On Douglas Harding & Alan Watts

Read: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0791449009/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=c...
Books by Watts: http://www.amazon.com/mn/search/?_encoding=UTF8&x=0&tag=corant-20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcDMJvO6aHU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXmz605GAnc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHC7JA5i1-8
http://www.amazon.com/Selfhood-Authenticity-Winner-Erving-Goffman/dp/0791449009

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Douglas Harding
• Alan Watts
• consciousness
• Selfhood
• world
• wisdom
• enlightenment
• identity
• ego

[MuhakgreetsWonhyo]

I'm curious about how you are employing the expression "world". I feel that at times this term slips into very different senses. Heidegger's discussion of "world" in Being and Time seems quite close to your position. "Being the origin of a world" in some kind of Heideggerian sense would mean something quite different than what would perhaps be straightforwardly understood in other ways.

[Professoranton]

@MuhakgreetsWonhyo Yes. Heidegger, and the phenomenological tradition, address world as something that EXISTS (is not a mere extant standing before us).

[TheWandgirl]

uhm, this was the most profound thing i've ever heard!!!

did anybody really hear what this man just said... LMAO!

[Professoranton]

@TheWandgirl Aw Shucks

[StabbyRaccoon]

Try to picture the world before life arose, with nothing to sense it! Trippy!

[Professoranton]

@StabbyRaccoon Picture? From what angle?  Good stuff! Thanks!

[lukemathiesen]

this is fantastic. I think your idea about being dependant on the "environment" in the way that up can only exist because there is a down and humans only exist because there is an "environment" is very important. Maybe people would stop trying to "overcome" nature if they realised this, as watts has already pointed out.

[summondadrummin]

A perspective~the air we depend on so intimately is a creation of the whole universe~just as there's no ego independent of all, there's no planet independent either.There is no out there out there..Our space Trekker visionaries are exploring our local galactic backyard.At present it appears we'll be much like the idiots presented in Avatar?

[hometown555]

i like what your trying to explaine. listening to Alan Watts i ended up finding Eckhart Tolle and Ram Dass who later i found all talk about each other in their lectures i think its possible that we are all a collective in one way or another and are a part of the world not on it like you said.

[Mike209000]

Liked, favourited, and subscribed. :)

[TDP788]

This idea makes me think of graveyards and green grass, but in a good way.

[bubbagogo]

I think being too intelligent is something of a curse.

[me1we1]

I think you are over analyzing and getting caught up in concepts. its much simpler than that. As Douglas Harding points out its in the direct seeing not the understanding of words. I know alan watts has said about being reliant on everything ie air etc , this is confusing, what YOU are gives rise to everything and is everything so is not reliant on anything, but knows itself because it gives rise to objects. For example in deep sleep "IT" is but no knowing itself. No rudeness intended, sincerely

[2bsirius]

@gerontodon

OK..."New Age" was likely a poor word choice...

For me, it's important to be able to support contention with fact, but I agree that in theory an idea is an idea...and if it is a simple assertion, then fine...but it's important to consider whether or not it translates into real world applications and whether or not it can be falsified IF it is given scientific significance....

I was making a general statement. I was not thinking about PA in particular when I used the NA wording...

[TaterTyphoon]

Have you read Heaven and Hell / Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley? He talks about the "antipode of the mind", this area of consciousness that ascetics aspire to reach by abstaining from the world. I think this aligns with Carl Jung's conception of the collective unconscious, or the platform for all the symbols we come to affiliate the world with.

[bubbarmybubbarmy]

I think, therefore I am. I am and so is the world. I walk upon the world only because I define the worlds reality. I keep thinking of the matrix.How do you define real? If real is something that can be seen and touched, then real is electrical impulses interpreted by your brain. My brain can be fooled very easily. Only by comparing this mass-delusion with others can we try to define real. I do not like it that MY reality can only be defined by other people, after all, I think therefore I am. Eh?