You Are IT

So the world doesn’t come thinged; it doesn’t come evented. You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean. The ocean waves, and the universe peoples. And as I wave and say to you ‘Yoo-hoo!’ the world is waving with me at you and saying ‘Hi! I’m here!’

But we are conscious of the way we feel and sense our existence. Being based on a myth that we are made, that we are parts, that we are things, our consciousness has been influenced, so that each one of us does not feel that.

We have been hypnotized, literally hypnotized by social convention into feeling and sensing that we exist only inside our skins. That we are not the original bang, just something out on the end of it. And therefore we are scared stiff. My wave is going to disappear, and I’m going to die! And that would be awful.

We have a mythology going now which is this – we are something that happens between the maternity ward and the crematorium. And that’s it. And therefore everybody feels unhappy and miserable.

~ Alan Watts