Alan Watts Being in the Way

Ep. 40 – Nature of Consciousness

Dismantling the illusion of separation, Alan Watts shares how recognizing our fundamental unity with the universe transforms the way we live, perceive, and prepare for death.Help us celebrate 10 years of Be Here Now Network and support the next chapter of Ram Dass Here and Now. Gifts are matched dollar for dollar through June 30. Learn more and give here: BHNN 10th Birthday FundraiserToday’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.This week on Being in the Way, Alan Watts lectures on:Playing hide and seek with our true selvesHow your body knows that you are one with the universeSeeing things versus noticing thingsThe yoga of preparing for death The partial view that the ego keeps us trapped in The continuous energy of our bodiesDissolving the distinction between voluntary and involuntary behavior The transaction between the individual and the world This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts. “Doesn’t it really astonish you that you are this fantastically complex thing and that you’re doing all of this and you never had any education in how to do it? You never learned, but you’re this miracle. From a strictly physical, scientific standpoint, this organism is a continuous energy with everything else that’s going on. If I am my foot, I am the sun. Only, we’ve got this little partial view. We’ve got the idea that ‘I’m just something in this body’, the ego, that’s a joke.” –Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ep. 39 – What Am I?

Moving beyond the imagined boundary of form, Alan Watts explores the idea that humanity is a microcosm of the universe and that the two are inseparable. Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts discusses:Considering whether being part of a whole means that we are the wholeThe radial structure of humanity, Earth, and all beingsRecognizing that skin is not the boundary of manHow foreign the inner workings of the human body seem to humannessThe nature of the mind, likened to the nature of spaceThe illusion of an individual operating from himself Blending together materialism and mysticism, not getting too stuck in one or the other This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts. “Any other way of looking at things is kind of schizoid. It looks at human beings as if they arrived in this world like a bunch of birds on the branches of a barren tree. They just got settled there, they don’t belong, a sense of being strangers and pilgrims from another domain altogether. Well, where is this other domain, and how does it relate to this one?” –Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ep. 38 – What Is It?

Alan Watts explores the inseparable dance between structure and formlessness, revealing why the universe can never be fully captured by words alone.Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts outlines:Two distinct schools of thought: those who focus on structure, and those who focus on what Watts calls ‘goo’How fixating on practicality is like knowing all the words to a song without ever truly hearing the musicThe difference between a scientific perspective and a spiritual perspective Why structure and formlessness are inseparable aspects of the same cosmic processUnderstanding that the universe cannot be explained with words aloneThis series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts."What is it? What is this universe? What is an atom? What is energy? The only answer that would really please me wouldn't be an ordinary answer, because it wouldn't be in words." –Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ep. 37 – Reality, Art and Illusion

Inviting listeners to question the nature of reality, consciousness, and perception, Alan Watts explores the limits of what the mind can truly know.This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts explains:Solipsism and how it subtly shapes modern human consciousnessThe philosophical case for idealism and the nature of reality as mind-dependentRelativity and how things exist for the purpose of other thingsThe mind as a mirror and the illusion of an objective, external viewpointConsidering how the spiritual world affects the material worldThe enduring philosophical question: What exists when no one is observing?The Four Buddhist Inconceivables and the limits of conceptual thought"Being is always being for something; it is, in other words, relational. The sun is light for eyes. Eyes are organs of vision for a mind. If there are no eyes, the sun gives forth no light. If there are no nerve ends it gives forth no heat. If there are no muscles, nothing is heavy.” –Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ep. 36 – Seeing through The Net

In this new, technological age, Alan Watts explains how seeing reality via only one perspective can lead to a fragmented view of the world; instead, he encourages listeners to adopt both the analytical and the organic. This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.In this episode, Alan Watts dives into:Living in an age of technology in a culture obsessed with rational control How someone can easily be obstructed by their own cautiousnessThe problem of human ecology and how one should best relate to their environmentConsidering what our idea of heaven is and what desires we truly want The western model of the universe (intellectual, architectural, mechanical) Reductive thinking: seeing the world through a net and making everything into a comprehensible, geometrical unitThe fundamental difference between a mechanism and an organism How understanding the world through only conscious attention can lead to seeing everything as parts rather than the whole pictureCombining the academic, analytical mind with the organic, ‘gooey’ mind “Go to the science of medicine. You get a specialist who really understands the function of the gall bladder. He studied gall bladders ad infinitum, and he really thinks he knows all about it. But, whenever he looks at a human being, he sees them in terms of the gall bladder.” – Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.