In my previous blog post, I shared a quotation from Anne Watts, one of Alan Watts’ children, that included an excerpt from one of his books, This is It. Liking the excerpt, I turned to my collection of Alan Watts books so I could take another look at This is It.
I was surprised to see that I’d never bought This is It. No problem, Amazon delivered a copy yesterday. I read the short 11 page essay this morning. The book also includes five other essays about Zen and how Watts views spirituality.
Wikipedia says This is It was published in 1960, 65 years ago. What Watts says in the essay that gave the book its name still seems fresh and relevant to seekers of truth like me who aren’t interested in supernatural fantasy but in here-and-now reality.
On the book’s first page, the beginning of a Preface by Watts, I enjoyed this description of how mystical experience is the same as ordinary experience.
Although written at different times during the past four years, the essays here gathered together have a common point of focus — the spiritual or mystical experience and its relation to ordinary material life. Having said this, I am instantly aware that I have used the wrong words; and yet there are no satisfactory alternatives.
Spiritual and mystical suggest something rarefied, otherworldly, and loftily religious, opposed to an ordinary material life which is simply practical and commonplace. The whole point of these essays is to show the fallacy of this opposition, to show that the spiritual is not to be separated from the material, nor the wonderful from the ordinary.
We need, above all, to disentangle ourselves from habits of speech and thought which set the two apart, making it impossible for us to see that this — the immediate, everyday, and present experience — is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe. But the recognition that the two are one comes to pass in an elusive, though relatively common, state of consciousness which has fascinated me beyond all else since I was seventeen years old.
In the essay, This is It, which follows the Preface, Watts starts off with a wonderfully clear description of what IT consists of.
The most impressive fact in man’s spiritual, intellectual, and poetic experience has always been, for me, the universal prevalence of those astonishing moments of insight which Richard Bucke called “cosmic consciousness.” There is no really satisfactory name for this type of experience.
To call it mystical is to confuse it with visions of another world, or of gods and angels. To call it spiritual or metaphysical is to suggest that it is not also extremely concrete and physical, while the term “cosmic consciousness” itself has the unpoetic flavor of occultist jargon.
But from all historical times and cultures we have reports of the same unmistakable sensation emerging, as a rule, quite suddenly and unexpectedly and from no clearly understood cause.
To the individual thus enlightened it appears as a vivid and overwhelming certainty that the universe, precisely as it is at this moment, as a whole and in every one of its parts, is so completely right as to need no explanation or justification beyond what it simply is.
Existence not only ceases to be a problem; the mind is so wonder-struck at the self-evident and self-sufficient fitness of things as they are, including what would ordinarily be thought the very worst, that it cannot find any word strong enough to express the perfection and beauty of the experience.
Its clarity sometimes gives the sensation that the world has become transparent or luminous, and its simplicity the sensation that it is pervaded and ordered by a supreme intelligence,
At the same time it is usual for the individual to feel that the whole world has become his own body, and that whatever he is has not only become, but always has been, what everything else is. It is not that he loses his identity to the point of feeling that he actually looks out through all other eyes, becoming literally omniscient, but rather that his individual consciousness and existence is a point of view temporarily adopted by something immeasurably greater than himself.
The central core of the experience seems to be the conviction, or insight, that the immediate now, whatever its nature, is the goal and fulfillment of all living.
Surrounding and flowing from this insight is an emotional ecstasy, a sense of intense relief, freedom, and lightness, and often of unbearable love for the world, which is, however, secondary. Often the pleasure of the experience is confused with the experience and the insight lost in the ecstasy, so that in trying to retain the secondary effects of the experience the individual misses its point — that the immediate now is complete even when it is not ecstatic.
For ecstasy is a necessarily impermanent contrast in the constant fluctuation of our feelings. But insight, when clear enough, persists; having once understood a particular skill, the facility tends to remain.
The terms in which a man interprets this experience are naturally drawn from the religious and philosophical ideas of his culture, and their differences often conceal its basic identity.
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Unordinary comes out of Ordinary just like order comes out of chaos.
Mystical experiences are sometimes so ordinary that we fail to recognize them as such.
for example experience of Sachkhand is not there and then, but its here and Now given that you adhere to rules of Sachkhand which is just to live in Truth. Very Ordinary yet very powerful. Be Truthful to your soul(which is natural state of soul in Sachkhand), Truth will start revealing itself more and more leading to ordinary experiences to very specialized experiences.
