Page 49 - Bliss Planet Venice Beach Edition - Health Wellness Lifestyle Magazine - Vegan - Happiness - Beat Depression & Improve Relationships

will realize the mysterious truth
identification of the Seer with the
instruments of seeing.”¹¹ Certainly
man as instrument is an obedient
tool whether he likes it or not, but it
may be that there is something in
man which is more than the
instrument, more than his reason
and individuality which are part of
that instrument and which he
mistakenly believes to be his true
self. And while as an instrument he
is bound, as this he is free, and his
problem is to become aware of it.
Finding it, he will understand that in
fleeing from death, fear, and sorrow
he is making himself a slave, for he
Bliss Planet 49
that in fact he is free both to live
and to die, to love and to fear, to
rejoice and to be sad, and that in
none of these things is there any
shame. But man rejects his
freedom to do them, imagining that
death, fear, and sorrow are the
causes of his unhappiness. The real
cause is that he does not let
himself be free to accept them, for
he does not understand that he
who is free to love is not really free
unless he is also free to fear, and
this is the freedom of happiness.
Alan Watts (January 6, 1915 – November
16, 1973) was a British-born American
philosopher, writer, speaker, and
counterculture hero, best known as an
interpreter of Asian philosophies for a
Western audience. He wrote over 25
books and numerous articles applying the
teachings of Eastern and Western religion
and philosophy to our everyday lives.
Excerpted from the book The Meaning of
Happiness: The Quest for Freedom of the
Spirit in Modern Psychology and the
Wisdom of the East. Copyright ©2018 by
Joan Watts and Anne Watts. Printed with
permission from New World Library —
www.newworldlibrary.com.