Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
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Alan Watts
– The Unconventional Way
(1915 - 1973)
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The Alan Watts Story (1)
Born in Kent, England, January 6, 1915.
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The Alan Watts Story (2)
Served on the Council of the World Congress of Faiths
(1936-38).
In all, Alan Watts wrote more than twenty-five books and recorded hundreds
of lectures and seminars - all building toward a personal philosophy that he
himself lived and shared in complete candor and joy with his readers and
listeners throughout the world. His overall works have presented a model of
individuality and self-expression that can be matched by only a few
philosophers.
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The Alan Watts Story (4)
He held fellowships from Harvard University and the Bollingen Foundation,
and was the Episcopal Chaplain at Northwestern University during the
Second World War.
In the mid-sixties he traveled widely with his students in Japan, and visited
Burma, Ceylon, and India.
Alan Watts died in his sleep (at 58) on 16 November 1973, at home aboard
the old ferryboat Vallejo, in San Francisco Bay; he is survived by his second
wife and seven children.
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His Bibliography (1)
The Spirit of Zen (1936)
The Legacy of Asia and Western Man (1937)
The Meaning of Happiness (1940)
The Theologica Mystica of St. Dionysius (1944) (translation)
Behold the Spirit (1948)
Easter - Its Story and Meaning (1950)
The Supreme Identity (1950)
The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951)
Myth and Ritual in Christianity (1953)
The Way of Zen (1957)
Nature, Man, and Woman (1958)
This Is It (1960)
Psychotherapy East and West (1961)
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His Bibliography (2)
The Joyous Cosmology-Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness (1962)
The Two Hands of God - The Myths of Polarity (1963)
Beyond Theology - The Art of Godmanship (1964)
The Book - On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966)
Nonsense (1967)
Does It Matter? - Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality (1970)
Erotic Spirituality - The Vision of Konarak (1971)
The Art of Contemplation (1972)
In My Own Way - An Autobiography 1915-1965 (1972)
Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown - A Mountain Journal (1973)
Tao: The Watercourse Way
(unfinished at the time of his death in 1973 - published in 1975)
The Early Writings of Alan Watts (1987)
The Modern Mystic: A New Collection of Early Writings (1990)
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His Record Albums
Alan Watts made at least two record albums:
Om: The Sound of Hinduism (1967);
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Books Published After His Death
In addition, a number of books have been published by his son Mark since his death, which
contain transcripts of recorded lectures and/or articles not included above. They include:
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His Bestselling Books
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Alan Watts on “Ego”
I find that the sensation of myself as an ego inside a bag of skin is really a hallucination.
What we really are is, first of all, the whole of our body. And although our bodies are
bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, they cannot exist
except in a certain kind of natural environment. Obviously a body requires air, and the air
must within a certain temperature range. The body also requires certain kinds of nutrition.
So in order to occur the body must be on a mild and nutritive planet with just enough
oxygen in the atmosphere spinning regularly around in a harmonious and rhythmical way
near a certain kind of warm star.
"Well," you ask."How do I get rid of it?" And my answer to that is: That's the wrong
question. How does one get rid of what? You can't get rid of your hallucination of being an
ego by an activity of the ego. Sorry, but it can't be done. If you try to get rid of your ego
with your ego you will just end up in a vicious circle. You'd be like somebody who worries
because they worry because they worry.
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Alan Watts on Self
Underneath the superficial self, which pays attention to this
and that, there is another self more really us than I. And the
more you become aware of the unknown self -- if you become
aware of it -- the more you realize that it is inseparably
connected with everything else that is. You are a function of
this total galaxy, bounded by the Milky Way, and this galaxy
is a function of all other galaxies. You are that vast thing that
you see far, far off with great telescopes. You look and look,
and one day you are going to wake up and say, "Why, that's
me!" And in knowing that, you know that you never die. You
are the eternal thing that comes and goes, that appears --
now as John Jones, now as Mary Smith, now as Betty Brown
-- and so it goes, forever and ever and ever.
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
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Alan Watts on God
The difficulty for most of us in the modern world is that the
old-fashioned idea of God has become incredible or
implausible. When we look through our telescopes and
microscopes, or when we just look at nature, we have a
problem.
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Alan Watts on “Nothing”
The idea of nothing has bugged people for centuries, especially in the
Western world. We have a saying in Latin, Ex nihilo nihil fit, which
means "out of nothing comes nothing." It has occurred to me that this is a
fallacy of tremendous proportions. It lies at the root of all our common
sense, not only in the West, but in many parts of the East as well. It
manifests in a kind of terror of nothing, a put-down on nothing, and a
put-down on everything associated with nothing, such as sleep, passivity,
rest, and even the feminine principles.
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Thank You
Ivan Frimmel
Cell: 082-454-0311
E-mail: ivan.frimmel@nanhua.co.za
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