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Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, speaker, and student of comparative religion. He was best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Asian philosophies for a Western audience.
He wrote more than 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true natu...
He wrote more than 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true natu...
“Jesus and His Religion,” Alan Watts.
We run a talking shop. We pray, we tell God what to do, or give advice (as if he didn’t know). We read the scriptures. And remember talking of the Bible, Jesus said, “You search the scriptures daily, for in them you think you have life!”
I think the Bible ought to be ceremoniously and reverently burned every Easter. We need it no more, because the Spirit is with us. It’s a dangerous book, and to worship it is of course a far more dangerous idolatry than bowing down to images of wood and stone. Nobody can confuse a wooden image with God, but you can very easily confuse a set of ideas with God, because concepts are more rarified and abstract.”
Translation
HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT I BLASPHEME?
“I am a son of God,” well there’s the whole thing in a nutshell. If you read the King James Bible… You will see in italics, in front of the words “son of God,” the “son of God.” Most people think the italics are for emphasis. They’re not. The italics indicate words interpolated by the translators. You will not find that in the Greek. In the Greek it says, a son of God.
It seems to me here perfectly plain. That Jesus has got it in the back of his mind that this isn’t something peculiar to himself. So when he says, “I am the Way, no Man comes to the Father but by me.” This “I am” this “Me” is the divine in us.
We are sons of, or of the nature of God. Manifestations of the divine. This discovery is the gospel. That is the Good News. But this has been perpetually repressed throughout the history of Western religion…
A Distorted Celestial Monarchy
All Western religions have taken the form of celestial monarchies, and therefore have discouraged democracy in the kingdom of heaven.
Because you see, they have a religion which is militant. Which is not the religion of Jesus, which was the realization of divine son-ship. but the religion about Jesus, which pedestalizes him, and which says only this man, of all the sons of women was divine, and you better recognize it!
So it becomes a freak religion, just as it has made a freak of Jesus among natural man. It claims uniqueness, that what it does teach would be far more credible if it were truly Catholic. That is to say, re-stated again, the truths which have been known from time immemorial.
Every religion should be self-critical, otherwise it soon degenerates into a self righteous hypocrisy. If then, we can see this, that Jesus speaks not from the situation of a historical deus-ex-machina, a kind of weird, extraordinary event. But he is a voice, which has joins with other voices that have said in every place and time: wake up, man, wake up…and realize who you are!
Now I don’t think you see, until Churches get with that, they are going to have very much relevance.
What Modern religion does, and does not
Popular Protestantism and popular Catholicism, will tell you nothing about mystical religion. The message of the preacher…is dear people, be good! …But how? How are we going to be change? Obviously, there cannot be a vitality of religion, without vital religious experience. That’s something much more than emoting than singing with “Onward Christian Soldiers.“
We run a talking shop. We pray, we tell God what to do, or give advice (as if he didn’t know). We read the scriptures. And remember talking of the Bible, Jesus said, “You search the scriptures daily, for in them you think you have life!”
I think the Bible ought to be ceremoniously and reverently burned every Easter. We need it no more, because the Spirit is with us. It’s a dangerous book, and to worship it is of course a far more dangerous idolatry than bowing down to images of wood and stone. Nobody can confuse a wooden image with God, but you can very easily confuse a set of ideas with God, because concepts are more rarified and abstract.”
Contemplation
What are we gonna do about? Do about it? You have no faith? Be quiet.
Supposing we are really quiet. We don’t think. Be absolutely silent, through and through. They say, “you’ll just fall into a blank!” Oh? Ever tried?
I feel then you see that it’s enormously important that Churches stop being talking shops. They become centers of contemplation. What is contemplation? Con-Temple, it’s what you do in the temple! You don’t come to the temple to chatter, but to be still, and “know that I am God.”
If the Christian religion, if the Gospel of Christ is to mean anything at all, we must see Christ as the great mystic. In the proper sense of the word mystic. Not someone who has all sorts of magical powers. A mystic, strictly speaking, is one who realizes union with God, by whatever name. This seems to me, the crux and message of the gospel.
