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The Book
The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are | Alan W. Watts
4 posts | 7 read
At the root of human conflict is our fundamental misunderstanding of who we are. The illusion that we are isolated beings, unconnected to the rest of the universe, has led us to view the outside world with hostility, and has fueled our misuse of technology and our violent and hostile subjugation of the natural world. In The Book, philosopher Alan Watts provides us with a much-needed answer to the problem of personal identity, distilling and adapting the ancient Hindu philosophy of Vedanta to help us understand that the self is in fact the root and ground of the universe. In this mind-opening and revelatory work, Watts has crafted a primer on what it means to be humanand a manual of initiation into the central mystery of existence. From the Trade Paperback edition.
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AmandaBlaze
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1. I believe that constant negative thinking can adversely affect your life.
2. The tagged
#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

TheSpineView Thanks for playing! 13mo
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underground_bks
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Pickpick

Alan Watts was one of the foremost teachers of Eastern thought to the West. In The Book, he explores how ego is a myth. We are not isolated, defined, independent selves, but the universe as well. We are all “God” who is “playing the Game of Black-and-White,” playing as opposing forces, playing hide and seek. It‘s heady stuff, but this book did encourage me to not take myself so seriously and to try to appreciate life and work as serious play.

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catiewithac
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1. Curling 🥌
2. Tagged here! Alan Watts
3. January
4. The Force Awakens?
5. 😘

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quote
AvaRowell

Because he is now so largely defined as a separate person caught up in a mindless universe, his principal task is to get one up on the universe and to conquer nature… [as] the task is never achieved, the individual is taught to live and work for some future in which the impossible will at last happen, if not for him, then at least his children. We are thus breeding a type of human being incapable of living in the present—that is, of really living.