If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world. ― Alan Wilson Watts

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The world is filled with love-play, from animal lust to sublime compassion. ― Alan Watts

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A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter. ― Alan Wilson Watts

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The process of change does not occur on superficial levels, through mere “positive thinking.” It involves exploring, discovering, and changing our deepest, most basic attitudes toward life.

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Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command. ― Alan Watts

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One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious, and the same may be said of guilt. ― Alan Wilson Watts

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So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself. ― Alan Wilson Watts

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You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean. ― Alan Watts

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Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness - an act of trust in the unknown. ― Alan Wilson Watts

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To put is still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet. ― Alan Wilson Watts

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