For a long time we have been accustomed to the compartmentalization of religion and science as if they were two quite different and basically unrelated ways of seeing the world. I do not believe that this state of doublethink can last. It must eventually be replaced by a view of the world which is neither religious nor scientific but simply our view of the world. More exactly, it must become a view of the world in which the reports of science and religion are as concordant as those of the eyes and ears.

The Joyous Cosmology 1962 (from the introduction by Timothy Leary)

"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

The point is to know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that "I" and all other "things" now present will vanish, until this knowledge compels you to release them -- to know it now as surely as if you had just fallen off the rim of the Grand Canyon. Indeed, you were kicked off the edge of a precipice when you were born, and it's no help clinging to the rocks falling with you. And then comes the hitherto unbelievable suprise: you don't die because you were never born. You had just forgotten who you are.

The Book

Alan Watts (1915-1973)

AUDIO AUDIO AUDIO

Allan Watts Blues by Van Morrison

Well I'm taking some time with my quiet friend.
Well I'm takin' some time on my own.
Well I'm makin' some plans for my getaway;
There'll be blue skys shining above.
When I'm cloud hidden,
Cloud hidden,
Whereabouts unknown.

I have promised myself that if and when I reach the age of seventy, I shall retire to a mountain slope near the ocean and raise a small garden of herbs...and if the world presses too much in on me, my wife will respond to unwelcome visitors in the words of Chia Tao's poem Searching for the Hermit in Vain:

The masters gone alone
Herb-picking, somewhere on the mount,
Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.

Alan Watts (from Does It Matter?)

To top