Alan Watts

“If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.” ~ Alan Watts

Alan Watts “was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience.” ~ excerpt from Alan’s wikipedia page

Alan wrote 28 books, numerous articles, and gave hundreds of lectures/seminars on topics such as zen (for which he is likely most well known), our true nature, meaning of life, consciousness, God, psychedelics, arts, happiness, and more. You can get a flavor of his wisdom from the sample excerpt from one of his books:

“Man is characterized by a hunger for the infinite, for an eternity of life, love and joy which, whether he knows it or not, can be nothing other than God. Assuming that God exists, it will follow that God is man’s true end, for the appetite of a living organism shows its function. The stomach hungers for food because it’s function is to digest food. As physical taste and hunger may often be mistaken as to their true object, desiring nothing but caviar instead of a balanced diet, man is often mistaken as to the goal of his life, desiring wealth, power or physical pleasure instead of God. But his real appetite continues to be God, for which these lesser goals are always unsatisfactory substitutes. Those who set their hearts on finite goals are always discontented; they must always have more and more and more of what they desire, and failing this are frustrated and miserable. Profound contentment is only enjoyed by animals and primitives, in which infinite hunger has not been awakened, and by the saints and mystics who have realized union with God.” ~ Alan Watts, excerpt is from Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion, by Alan Watts

To dive deeper into Alan’s prolific work, visit his official website alanwatts.com (maintained by his son Mark Watts and recently renovated) OR a sister site alanwatts.org.

Also, lot of his work is being consolidated and offered as products for purchase. Mark has curated Alan’s recorded talks that are now being offered through Alan Watts Podcast.

There are almost uncountable YouTube videos on Alan’s teachings. As of June 2016 it appears that Mark is doing some consolidation in this aspect as well (an Alan Watts channel that had considerable content has been closed so likely is being redone … also there is still a Mark Watts channel that has a few Alan videos from 7-8 years ago so likely this will be redone too).

You can watch more  Alan Watts videos in our library.

Alan Watts ~ How To Get Out Of Your Own Way, from TheSpiritualLibrary YouTube channel