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The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.

Alan Watts

Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.
ALAN WATTS

Humanity Humor Knowledge Laugh Oneself
The art of meditation is a way of getting into touch with reality, and the reason for it is that most civilized people are out of touch with reality.
ALAN WATTS

Civilization Meditation People Reality Reason Touch
To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.
ALAN WATTS

Faith Float Freedom Grab Relaxation Swim Trust Water Yourself
I have no other self than the totality of things of which I am aware.
ALAN WATTS

Aware
Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.
ALAN WATTS

Persistent Philosophy Problem Question Suspect Wrong
The relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.
ALAN WATTS

Impossible Love Realize Relationship Self Love Yourself
If you cannot trust yourself, you cannot even trust your mistrust of yourself – so that without this underlying trust in the whole system of nature you are simply paralyzed
ALAN WATTS

Nature System Trust Yourself
Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.
ALAN WATTS

Delay Hurry Present Resistance Try
When we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else, we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us.
ALAN WATTS

Attempt Avoid Control Deep Exercise Power
You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.
ALAN WATTS

Ocean Physical Universe Wave
What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it, we don’t like it.
ALAN WATTS

Discover Finding Imagination Pain Safety Seek
We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we’re in and reverse our thinking and see that the past always flows back form the present.
ALAN WATTS

Abandonment Blame Follow Past Present Reverse Situation Thinking
For there is never anything but the present, and if one cannot live there, one cannot live anywhere.
ALAN WATTS

Life Live Present
In looking out upon the world, we forget that the world is looking at itself.
ALAN WATTS

Forget Look Reality Universe World
We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.
ALAN WATTS

Action Expression Individual Leaving Nature Ocean People Process Unique Universe Waves World
Like too much alcohol, self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double.
ALAN WATTS

Alcohol Conscious Ourselves Philosophy

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.

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The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.

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