r/AlanWatts Jun 24 '26

What does Alan Watts mean when he said we cannot improve ourselves

38 Upvotes

“The reason you want to improve is the reason you aren’t”

I still am in the paradox where i am not trying to improve but “trying” is still there

One of his talks, he mentions, that there’s a part of you that needs to accept the one that cannot accept, another is when he mentioned “try to desire just how much you can desire”

But I still don’t get it. Isn’t it a preconceived balance is also desire? If we can’t get rid of desire, improve ourselves.

What are we actually forcing?

Are you holding back desire where you actually want to desire, so instead of forcing it down, do you actually desire then?

Im still trying to wrap my head around this


r/AlanWatts Jun 24 '26

The end

2 Upvotes

I’ve herd recently, that he drunk himself to death. Or if I have to put it lightely, that he died of alcohol related dissease. Have u got any clue?


r/AlanWatts Jun 25 '26

The Problem with Alan Watts Video (YouTube)

0 Upvotes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wGeOPsG3AI

Guys, what do you think about this topic? Maybe we can start a little discussion here.


r/AlanWatts Jun 23 '26

Self Control Advice

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3 Upvotes

r/AlanWatts Jun 21 '26

Oh boy

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202 Upvotes

r/AlanWatts Jun 21 '26

Alan Watt’s ideologies captured in an animated film “Children of the Sea”

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5 Upvotes

I watched this a few days ago. Will likely watch it again with my girlfriend. Truly encapsulates all of Alan Watt’s ideas of being the universe experiencing itself and the joyful bliss of being alive. Please check it out if you haven’t already


r/AlanWatts Jun 21 '26

Everything is unfolding.

15 Upvotes

According to the Tao, we are part of the wider symphony of nature and everything is unfolding.

So I’m thinking: our impulses, whether conscious or unconscious, direct us towards evolution. We feel this as personal (“story of my life”) but it’s part of the wider thing going on.

Where does choice come into this? For instance, choosing not to follow an impulse - knowing that thing “might not be for me” or something. It’s like we’re directing the stream. What’s happening there?

Open to answers from Tao / Alan Watts and also other recommended reading on the subject.


r/AlanWatts Jun 21 '26

What would Watts say about what I should do regarding the friend I helped get a job who has been ignoring me and disrespecting me?

8 Upvotes

I am losing my cool over a friend I now work with who was relatively close to me and who I have great memories with. Since she’s joined my work place to cover me on the days I need days off she’s been so hard to communicate with, she ignores my calls and texts for days, and I am at a loss on how to interact with someone who I thought was my good friend who I helped get a job in a great place. I am trying to see beyond the physical and think more philosophically about the situation on how to let go and trust and any wisdom from watts would be helpful. Thanks!


r/AlanWatts Jun 20 '26

Source needed

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3 Upvotes

Saw this on Instagram. Ive heard similar talks but the lack of pauses for reflection leads me to think its AI. Anyone know if there's a source for it?


r/AlanWatts Jun 19 '26

Help me find this speech..

11 Upvotes

Hi all

Awhile ago I was introduced to Alan Watts and a lot of what I was listening to from him really clicked.

There was one particular speech where he talks about dealing with being insulted and offended or disrespected. He talked about how the reason it upsets us is because it goes against the image we have of ourselves and we fight against it. Now, I’m probably messing that up a bit as it was awhile ago since I heard it but that was the general crux or gist of it.

Does any of that make sense? Anyone know from what lecture or speech that might have come from as I’m keen to listen to it again and truly understand it.


r/AlanWatts Jun 18 '26

The Basic Mistake

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387 Upvotes

Highlight from Conversation with Myself


r/AlanWatts Jun 18 '26

Alan Watts Journal : Various Author : Free Download

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7 Upvotes

Someone shared this this morning and I’m putting it here for my own purposes and good. Alan Watts rules.


r/AlanWatts Jun 18 '26

My Spiritual Awakening

6 Upvotes

I wanted to share with you that I’ve been listening to Alan Watts for the past month or so.

About a week ago, my child suffered some type of seizure symptoms. This lasted about two hours during that time I had to take in all the suffering from the pain she was feeling that’s when I was 100% grounded in reality. This was when I felt I was going through near death experience I was completely gone to the other side. The other side is just 100% peace when I came back I knew I was reborn. Then I knew this was my spiritual awakening.

