Alan Watts Being in the Way

In celebration of the waters that bring life to all things, Alan Watts reflects on the separation between human civilization and the natural world.This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit play.alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alanIn this unique and experimental recording, Alan Watts discusses:The beauty of life on the waters in Sausalito, CaliforniaThe rhythms of natureTime and timelessnessThe transformation of one form into anotherThe separation of man from the natural worldObjecting and Objectifying the worldIdentity and being able to know knowingThe spacious environment of the ocean“Although the rhythm of the waves beats a kind of time, it’s not clock or calendar time, it has no urgency. It’s timeless time, because I know I am listening to a rhythm which has been just the same for millions of years.” – Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bringing awareness to ecstatic grace, Alan Watts enlightens us on the sexual archetypes formed by religion.Two cultural icons. Two unique perspectives... One understanding of the presence of the way.Ram Dass' Love Serve Remember Foundation and the Alan Watts Organization invite you to open your mind, open your heart, and tap into the living truth of Alan Watts and Ram Dass. Learn more about this special 4-week Virtual Course:"The Presence of the Way: The Dharma of Alan Watts and Ram Dass" Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alanIn this recording, Alan Watts lectures on:Baptism, confirmation, and religious initiationMasturbation and other supposedly sinful behaviorsDefiance and wickednessThe material world and sexualityThe Semitic vs. Greek perspective on sexSexual energy for reproduction rather than pleasureThe fall in the Garden of EdenThe institution of marriageWomen throughout western literatureLove and the illogical promises we makePrudism and extreme monogamySubtle eroticism in the Victorian eraHow repression may lead to being overcameLibido as a fundamental realitySexuality in religious iconographyThe function of sexual play beyond utilitarianismSex as a sacramental expression of loveSeeing the divine aspect in a loverThis 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.“The function of sexual play is not merely the survival and utilitarian function of reproducing the species as it is among animals to a very large extent. What peculiarly distinguishes human sexuality is that it brings the partners closer and closer to each other in an intense state of united feeling. In other words, it is a sacrament, the outward invisible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, bringing about love.” – Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Picking up from our last episode, Alan elucidates faith versus belief, and how our individual existence is connected with the totality of the universe.Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alanFrom his houseboat in Sausalito, CA, Alan Watts explores:The two great myths which underly our Western sense of identity: the Judeo-Christian myth of an overly intelligent universe founded by a cosmic king; and the material myth of a universe which is mechanical, un-intelligent, and emptyThe problem of “believing” in God, versus the real attitude of faith which is being open to whatever reality isFinding out who we are beyond social institutions like time, money, value, language, and survivalHow you as an individual implies by your existence everything else in the universe“The problem about believing in God, incidentally, is that believing is the wrong attitude. Believing is a form of mistrust, because it’s saying, ‘I fervently wish that you exist, and if you don’t, I don’t know what to do with myself.’ The real attitude of faith is not believing, but simply being open to whatever reality is, and to say you don’t know.” – Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Offering us the possibility of waking up, Alan Watts contemplates the joyous cosmology that we are God playing the roles of ordinary people.Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alanIn this episode, Alan Watts explores:If there could be a theory of the world that justifies and makes worthwhile the difficulties and suffering that we undergoThe contemplation that an infinite omnipotent being would eventually get bored with being everything, so would begin to shield itself from this knowledge, and pretend to play the role of separate beings so it could experience the full thrill of waking up to itselfThe idea of reality as God playing a game of hide and seek with itself for it’s own excitement and cosmic jokeThe difference or potential complete non-difference between the experience and the experiencerThat what you think of as outside yourself is actually just a hidden you“We have within us a higher self who is pretending to be the ordinary everyday person that we are, who’s acting it. In other words, our everyday life is a dream from which we have the possibility of waking up.” – Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this unique episode of Being in the Way, Alan Watts offers tribute to the life, humor, magic and ‘nonsense wisdom’ of writer, G. K. Chesterton.Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alanThis 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.“I read G.K. Chesterton’s works very carefully, and I have, by osmosis, imbibed an enormous amount of wisdom from him. Funny thing is, not so much in terms of specific ideas, as in basic attitude to life. This is a man, who above all virtues, has what I think is one of the greatest virtues which we don’t usually find catalogued—he had a sense of wonder.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alan Watts pulls back the veil of ‘the human game,’ digging into language, ethics, finding balance, and the art of the controlled accident. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alanIn this episode, Mark Watts introduces Alan Watts in ‘Learning the Human Game’ – originally recorded at a seminar at the University of Michigan. In this lecture, Alan explores the connection between language and ethics, helping us understand why the perfect balance between randomness and order is the optimal middle-ground for experiencing life.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.“Mental health is a good game—and a good game is what keeps a certain balance between randomness and order. And a healthy society, therefore, is one which keeps a proper balance between law and whimsy.” – Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, & Allen Cohen join Alan Watts on his houseboat to discuss change, the evolution of society, and the practicality of 'dropping out.'Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alanIn this episode of Being in the Way, Mark Watts introduces a truly legendary discussion featuring his father Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Allen Cohen. Beaming in from the summer of 1967 on Alan's infamous houseboat in Sausalito, CA, this stacked lineup of free-thinkers, beatniks, poets, environmentalists, psychedelicists, and spiritualists dive into heady and practical conversation around "dropping out" into a freer, more natural, tribe-focused society.This series is made in partnership with the Alan Watts Organization. Discover the official Alan Watts archive at alanwatts.org"What we need to realize is there can be a movement, a stirring among people, which can be organically designed instead of politically designed." – Alan WattsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.