The Whole Thing Is An Illusion - Alan Watts On Letting Go

when there's some Gathering of people and we say uh well this is a great day what a wonderful picnic or whatever it is we're having it's pity somebody didn't bring a camera it should have been photographed now do you see that in this whole thing there is both a gain and a loss what one school of people are saying it should be photographed the other school of people are saying let go of it we had so much experience of this in Japan because all our students brought cameras and uh were constantly photographing things and I had a camera and I was constantly photographing things but I felt that so long as I had a camera with me I was somehow distracted from actuality I had a little box with which I went around grabbing life of course it was great to come back and look at it in the form of photographs but there something about the photograph that is inferior to the actual uh experience there is an immense Fascination in photography in painting in reproducing and reproducing you see is the same thing as sexuality it is reproduction only in another way because it tells you you're there you're alive the thing bounces it echoes so the the duplicity in all this is one school of religious people say let it all go don't be attached and they also say live in the moment stop trying to remember everything you may need a kind of factual memory for your name and address and a telephone number but don't linger over memories and treasure memories and say well I'm going to keep my girlfriend's lock of hair and I'll take it out every now and then and look at it and feel wonderful you see that's clinging to life because that memory has got you hooked it holds you to the past and it holds you to death then there's the other school of thought you see quite opposite to this which says Remember to Remember hold on to it all get involved keep your girlfriend's hair keep all the photographs you know how in some houses the piano everything is completely covered with photographs and reminiscences photographed on this occasion signed on that occasion well you say look that person isn't really living and they're all in the past but on the other hand what is life you see except there is a memory memory except there is an echo so what I want to point out we see is the duplicity of all this that you don't take if you're a wise man you don't take sides in this issue you do both sides and that is the meaning of the unity of ssara and Nirvana on the one hand you let go of everything and you live in the Eternal now because that's all there is see memory is an illusion it's all gone so everything you know about that makes an impression on you is no longer there that's the meaning of Maya there is only the Eternal now there is only the present moment never will be anything else because even what you're remembering is happening in the present the memory is in the Eternal Now isn't it see so it's all really absolutely here but on the other hand what fun to drag it up and to make it Echo and to get involved and to fall in love and to become attached it's just like riding a bicycle it's a balance trick you suddenly find yourself falling over one way while you balance that you turn into that direction and you stay up and so in the same way when you find yourself becoming too attached to life you correct that with the realization that there is nothing except the Eternal now then when you feel that's all right now you see you're safe again once more you go and get attached are you get involved you get concerned about some Enterprise social political Amorous a scholarly artistic whatever it is you get involved and the two always go together so this is the meaning of this symbolism memory has caught you and you think it's all really there and you don't realize there's only the Eternal [Music] now and you need to know that in order not to get quite lost because if you go out to any one end of the Spectrum you forget you're there that's sort of a non-existence you can't really non-exist you'll always come back eventually but if you get one extreme too much you don't know you're there the real you you have to devest yourself of all Hang-Ups you see to discover the real you and realize that there aren't no possessions everything's falling away all your memories are holding on to Illusions then when you thoroughly understand that you can go back in so you've got a marvelous picture of the world as a sort of systo and diastole attachment and Detachment attachment and Detachment and this goes on forever and ever and ever in not only our kind of time but in many other kinds of time and in all sorts of different kinds of spaces but it's the same fundamental myth recreated in another form now you may say this is pretty monotonous must we go around again so indeed you see you say oh enough of this let's go to sleep let's stop time must have a stop and so you stop well when you do that you forget that it ever happened you see this is a marvelous Arrangement because then it can start all over again without your knowing that it happened before so you're never bored and this is a cure for being tired of it the memory goes those you see and so when uh you come back there's no problem at least no problem of for of boredom of remembering the past there going to be all sorts of new problems but you won't know you've had any problems before so that won't worry you until you begin to accumulate memories again and you've had these problems and it's becoming a bore dealing with problems and then you get rid of yourself it's called Death it's a beautiful arrangement for keeping everything young and new and for keeping the universe running without getting tired of itself and that's the definition of keeping on see memory remember creates the future as well as the past you wouldn't know you were going to have anything happen tomorrow unless something had happened yesterday you figure because the sun rose yesterday and yesterday and yesterday that it will arise again tomorrow if you didn't remember it you wouldn't know there was going to be any tomorrow course there isn't tomorrow is an illusion so it's yesterday simply isn't here where is it bring me tomorrow's newspaper now this is perfect ly marvelous Arrangement you see so that you may feel as you think these things over that you are almost on the verge of going mad and uh what gives you the sense of going mad is that you think you're not in control and that it's all lost and someone else is going to take over or something else is going to take over well of course it has to because like you say when you've driven long enough in the car you say to your wife will you drive for a while please you want relief there's something else has to take over but it's all [Music] you so do you see that the nature of being is constructed in this extraordinarily fascinating [Music] way it constantly renews itself self and therefore is worth going [Music] on by Eternal forgetting and getting rid of itself for

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Id: 3OUZVMlxiak

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2024