Ecology & Religion

Our guest lecturer tonight is not an ordinary man.

A few hours ago I saw him doing a very beautiful spiritual meditation dance with about 50 people.

Alan Watts is a prolific writer whose works are both incisive and delightful to read.

Through the years he has moved through many different professions,

having served as a minister, professor, a research associate, editor,

and probably many other things that I don't know about.

As most of you know, his writings relate to many different fields,

but he is perhaps best known for having taken the profound spiritual wisdom of the East

and after having probed and experienced it himself,

made it available to us of the Western heritage.

As would be expected of anyone who speaks as openly and as directly as Alan Watts does,

there have been critics and detractors.

As best I can observe, his response to those criticisms has been simply to do what he talks about doing,

is to stand in the world and to be himself.

The workshop this weekend and this lecture this evening are among the programs of the Laos Health,

which are designed to open up various aspects of the human potential.

Dr. Watts' subject tonight is ecology and religion.

I know that long before ecology became a popular public issue,

Dr. Watts was speaking about the relation of man and nature as being the central aspect of life,

and I'm sure that he will open up many creative and adventurous responses in us here tonight.

Alan, we welcome you, and I look forward to hearing you.

I suppose most people now know what ecology is,

but just in case there are some people in the audience who don't,

I should explain that ecology is that branch of science

which deals with the relationship between organisms and their environments.

The word is, of course, Greek.

Ecos meaning the house or the household.

Loyos meaning the rationale of it,

as in economics, which is a similar word.

Ecology arose in Western science for this simple reason,

that when you try to describe completely the behavior of any living organism,

you find that you cannot describe the organism

without at the same time describing its environment.

And that led to a very interesting thought,

that the idea of a separate organism is false.

And that, however, is an idea implanted in everyone's common sense.

One thinks of oneself as a separate being.

And not merely as a separate body,

but it gets worse than that.

As a separate ego inside a body.

In common speech, we are apt to say,

I have a body,

rather than I am a body.

In fact, we look upon our bodies rather contemptuously.

Because we know they are going to fall apart.

The body,

the material,

the physical aspect,

is always in some way considered inferior

to the mental,

the spiritual,

the psychological aspect.

And so we feel,

we are brought up to feel,

divided

into two parts.

The mind on the one hand,

or the soul,

and on the other hand,

the body,

the corpus,

the corpse.

Our whole ecological crisis

results from this kind of schizophrenic attitude

towards our identity.

Now what is the ecological crisis?

It is this.

We'll just add it up

by title.

The human world is dangerously overpopulated.

And this overpopulation

is the result

to some considerable degree

of our progress in medical sciences.

We are not so easily wiped out

by plagues.

At the same time,

our overpopulated

and technological society

is eating up the earth

at a fantastic pace.

So that

people who study,

scientists who study

food problems

predict

that by the year 1975

there will be

a worldwide famine

unless we can

increase the production

of food

by 25%.

It will be possible,

but quite difficult,

to increase the food production

by 2%.

We are at the same time

fouling our own nest.

We are polluting

the atmosphere

and we are polluting

the water.

And water,

incidentally,

is the element

necessary for life

that is most necessary

and in lowest supply.

We are tearing the forests

off our hills

for building purposes

and even more so

for making paper

upon which to print

information

so that every literate

person today

is practically suffocated

in mountains of paper.

And think also

of your supermarket,

the paper bags

in which you carry out

your groceries

instead of following

the old-fashioned custom

of taking a market basket

to the store.

paper wrapping

everywhere,

all of it

destroyed trees.

And it isn't as simple

as that.

For every pound of paper

and compare

a pound of plastic,

it seems that plastic

might be the solution.

Whereas the pound of paper

will require,

say,

five gallons of water

to manufacture it,

the pound of plastic

will require 30.

And that water

is all discarded.

For military reasons,

we have created

nuclear energy

and there are also

nuclear wastes.

And these wastes

have to be disposed of.

Not to mention

the existence

of nuclear warheads,

which of course

could destroy

all life on this planet

at any time.

But what to do

with the wastes?

They are being put

in enormous

underground

and sometimes

underwater

concrete vats.

And these vats

will wear out

before the substances

they contain

cease to be radioactive.

The problem

with the nuclear weapons

is not

how to avoid

their use in war,

but how to get them

off the planet.

Then we will go on

to consider

the various

chemicals

that have been prepared

for biological

and chemical warfare.

And again,

the problem is

how to get rid of them,

not how to avoid

using them.

