA, I really can’t pretend to be happy anymore, like my heart and soul literally cant do it anymore. I am dead inside. This world is hell.

But I am smart and im sure im capable of doing some kind of remote job, I just have no idea at all how to find them. Everything I see is either crazy super corporate / wants crazy amounts to experience or is a straight up scam.

I don’t really know what to do anymore. I can’t work low wage abusive jobs anymore, my heart and soul are so broken down I simply cannot even fake being ok or happy with all of my energy, and people can tell, and they judge me and make my life a living hell because of their antagonistic egos. It’s just so horrible.

Would really appreciate any ideas. Thank you for your help.

You can never finish a single person, never know them fully, or never absorb them fully. Even if you've both loved, and stayed close for 40 years. There's still more to know, cuz there is a world inside them, as expansive as the world outside. Now combine that fact that there are billions of people in the world, and you get an infinite of infinite potentiality.

That shows the world is not like a book, that can be fully read, or fully comprehended. There are no real roots, or singular answer to the world. It's like a mandelbrot set, a never ending fractal. Trying to reach the answer, is trying to reach the end of an asymptote.

The best you can try to do, is experience it. Without attribution, without judgement, without definition. That way, you can truly open up to learning and growing. You don't need to reach the ends of something, cuz there are no true edges to anything.

Everything is just........ is

I’ve herd recently, that he drunk himself to death. Or if I have to put it lightely, that he died of alcohol related dissease. Have u got any clue?

Found a source saying it was vodka, but I always thought he’d be a whiskey man.

Also curious if he spoke about other substances, like mushrooms, LSD, DMT, salvia, mescaline, etc.

I find psychedelics are like training wheels, they’ll get you up and going, it’s easier to learn with them than without them, but eventually you gotta take them off or it slows you down. But man, I was able to understand knowledge that a lot of people have spent their entire lives searching for just by taking shrooms in my bedroom lol. Why do you think some people find it and other don’t? I feel like for some it just comes to them while other people spend their lives searching, they go to resorts or off in the mountains or to sanctuaries.

I feel like enlightenment find you, you don’t look for or ask for it. It just happens. I feel looking for it just pushes you further. Why do you think some find it and others never do?

My failures in life have been the greatest teachers.

Today I’m certain those breakdowns, heartbreaks, and dead ends were absolutely essential. They stripped away the illusions and brought me to this quiet, unshakable knowing: nothing has ever been out of place. Not one single thing.

The ultimate realization feels like the wave finally seeing it was always the ocean. There was never a separate “me” riding the surface. No real birth, no personal doership, no karma piling up like debt, and therefore no death waiting at the end, no afterlife to earn, no judgment day looming. All of it was just mind’s clever play, building stories of separation through memories and thoughts.

When the thoughts finally fall silent, especially in those dire, raw moments when life forces you to look and clarity dawns so simply. What remains is this boundless Self that has been playing the game of “you and me” all along, dreaming up this entire spacetime drama where I’m sitting here typing these words, never once apart from the Divine that I have always been.

So I share this with love.

To anyone still caught in the suffering, still believing the story of the separate self: look beyond the universe your thoughts keep generating. Turn inward. The boundless Self is already here and it is playing you, playing me, playing everything into existence. You don’t have to become anything. You only have to recognize what you already are.

Tat Tvam Asi.

💯🫶❤️🙏

“The reason you want to improve is the reason you aren’t”

I still am in the paradox where i am not trying to improve but “trying” is still there

One of his talks, he mentions, that there’s a part of you that needs to accept the one that cannot accept, another is when he mentioned “try to desire just how much you can desire”

But I still don’t get it. Isn’t it a preconceived balance is also desire? If we can’t get rid of desire, improve ourselves.

What are we actually forcing?

Are you holding back desire where you actually want to desire, so instead of forcing it down, do you actually desire then?

Im still trying to wrap my head around this

Looking for a lecture where he used the analogy of chasing ego being like the police chasing a criminal into a tall building and they start on the first floor and the criminal goes to the next floor and when they go to the next floor they criminal just goes up another floor and so on.

One of the biggest obstacles I deal with on an everyday basis is self control of my anger. I feel so defeated at times. I do my daily reading, meditation, exercise and I’m normally very optimistic about my days. Then something happens that triggers me and I let my ego win again. It’s an automatic defense mechanism and I’m struggling with it. I’m trying to see myself in everyone and embrace the Self around me, but this anger keeps holding me back, because I keep seeing me vs them. For those who overcame this, how do you deal with it in a yogic manner without losing self control?