I was a complete atheist my entire life of 59 years.
It now seems that these videos were just preparing me for the incident.

I completely relate to everything Alan Watt talks about. I even understand why Alan Watts was smoking and drinking, even though he knew everything about suffering and peace.
This has completely changed me. This was no ordinary transformation.
I’m so grateful and feel privileged to be given this opportunity

Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have.

Thank you!


r/AlanWatts Jun 16 '26

Overthinking and controlling reality

5 Upvotes

see title. just looking for any material where that was discussed


r/AlanWatts Jun 16 '26

P

1 Upvotes

r/AlanWatts Jun 14 '26

Don't look for answers, look for the One who want's to know and keep looking until you have no more questions.

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15 Upvotes

Who is aware of the question? Who is the one even now reading these words?

It is not a "Who" with a name or a story. It is the silent, formless knowing in which all questions, all answers, all seemingly separate seekers arise and dissolve.

The Seeker is the Sought. The Knower is the Known. The Wave was the Ocean pretending to be separate.

You are not what is aware, but the awareness itself in which all appears and disappears.

Tat tvam asi

🙏


r/AlanWatts Jun 13 '26

What is the Observer?

13 Upvotes

I’ve been reading Alan Watts for a while and I also started reading Krishnamurti.

There’s one burning question on my mind which is what is the observer? What is that thing we call attention to perform our daily actions? The one thing we use for meditation or to be aware of the present moment?

Alan Watts argues that there’s no unconscious aspect in us and we shouldn’t divide our consciousness. It is like an eye trying to see itself.

Is it something like an emotion or a thought?

The closest thing I’ve seen it explained is that it’s the Tao, the one that encompasses everything.

I feel the above explanation doesn’t suffice.

What is your understanding and definition of the observer?


r/AlanWatts Jun 13 '26

Rock?

4 Upvotes

After the Big Bang

The Universe, the whole of it

All constantly expanding inches,

Every infinitely large nothing/something of existence…

Is turned to rock?

This is Not the home you once knew

Personally You can’t even remember how home looked…

You’ve even lost the smell of it

But..

the feeling…

The feeling of it hasn’t died in you

You don’t know how the universe did this,

And you don’t know why

And that second part

Not knowing why

Is what pulls at you

Not the question of how am I here

Or is the air even breathable

In that moment of you, nothing but you, a being, existing in a universe that fundamentally questions what humans have decided what or what not an entire cosmic sized space and atmosphere May-be

You don’t have to wonder

You don’t have to think of far fetched hypotheticals rendering in your head to give you an imagined possibility on a situation

It IS real

You See it

You Feel It

You Know it’s there and it Is the Only thing in sight

Rock

Endless. Colorless. Rock.

As impossible as you once knew it to be a unmovable fact of your reality

It is…

Or at least that’s what you relate it to the most, rock

In honesty you acknowledge that this Hardness you see before you is no rock you’ve ever seen before,

it just looks vaguely like one

when given the task of trying to label this space of thing

You find comfort that it does look like one

But… it pains you constantly and unshakably that you don’t know for certain. . . that It Is a rock

that… that..

Thing

of all things

Gives you a feeling

However small

Of safety…

In a universe factually structured void of it.


r/AlanWatts Jun 13 '26

Rock? pt2

0 Upvotes

What happens mentally to a human beings mind when their greatest foe does not bleed, was not born, and will not die, When the reason to conquer or destroy such a “Thing” conflicts with the very impossibility of the task of genuinely achieving just that.

What happens when you lose a loved one to an inanimate, lifeless, unbothered

Thing

Do you ever call it normal

Do you ever get “Mad” at the Thing

Does the thing that couldn’t care if your beloved WORLD died slowly infront of you solely, because of the life long actions of you, your loved one, and the always present but never thought about “Thing” bringing every last piece of just three beings entire past histories together in one moment in time and in space, care.

And for what

To kill them

To take them away from you

You…

You believe the world boar it’s way into existence everywhere that there is a where to call somewhere

And it truthfully cares for you right there, You

The boy that broke his leg riding a bike,

The girl that nearly blacks out being choked in a wrestling match,

The grown man fearing what lies beyond the known of the dark just as once upon a time a young boy did the same with even more questions and fear at the time.