Now,

any one of these

problems that I've

mentioned,

taken alone,

would be a serious

threat to human

survival.

But taken altogether,

where are we?

They're insane.

And this problem

of man

in relation to

his environment

overshadows

every other

political problem.

It isn't just

that,

as you might say,

a president

of the United States

suddenly gets alarmed

about man's

relationship

to his environment

and uses it

as a political

gimmick

to divert

attention

from racial relations.

It isn't like that.

It's like when

Tweedle Gum

and Tweedle Dee

agreed to have a battle.

just by then

flew a monstrous crow

as black as a tar barrel,

which frightened

both those heroes

so they quite forgot

their quarrel.

And that's what's happening.

In other words,

all the traditional

political problems

as to whether you're

a Republican

or a Democrat,

a right-winger

or a left-winger,

a capitalist

or a communist,

a pale pink person

or a dark brown person

are absolutely obsolete

because it is

highly possible

that the human race

will not survive

beyond the year 2000.

They'll wake up

if survival

is important.

Maybe it isn't.

Maybe all stars

were originally planets.

They're on their

developed intelligent life

which discovered

the nucleus

and its secrets

and just blew itself up.

Maybe that's how

things go.

It's like saying

a chicken is one egg's

way of becoming

other eggs.

But if you are

interested in survival

and not mere survival

but in elegant survival

it's necessary

to be very wide awake

to the ecological problem.

There is a historian

of science

by the name of

Lynn White

who's a professor

of history

at UCLA

and he said recently

the roots of our

ecological crisis

are religious

and therefore

the solution

must also be religious

even if not called

by that name.

And I would like

to go first

into the reasons

why the roots

of this crisis

are religious.

Technology

as we know it

has emerged

out of a certain

philosophy of life

and the foundation

of that philosophy

is a distinction

between symbols

on the one hand

and reality

on the other.

You might say

words

and events

map

and territory

money

and wealth.

Now isn't it obvious

that a word

is not

what it represents?

Now isn't it obvious

that a word

is not

what it represents?

A word

is a sound

a noise

in the air

and if we take

the sound

water

the sound

water

cannot be

used for

washing

or drinking.

It stands

for it

and in just

the same way

it is not

nutritive

to eat

dollar bills

or checks

or credit cards.

They are not

wealth.

They represent it.

In the same way

you

as a living

organism

are not

the same

as your idea

of yourself.

That is to say

your organism

is not

your personality

is not

your ego.

That is simply

a concept

of yourself

in the same

way as

a dollar

is a concept

or measure

of wealth

or in the same

way as a menu

represents

what is going

to be served

for dinner.

But it is not

for dinner.

It is very

useful

and very

marvelous

to be able

to represent

the real world

with symbols

provided you

know what

you are doing

provided

you do not

confuse the

two

and go for

symbols

instead of

wealth

instead of

reality.

Now you may

ask me on the

other hand

because I am

talking

because I am

a speaker

because I am

a philosopher

what do you

mean by

reality

and I am

not going

to tell you

because it

can't be

said.

Reality

is

some people

would say

that was a

clap.

Clap

is not

the same

sound as

some people

will say

reality is

material and

physical.

Other people

will say

reality is

mental

or spiritual.

but you

will see

that in

either case

reality is

being defined

in terms of

philosophical

concepts.

The notion

that the

world is

material

is simply

a philosophical

school of

thought.

It's an

idea.

Equally so

is the

notion that

the world

is spiritual.

Even if we

take it down

to God

the root

and ground

of being

all we

can talk

about it

is ideas

and those

are strings

of words

or they

may be

strings of

numbers

or strings

of algebraic

equations

but

they never

get there

because

words

and numbers

are always

strung out

in a line

and you

have to

scan them

with a

process of

attention

called

consciousness

and however

fast you

speed that

up

even using

computers

the world

is always

beyond it.

Why?

Because the

world itself

is not

linear.

The world

is a

multidimensional

complex

of everything

happening

all together

everywhere at

once.

Look at it

this simply.

How do you

know

how to

breathe?

You think

how to

breathe?

Did you

teach yourself

how to

breathe?

Did you

have to

go to

school

to learn

how to

breathe

out of

a

textbook?

No.

You

breathe

as soon

as the

doctor

who

delivered

juice

banked you

on the

bottom.

Nobody

had to

teach you.

But

breathing

from the

point of

view of

physiology

is a

very complex

process.

How did

you learn?

How did

you learn

how to

grow your

hair?

