Alan Watts Classic Radio Talks: Volume Two
Special - 'Classic Radio Talks Volume Two' 7-Disc set for Only $49.00
Seeing Through the Game
Every Culture—as a group of people in communicaton with each other—has certain rules of communication. And from culture to culture these rules differ in just the same way that languages differ. And these rules are, in a way, very much like the rules of a game.
A function of liberation inherent in eastern religions is to make it possible for those who have the determination to be free from what Watts calls social hypnosis—to 'see through the game'. Because the rules of communication vary from culture to culture, however, there is an innate risk in adapting Eastern ways of life and philosophy (such as yoga) for the Westerner. It is often likely that Westerners who adopt eastern thought take up the very illusion from which these doctrines were supposed to be ways of deliverance.
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The Unpreachable Religion
It seems to me if you can make any really broad generalization about something so complicated as the civilization of the United States, it would be that it is fundamentally an anti-materialistic civilization—it seems almost dedicated to the annihilation and destruction of the material world, and to its conversion into a junk heap of unimaginable dimensions.
A meticulous analysis of anglo-saxon culture in America, concluding that we are anything but materialists (as is reputed). The vector suggests a progressive "Los Angeles-ization" of our physical environment: a culture devoted to the destruction of life rather than its perpetuation. Why is it that we can't seem to adjust ourselves to the physical environment without destroying it?
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Humor in Religion
I wonder why it is that we—especially we of the Anglo-Saxon subculture—have to be so terribly gloomy about religion, and deny all humor to it?
A person who doesn't know how to make a joke about God or about his religion is estranged from his religion. Watts believed there is nothing wrong in being jocular about religion; real humor means being able to laugh at oneself. It's the awareness that you are very incongruous with what you appear to be outwardly. It is absurd to feel guilty for being human.
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Man is a Hoax
You are conditioned to be in desparate need of a future. But making plans for the future is of use only to people who are capable of living in the present.
A lively public talk in which Watts outlines the whole system of conditioning a child for society. It is a system in which all 'preparation' creates a life-long problem which is insoluble—always preparing for something to happen, you are cultivated to live in the future, but ill-prepared to live 'now'.
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Reconciliation of Opposites
As you know, Eastern teachers don't advertise for students, because their basic attitude is, really, they haven't anything to teach. That may seem surprising, but it is based on the insight that, at the deepest level—because it is prior to conflict—life isn't a problem.
Reflecting on the works of Freud and Jung, Watts observes there is a kind of compensatory relationship between what is conscious & unconscious in our lives. The problem of integrating a person whole is getting together their two opposing sides, and underneath this is the recognition that so many things which seem fundamentally opposed to each other are at another level mutually necessary. This idea underlies the very unusual consideration in Eastern philosophy of the "Middle Way", or doctrine of moderation. The Middle Way is not a compromise, but a profound understanding of the unity that underlies all oppositions.
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Aldous Huxley
There is nothing more difficult than to describe the ideal. Aldous Huxley has tried, but hasn't been able to succeed in perfectly visualizing the ideal—trying to make the highest visions he has convincing to those that never had them.
Reflections on Huxley's final novel "Island", a book about a utopic society envied by the outside world. Watts believes it more a tract than a novel; it represents a kind of culmination of Aldous Huxley's spiritual odyssey. He's a person who has come to understand and accept the two worlds of spirit and everyday life, and has arrived at the insight that the visible material world we see is no different from the divine world. These two worlds do not conflict with one another: they harmonize.
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The Art of Psychoanalysis
Perhaps the most powerful weapon in the analyst's arsenal is the use of silence. This falls into the category of 'helpless' or 'refusal to battle' ploys. It is impossible to win a contest with a helpless opponent, since if you win you have won nothing. Each blow you strike is unreturned, so that all you can feel is guilt for having struck, while at the same time experiencing the uneasy suspicion that the helplessness is calculated.
Reading a long, humorous article which caricatures the one-up/one-down relation of analyst to patient, Watts investigates how the ploy behind this relation may ultimately bring about a cure. When the patient can cease to be in a one-up relationship with himself, he is healed. The trick inherent in this Art of Psychoanalysis is compared to teaching methods used by instructors of Zen.
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Ghosts
In so many ways, just ordinary, physical science is an act of understanding the world more clearly by ceasing to ask misleading questions.
Watts explores the writings of Wittgenstein and the 'ghosts' in our language—the many ways in which our patterns of speech lead us to believe in entities which aren't really there. For example, money is a ghost. It represents wealth in a physical sense, but it isn't actually wealth. It can vanish overnight in a stock market collapse or a depression. But money is very often mistaken for reality.
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