That We are all One
In the prayer of Jesus which St. John records, as he speaks over his disciples praying, that they may be one even as you Father and I are one. That they may be all one. All, realize this divine son-ship, or oneness, basic identity with the eternal energy of the universe, and the love that moves the sun and other stars.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRAiq8S0T2A&feature=player_embedded
We run a talking shop. We pray, we tell God what to do, or give advice (as if he didn’t know). We read the scriptures. And remember talking of the Bible, Jesus said, “You search the scriptures daily, for in them you think you have life!”
I think the Bible ought to be ceremoniously and reverently burned every Easter. We need it no more, because the Spirit is with us. It’s a dangerous book, and to worship it is of course a far more dangerous idolatry than bowing down to images of wood and stone. Nobody can confuse a wooden image with God, but you can very easily confuse a set of ideas with God, because concepts are more rarified and abstract.”
Translation
HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT I BLASPHEME?
“I am a son of God,” well there’s the whole thing in a nutshell. If you read the King James Bible… You will see in italics, in front of the words “son of God,” the “son of God.” Most people think the italics are for emphasis. They’re not. The italics indicate words interpolated by the translators. You will not find that in the Greek. In the Greek it says, a son of God.
It seems to me here perfectly plain. That Jesus has got it in the back of his mind that this isn’t something peculiar to himself. So when he says, “I am the Way, no Man comes to the Father but by me.” This “I am” this “Me” is the divine in us.
We are sons of, or of the nature of God. Manifestations of the divine. This discovery is the gospel. That is the Good News. But this has been perpetually repressed throughout the history of Western religion…
A Distorted Celestial Monarchy
All Western religions have taken the form of celestial monarchies, and therefore have discouraged democracy in the kingdom of heaven.
Because you see, they have a religion which is militant. Which is not the religion of Jesus, which was the realization of divine son-ship. but the religion about Jesus, which pedestalizes him, and which says only this man, of all the sons of women was divine, and you better recognize it!
So it becomes a freak religion, just as it has made a freak of Jesus among natural man. It claims uniqueness, that what it does teach would be far more credible if it were truly Catholic. That is to say, re-stated again, the truths which have been known from time immemorial.
Every religion should be self-critical, otherwise it soon degenerates into a self righteous hypocrisy. If then, we can see this, that Jesus speaks not from the situation of a historical deus-ex-machina, a kind of weird, extraordinary event. But he is a voice, which has joins with other voices that have said in every place and time: wake up, man, wake up…and realize who you are!
Now I don’t think you see, until Churches get with that, they are going to have very much relevance.
What Modern religion does, and does not
Popular Protestantism and popular Catholicism, will tell you nothing about mystical religion. The message of the preacher…is dear people, be good! …But how? How are we going to be change? Obviously, there cannot be a vitality of religion, without vital religious experience. That’s something much more than emoting than singing with “Onward Christian Soldiers.“
We run a talking shop. We pray, we tell God what to do, or give advice (as if he didn’t know). We read the scriptures. And remember talking of the Bible, Jesus said, “You search the scriptures daily, for in them you think you have life!”
I think the Bible ought to be ceremoniously and reverently burned every Easter. We need it no more, because the Spirit is with us. It’s a dangerous book, and to worship it is of course a far more dangerous idolatry than bowing down to images of wood and stone. Nobody can confuse a wooden image with God, but you can very easily confuse a set of ideas with God, because concepts are more rarified and abstract.”
Contemplation
What are we gonna do about? Do about it? You have no faith? Be quiet.
Supposing we are really quiet. We don’t think. Be absolutely silent, through and through. They say, “you’ll just fall into a blank!” Oh? Ever tried?
I feel then you see that it’s enormously important that Churches stop being talking shops. They become centers of contemplation. What is contemplation? Con-Temple, it’s what you do in the temple! You don’t come to the temple to chatter, but to be still, and “know that I am God.”
If the Christian religion, if the Gospel of Christ is to mean anything at all, we must see Christ as the great mystic. In the proper sense of the word mystic. Not someone who has all sorts of magical powers. A mystic, strictly speaking, is one who realizes union with God, by whatever name. This seems to me, the crux and message of the gospel.
That We are all One
In the prayer of Jesus which St. John records, as he speaks over his disciples praying, that they may be one even as you Father and I are one. That they may be all one. All, realize this divine son-ship, or oneness, basic identity with the eternal energy of the universe, and the love that moves the sun and other stars.”
http://www.youtube.com/wat