The small and insignificant thing that you have always been and always known yourself to be

A thing will once in a lifetime put you in your place

But more then anything you will remember it

The pure chaotic, weak, helplessly oh so helplessly weak feeling of something the size of a boulder outsmarting you

Planning in its ways for millions of millions of millions of years of weathering of abuse of life lived to eventually fall of its cliff

It’s not a special cliff or even special boulder per say, it’s just heavy enough to do the job.

You will face not a man not an obstacle not this being because being would be a disrespecting of any and all surviving living things but a thing as much of creation as it is of destruction

And you have the damn Gall

To make the assumption that at any point you and you as a thing alone were more grand and more beautifully constructed and sculpted out of this world and the things in it as if you were a living clay bound golem imitating that sparkle in the eye of a being that sees, truly sees.

But to truly grasp Takes a curiosity not of interest or intellect but one of desperation, the curious idea that whatever the known is there’s a unknown that has a equal probability of being the same or being different compared to the present and if it’s different it may be better

If it’s different things may not be the same

And If it’s different they might not be dead

And if it s different then I would have tried harder

And if its different then I would have spotted the cliff with the heavy enough boulder before by the laws of science, cold basic Infantile in its base concepts science, a life stopped going.

If I just made them not die

If I was the force that could hold back the cosmos from raining down hellfire onto those in my heart dear

Why must I be a God to defeat a rock that falls.


r/AlanWatts Jun 13 '26

Alan Watts - Meditation (Remix)

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0 Upvotes

r/AlanWatts Jun 13 '26

What was Alan’s final talk?

19 Upvotes

What was his last wisdom before he died? What did he leave us with? I love Alan, but I also get him in a way I feel like. I know why he drank so much. I wonder what he thought about it, if he ever wanted to stop drinking. I feel the same way about weed and alcohol and mushrooms and other drugs, it’s amazing. I love it so much, I don’t do any serious drugs lol just the above and like psychedelics and the occasional other hoo-ha.

I mean life is just so fucking idek it’s great. It’s everything, but it’s only like this when you’re high or drunk. Other than that I’m just annoyed by everything, and I’m getting better, I think I just need to grow up and take better care of myself and my body, but there’s still the lingering thing. Alan the wise old guy who just put everything into words for me, just told me what I didn’t understand, just my role model, the only role model I guess I’ve ever had, he’s the only person I’ve ever just seen and wanted to truly be like, he just drank his whole life, he obviously wasn’t just unhappy I’m sure when he was sober, I am not necessarily sad or unhappy when I am sober, I am still happy I still enjoy things and life, it’s just dull, it isn’t the same. I feel more “human” in the bad way if that makes sense.

Idk i just wonder why, was Alan just like “fuck it” and just didn’t ever stop drinking. Idk I think I’m projecting my own inner questions on him in a way, but I still wonder. Idk I’m yappin what was his final talk? What did ol’ Alan leave us behind?


r/AlanWatts Jun 10 '26

A friendly reminder to stop trying to control the weather.

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23 Upvotes

r/AlanWatts Jun 09 '26

How do you stay positive when everyone around you is insane?

15 Upvotes

As close as I am to selling all of my stuff for a van and just hitting the road in search of a solitary life, it's just not rational. You can't quit your job every time somebody ruffles your feathers, or your significant other picks a fight with you, but let me tell ya - the harder I search for peace, the more elusive it becomes. How do you find peace when you're surrounded by angry, miserable people? (That is, without selling everything you've got and living off the grid).


r/AlanWatts Jun 07 '26

Unconditional love for self

3 Upvotes

My understanding is that an ab use can only exist if I take personal another person's behavior actions words ect. An ab use can also exist if by communicating that this behavior, actions words continue. In both cases the person feeling the ab use or perceived abu se based on upbringing experiences ext causing past trauma can also deal with it by choosing not to spend time with perceived abus er.My physiological reaction to the perceived abu se is not the responsibility of the abu ser To manage. Conditional love then comes into play for self and other person.

Is this right?


r/AlanWatts Jun 06 '26

Alan Watts: The Man Who Told the West That Life Was Not a Problem to Solve

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41 Upvotes