How to

color your

eyes?

how to

shape your

bones?

How to

make your

glands give

out their

proper secretions?

You never

did learn

in the

sense where

we mean

learning is

reading

instructions.

You may

therefore very

well disclaim

all this

skill and

say,

well, I

didn't do

it.

All this

breathing, all

this hair, all

these eyes, bones,

and everything

else were

given to me

by God.

to whom

then were

they given?

Is your

heart not

you?

Is it just

something you

have?

Is your

brain, which

we know less

about than

any other

organ in

the body,

is that not

you?

Is it just

something you

have?

If so, I

ask again,

who is

you?

Do you

know how

to open

and close

your hands?

Well, you

say, surely

I do, because

I do it.

You can't

describe it in

terms of

words, although

a physiologist

may describe

it in terms

of words, but

that doesn't

help him to

open and

close his

hands any

better than

you.

So you

see, you

are a

great deal

more than

you suppose,

because we

have all

been brought

up to

confuse our

living reality

with an

idea, with

a personality,

which is

given a

name.

And as a

result of

that, we

all feel

isolated.

We all

feel as if

we were a

little man

inside our

heads.

about halfway

between the

ears and

a little

way behind

the eyes.

That's what

most people

seem to

mean when

they use

the word

I, I

myself.

So we

are detached

from our

bodies, we

have them, and

in turn, our

bodies are

detached

conceptually, not

really, but

conceptually, from

the rest of the

world.

other historical

aspects of

this strange

situation in

which we find

ourselves.

Through the

Jewish and

Christian religions,

we inherit a

tradition of

thought about

the nature of

the world, which

uses certain

metaphors.

I should say,

first of all,

that these

metaphors are

not essential

to these

religions, but

these religions

include them as

part of their

pedagogy, their

way of

teaching.

So I don't

want to, as

it were, give

offense to

anyone here who

is a Jew or

a Christian, as

if I were

trying to tear

your religion

apart.

But it is

so that both

the Jewish and

the Christian

religions have

used an

image of the

creation of

the universe

which represents

the universe as

an artifact, as

something made

in the same

way as a

potter would

make a

vessel, a

sculptor, a

figurine, or a

carpenter, a

table.

And we get

that, of course,

right from the

book of

Genesis, where

it is said that

God created

Adam out of

clay and then

breathed the

breath of

life into his

nostrils.

So it is

fundamental to

the common

sense of

all Western

peoples to

think of

themselves as

made.

And if you

are made, you

are essentially

a mechanism.

Now look what

happened.

Towards the

end of the

18th century,

advanced Western

thinkers found

it impossible to

believe in

God.

A super

boss, king

and lawgiver

governing the

universe.

The reason they

found this

impossible, they

never, they

never could

prove that such

a God did not

exist.

But that sort

of an idea, the

old gentleman

with the white

whiskers on the

golden throne of

heaven, simply

became implausible

in relation to the

vision of the

universe that late

18th century

astronomy and

other sciences

were unfolding.

No one would

dream of

attributing a

composition by

Beethoven to

Palestrina.

So when we

saw this new

vision of the

style of the

universe, what

sort of a

thing it is, it

was awfully

difficult to

attribute the

nebula in

Andromeda to

the Lord God

Jehovah.

Because the

Lord God Jehovah

just didn't seem

to have the

imagination to

produce that sort

of a phenomenon.

And you know,

when people

thought, were

thinking then,

Christians in

America, were

thinking then of

the world as

having been

created in

4000 BC, and

then they started

to think about

light years, and

the Hindus came

along and said,

well, of course,

we've known this

all along.

We always

calculated the

history of the

universe in

terms of

cowpers as

our mere

basic unit of

reckoning.

And a

cowper is

4,320,000

years.

That's what we

begin with.

And we think

of those added

up into

crores of

cowpers,

coaches of

cowpers,

centuries,

you see,

of cowpers.

We've always

thought that

way.

Well, this

upstaged the

Christians pretty

badly.

And so they

rushed to

reinterpret

everything.

They've always

been having to

do this.

And saying,

well, of course,

when it says in

the book of

Genesis that

God created the

world in six

days, of course,

a day, well,

it says in the

Psalms, a thousand

years are but a

day in thy

sight.

Well, it

stretches the

day at least

to a thousand

years.

But then they

thought, well,

perhaps a day

is merely a

metaphorical

expression.

Well, what if

God is just a

metaphorical

expression?

See, where

we get to.