Problem is that we don’t allow ourselves to live in truth. we all deny truth when it comes to self reflection. This is due to Ego. Ego is a very big Truth filter. How to pierce that is gist of any spiritual practice more so that of Santmat.
wash your ego by touching Shabd and gates of Truth opens.
Easy to say than doing.
Reflect, Reflect and Reflect. Do meditation or Do Tantra or do wander in streets like madman or do whatever But never lie to yourself.Results will follow including light and sound.
@ Anon
Are you the same “anon” that sends emails to the owner of this blog about the affairs of RSSB???
No. I have nothing to do with RSSB.
Than please use another penname
Noted.
continuing further on this..
As ordinary as a leaf falling from tree is also a sign from universe.
assign it a meaning and lock it up with Truth.
so more amount of Truth(you have) will lead you to bind more signs.it starts the reverse engineering the reality.
Say you controlled more and more signs, you start to look actual Reality.
One who have perfected this art of dzogchen, Maya breaks down and then you become free in true meaning. No more karmic cycles.
@ Diamond
In order to understand what you wrote, I had to “ask” AI for an explanation and they gave an answer and this exercise:
The “Open Awareness” Exercise (5 minutes)
Do this tomorrow morning as soon as you wake up, before checking your phone:
[1] Stop the Seeking:
Sit down or stand still for a moment.
Don’t try to relax, and don’t try to be “spiritual.” Let everything be exactly as it is—even if you’re tired or your head is racing.
[2]Gaze without Staring:
Direct your eyes at the space in front of you.
Don’t focus on one specific object, but keep your gaze “soft” and wide. Try to perceive the entire room at once, including the corners of your field of vision.
[3]Great Acceptance:
Let thoughts arise like background music on the radio.
If you think, “What am I doing?”, just see it as a passing cloud. You don’t need to do anything with it. According to the Dzogchen practice of Rigpa, you are the space in which the thought appears, not the thought itself.
[4]The Signal:
Notice that there is a deep stillness or “presence” that is always there, regardless of how busy your life is. That is the “Truth” your text was referring to.
[5]The Goal:
You are training yourself to see the world without the filter of your own judgments.
This is the beginning of seeing through Maya (the illusion).
Seems like AI did good job there explaining.Here
are more points I like to add
1.Racing head is ideal.Dont ‘try’ to be spiritual.Quite
accurate. Just Be.
2. Also include -> Hear without listening.
3. Apply it wrt to thoughts arising in space.
4. Presence. Be aware of presence of all above 3 simultaneously.
5. Practice it. Things will start unpacking.
@Anon…aka Diamond
Were you ever initiated?
Yes I am initiated.
What Watts writes, is the same as to be found in the writings of the medieval Christian mystic St John of the cross.
Instead of going through the books themselve that I have I asked AI to do the work for me:
[Q] “In his works, St. John of the Cross frequently remarks that
‘if God wants to touch the soul, He does so in the dark.’
Later, he notes that such touches CAN be accompanied by visions, etc., and that people are inclined to equate the experience with those visions.
By doing so, they also open the way for all kinds of ‘negative’ influences. Where can this be found?”
[A] Here is the translation of the analysis regarding Saint John of the Cross and his teachings on divine touches and visions.
[1. ]The Primary Source:
Book 2 of ‘The Ascent’
St. John’s warnings and his explanation of the “darkness” are primarily found in his masterpiece: The Ascent of Mount Carmel (Subida del Monte Carmelo), specifically in Book 2, Chapters 11 through 24.
Touch in Darkness:
In Chapter 4 of Book 2, he explains that God touches the soul in the “Night of the Spirit”.
Because God is infinite and the human intellect is limited, the mind perceives God as “darkness.” The closer God comes to the soul, the less our human faculties—intellect, memory, and will—can comprehend Him.
The Danger of Visions:
In Chapter 11, he explicitly states that those who cling to visions open themselves up to deception by the devil. While the devil can mimic images and feelings, he cannot penetrate the “substance” of the soul where God works in secret.
[2. ] Why People Equate the Experience with the Vision
John explains that people often mistake the vision for the actual divine touch because:
Human nature is accustomed to sensory impressions.
