We See It Too Late – Alan Watts On The Life We Live

now as far as I can see the basic mistake is that we've invented this wonderful system of language and calculation and that it is at once too simple to deal with the complexity of the world and also we are liable to confuse that system of symbols with the world itself just as we confuse say money with wealth a lot of people are in business to make money instead of wealth when they make the money they don't know what to do with it and so in the same way we confuse happiness with status and we confuse ourselves as living organisms which are one with this whole universe with something we call our personality now what is our personality our personality is what we call our image our image of ourselves and also our thought about ourselves our idea of ourselves this is the person in other words what people meet and understand and what I understand as Alan Watts is a big act which is not really me because in the image of Alan Watts there are not all my unconscious processes both psychological and physical the construction of my brain is not contained in the concept Alan Watts and the concept Alan Watts does not contain Ain the Inseparable relationships which I have with all the rest of the universe and therefore that concept is a fraud and when it's mistaken for the real me there's a confusion because if somebody says to be Alan wats do something about it the concept Alan Watts can't do anything in other words because it's only a concept you can't make it lift a weight just as three is a concept three the number you can't make just plane three do anything so also you can't wrap up Parcels with the equator it's a useful imaginary line but it can't do anything but we all feel that this concept of ourselves which we call our personality or our ego can do something because we think it really exists and I'll tell you why we think it exists what happens when you if I were to say to you now look hard at the television screen really look at it what do you do as distinct from just watching it in the ordinary way when you say now I really got to see that what do you do notice that you tighten muscles all around here that you frown a little you clench your teeth perhaps now what has that got to do with seeing anything clearly absolutely nothing to do with it same thing when you listen carefully now listen catch everything that's said will you start tightening up around your ears that has nothing to do with hearing Clearly Now from the moment we were little children when teachers in class screamed at us pay attention we go tight in various ways either to see or hear more clearly to concentrate or to will something which is supposed to be difficult to do and that constitutes a habitual tension over the whole body that's there almost all the time and that feeling of unnecessary tension is as it were the material sense ation upon which we fasten this concept of I we hang it on to that feeling the concept is not us the feeling of tension is completely phony it has nothing to do with success in seeing hearing or acting and so we get the marriage of an illusion with a falsehood and that we call ourselves and no wonder we feel cut off from everything alienated frightened of life and death so what has to happen is we have to come back to a Saye view of our own life which is the way we really are an organism functioning in terms of the whole environment with the whole environment instead of this funny little separate personality but how are we going to do that people say you can't change human nature overnight you're asking us to give up the ego and that's the most difficult of all things to do actually it isn't because the ego doesn't exist but of course if you try to give up your ego with your ego then it'll take you to the end of time because this is the point you can't transform yourself you can't make yourself Saye you can't make yourself loving you can't make yourself unselfish and yet it's absolutely necessary that we be that way it's absolutely necessary if we are going to hand over the direction of nature to nature which is what it comes to it's absolutely necessary that we let go of ourselves and it can't be done not by anything that we call doing it acting willing or even just accepting things you can't do it why because you don't really exist as that kind of a separate ego or personality it's just an idea based on a phony feeling so when it comes down to it it's shocking news for us for the human race for our pride you're only making a mess by trying to put things straight you're trying to straighten out a wiggly world and no wonder you're in trouble so you can't do anything so you can't transform yourself and what can you do what happens then if you actually realize you've come to a dead end and the human race has come to a dead end in my opinion what then commit suicide or is there something else what happens when you just wait there's nothing you can do you watch and all you see is what goes on that is happening of itself you're breathing the wind is blowing the trees are waving your blood is circulating your nerves are tingling it's all going on of itself but do you know that's you that's the real you the you that goes on of itself it's not the symbol it's not the person it's you that's happening as when you breathe yes you can get the feeling that I am breathing by shoving your breath but your breath goes on day in and day out without you're doing anything about it or even thinking of it the same way your brain is functioning without your forcing it so when you come to a dead end and we are individually and socially now in 1970 one at a dead end this is the moment of which it is said man's extremity is God's opportunity because we have to stop and when we stop we find a world that is happening rather than being done being shoved and that happening as distinct from doing is our fundamental self and our fundamental self is not something just inside the skin it's everything around us with which we connect when you look out of your eyes at nature happening out there you're looking at you I'm not going to say what we should do from then on but simply that before we think of doing anything in this critical [Music] situation we realize the completely illusory nature of the beings that we think we are and get back again to the beings that we really are which includes all this outside world no longer left [Music] outside