And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”ġ0. “The meaning of life is just to be alive.

No work of love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.”ĩ. “This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. “Peace can be made only by those who are peaceful, and love can be shown only by those who love. “Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.”Ĩ. “The source of all light is in the eye.”ħ. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money … but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth … In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are ‘coins’ for real things.”Ħ. “What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. “Without birth and death, and without the perpetual transmutation of all the forms of life, the world would be static, rhythm-less, undancing, mummified.”ĥ. “No one is more dangerously insane than one who is sane all the time: he is like a steel bridge without flexibility, and the order of his life is rigid and brittle.”Ĥ. “We do not ‘come into’ this world we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.”ģ. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.”Ģ. Here is a glimpse into some of his most awakening quotes:ġ. Perhaps the most profound part of Watts was that he had the incredible ability of expressing complex thoughts in the simplest of ways. His more than 25 books and various articles spanned sensational subjects, including personal identity, higher consciousness, the true nature of reality, the meaning of life, and the pursuit of happiness without the desire for materialism. And so I let it happen, and suddenly the moment was exactly what I wanted it to be.Īlan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known for his interpretation and popularization of Asian philosophies for the Western minds. I wanted to feel, to sweat, to dig deeper mentally and physically. The recitation reminded me in that moment that what I was feeling was not permanent, and I was choosing to be there to be enlivened, not lifeless. “The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless,” she said. Sweaty, exhausted, and holding a pose for what seemed an eternity, my teacher reminded me of the wisdom of Alan Watts with a single quote that would ultimately make me forget about the physical discomfort I was in, and allow me to fully connect to the beauty of the moment at hand. By Alexa Erickson: In the middle of yoga class the other day…

Alan watts quotes