Alan Watts ~ Don't Take Life Too Seriously

[Music] the only thing that could be bad is to take it too seriously in other words if you take the fundamental idea that the whole universe all its forms all the forms of biology all the different species the giraffes the rhinoceroses the Babu's the roses the eucalyptus trees etc everything is a form of biological game it's a dancing thing going on different styles and we wouldn't want to say to any of those things you shouldn't happen because they are all the great Maya the great illusion the great play and so the palace the human community organized with division of labor with classes with all the complications of economics and banking and transportation and so on and so on and so on all this is a particular kind of play and each form of it is as legitimate as say different kinds of dancing a waltz a rumba the foxtrot the Frog all are perfectly legitimate forms of dancing so the universe does this but the important thing to understand what the sannyasin the shramana the man who goes outside the pail is saying is please people who are in the pail I my existence reminds you that you're only playing don't take it too seriously because if you take it too seriously you're going to start destroying each other and fighting and saying this city against that city this country against that country so on because you're too involved so every sane society allows a certain number of people to deviate monks some sort of outsiders and says you don't have to join you don't have to play the game a society which is insane and unsure of itself cannot allow that to happen it says everybody must join everybody must work everybody must belong and then freedom disappears because as a matter of fact the the the anxiety is if you say well you don't have to join there are conditions under which you can go out then a lot of people get together and say well what would happen if everybody quit I ask what would happen if everybody decided to take American Airlines flight three to New York tomorrow well they just wouldn't get on I mean and and and they won't anyhow because a lot of people aren't interested in that are not ready to quit that doesn't mean that they're in inferior the Acorn is not inferior to the oak tree it's a potential oak but as an acorn it's just as beautiful and lovely a thing as a full-grown oak is a baby is as lovely as an adult sometimes a great deal more lovely so a person who is in a beginning state of evolution is just as marvelous as a person in a high state of evolution just as much a manifestation of the divine dance so when a society allows a certain number of people to withdraw it should have no anxiety that everybody will wander withdraw because some people are absolutely fascinated in in competition in being involved in playing the game there should be it's fine for them but we are witnessing in the United States today a great motivation for withdrawal it's simply because we haven't provided for it we haven't there's no opportunity for a Protestant to become a monk or a Jew the Catholics of half-hearted live provided for this sort of thing and there have to be people who stand outside the game and do not identify themselves with a class with a name with an ego with a persona with a row [Music] you

Channel: Wiara

Views: 1,881,603

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Id: h4wa0tSBdOU

Length: 5min 37sec (337 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 23 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/PullUpAPew]

Worth watching and worth thinking about.

A couple of errors in the subtitles: palace should be polis; pail should be Pale

[u/bluntimusmaximus]

Alan Watts changed my life. This is the way.

[u/_R4D10_]

I needed this today, thanks.

[u/MrSmithSmith]

I feel like this superficially sounds very deep and profound but ultimately isn't actually saying much of substance. What am I missing?