A vision or an audible “locution” provides an immediate emotional “rush” or consolation, leading the person to think: “This must be God”.
According to John, this is a mistake.
[ a mistake made by many religious founding Fathers the like of Abraham and Mozes. The consequences of this mistake are still visible to this very day in GAZA and the westbank, UM]
True union with God occurs in the will and through faith, far beyond any imagery. He often views visions as “by-products” that can become obstacles rather than aids, as they distract the soul from pure, dark love.
[3.] “Negative Influences” and Harm
In Book 2, Chapter 16 (and throughout chapters 11–24), he details how the devil exploits the desire for these experiences:
Spiritual Pride:
The soul begins to think it is “special” or advanced because it receives visions.
Deception:
The devil can sow false spiritual joys that lead the soul away from true humility.
Attachment:
The soul becomes a “slave” to the sensory experience instead of resting in God Himself.
“A single touch of God in the substance of the soul is worth more than all the visions and communications a person can receive in this life.” — Paraphrased from John of the Cross.
Summary of References
Topic Source (Ascent of Mount Carmel)
God touches in darkness Book 2, Chapters 4 & 9
Danger of sensory visions Book 2, Chapter 11
Devil’s role / Deception Book 2, Chapters 16 & 24
Pure Faith as the only guide Book 2, Chapter 6
Conclusion of an coffee drinker:
Over time there has come an end to the era of the Wannabee mystics, the Zen “monks”, the Indian music etc etc … an area that started out in de days that the last picture of the owner was taken, as yoga teacher.
Back to “normal”, back to the common, back to growing older, suffering the aches and dis-comforts that goes with it
Coffee drinking never changed
The illusion of the illusions has gone with the wind
I’ve read several of Alan Watts’s books in the past, so it’s fun to be reminded of his down-to-earth take on the usually hyped-up descriptions of the spiritual/mystical language. Here Watts states the matter clearly: “The central core of the experience seems to be the conviction, or insight, that the immediate now, whatever its nature, is the goal and fulfilment of all living.”
He goes on to describe such an insight as: – “… emotional ecstasy’, a sense of intense relief, freedom and lightness…” And he also describes how getting lost in this ecstasy, one misses the point – that the immediate now is complete even when it is not ecstatic.
Now I would bet that many of us have had, quite naturally, moments of *ecstasy and got caught up in it and missed the subtle revelation of it always being now. To peek out from the cloud of ecstasy would reveal a world where now is all there ever is, and within the now or present moment, thought is observed as something that arises continuously without need of a thinker and that what was thought of as a separate self (the thinker of thoughts) is itself just a thought.
And further, it is realised that what I call my self (myself) is thoughts, is feelings and emotions – there being no self, no discarnate entity dwelling within, just an ever-arising stream of thoughts and sensations appearing in the awareness of the living organism.
Our tragedy is that we fail to notice the now and get caught up in the ecstasy, and ecstasy, like all sensations, is only short-lived, and the only real thing we can ever know, the now, slips away from awareness. From then on, we continue to hanker after repeating the ecstasy somehow, someway – and the search goes on.
Hahahaha … life can have strange twists.
One of them made me find this link and looking into this mens eyes, for which I prepared his dinner and heated sand for a heat pack, for some days, when he was delivering a rare initiation
Have a look in his eyes .. he was so funny and not being a Buddhist and not part of his entourage but invited to cook for him, I had the opportunity to talk to him on the level of human to human.
And in talking to him learned some lessons also that were understood later, not at the time.
https://dhagpo-kagyu-mandala.de/en/lineage-holders-and-masters/gendun-rinpoche/
I don’t see any changes in the teachings of the past, present or future. Every religion is the same. Only the teachers have changed to protect the innocent. I’d rather be right and walk away to be right another day. I’m not into all this gotchas and picking arguments . Envy is as great a barrier to spirituality as much as ego except envy is easier to spot. Ego won’t be completely abandoned until the last breath. It’s the last deadly vice to go .
Watts consistently described himself as a “philosophical entertainer.”
There is no end of discussion about Spiritual experience, from the eyes of the spectator. But from the view of the participant there are no words for it.
Whatever the spectator thinks they see, it’s a waste of time. Thinking is so past tense.
Whatever the participant sees is sacred, of infinite value to them alone.
Varnatmak nam is nothing like dhunatmak nam.