But the

problem was

essentially

this, that

if you think

of the world

as an

artifact, as

something made,

and then you

find you can

no longer

believe in the

maker, what

are you left

with?

you're left

with a

machine.

Don't like

it.

The

scientific

naturalism of

the 19th

century, which

rejected all

supernaturalism,

came, therefore,

to regard the

world as

nothing but a

fortuitous

congress of

atoms, operating

in accordance

with the

principles of

Newtonian

mechanics.

And you would

have thought that

someone who

declared himself to

be a naturalist

would have been

sort of in

favor of

nature.

But on the

contrary, the

naturalists began

the most savage

war against

nature ever

waged, because

they hated

it.

It's like

Americans, who

are credited

with being

materialists,

absolutely

loathe

material.

They do

everything to

destroy it, to

convert it into

poison gas and

garbage.

They don't know

how to cook, how

to dress, and

mistreat the

world in the

most terrible

way.

Cities that

look like

rubbish heaps,

scattered all

over the most

beautiful mountain

country and

flames.

Cities that look like rubbish heaps,

scattered all over the most beautiful mountain country and flames.

What a gorgeous country, speaking of the territory.

How hideous speaking of the map.

Because material is not reverent, is not respected.

Everything is being turned into plastic.

Poison gas, smog, fake surface sort of life, see?

Now this is because when you look at the world as a piece of machinery,

you know perfectly well that all machinery is stupid.

If we are nothing but a product of blind energy,

in other words, if human reason, intelligence, love, is nothing but fluke,

it is a result of a gyration of energy,

as if a million monkeys had been typing for a million years on a million typewriters,

the chances are that maybe at some point of time

they would type out the Encyclopæde Britannica.

And so we have been brought up to feel that that is the sort of result we are.

We are the Encyclopæde Britannica typed out by the monkeys.

Now that's what you really believe.

There are religious people here,

and I'm talking of religious people in the sense of those who are faithful attendants

of the standard brand religions.

You know, Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist,

Reformed Jewish, whatever.

You don't believe in your religions.

You think you ought to believe in them.

And you feel guilty because you don't.

But you don't.

If you did, you'd be screaming in the streets.

So the clergymen get up every Sunday and they say,

Dear people, you really ought to have faith.

We all ought to have faith.

We don't have strong enough faith.

If we really had faith, we'd be able to move mountains.

You don't hear that kind of sermon when people have faith.

So the thing has become implausible in those terms.

And therefore we are left with a mechanism

because we inherit the idea of the mechanism

through the notion that the world has been made

as something is put together from separate parts and constructed.

So we look upon everything that exists as an object.

Say, well, you know, it's like you put this podium together, for example.

You do this and you do this and this and slap it all together.

And let's stand aside from it and measure it properly in all directions.

And we can take an objective view.

Of course, we are civilized.

We don't regard the podium as a living being.

Who would dream of addressing the podium and saying,

How do you do?

I trust that this evening your spirit will be congenial with mine

and that we won't get in each other's way.

That's mere animistic superstition.

So it's an object.

And we can stand aside from it and examine it and measure it and look at it.

And we take that attitude in our sciences to everything

until we get to quantum mechanics.

And that's another story.

But the ordinary common sense attitude of people is that the world consists of objects.

And furthermore, when you turn that back on you, take an objective attitude to yourself,

as in behavioristic psychology, and then you start talking about unconscious mental mechanisms.

You get Freud's psychohydraulics, and everything becomes mechanisms.

Now obviously, everything that is an object is objectionable.

And therefore, when we see the world as not life, as not having subjectivity,

but merely being objectivity, we are going to destroy it.

We are going to commit suicide on a grand scale.

Because we don't want to be nothing but something completely explainable.

Why not?

And this again goes back to the great deep roots of religion.

You see, the objective of technology is to control everything.

Know the future so completely that it can be predicted.

You see, and so controlled.

We have the ambition to be God.

And in the Genesis myth, where the Lord God tells Adam

that he must not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge,

knowledge of good and evil, the Hebrew words for good and evil,

are related to the art metallurgy.

In other words, they are rather more technical terms than moral terms.

What is advantageous and disadvantageous rather than what is loving or unloving.

So, the fall of man is connected in this myth

with the development of technology and of man's attempt to acquire power over the world.

And so, let us suppose then that you really could be God

in the old fashioned sense of Jehovah.

We are not going to talk about any sophisticated ideas of Brahma or the Tao

or anything like that for the moment.

But just good old fashioned Jehovah.

Like the kid who took too much acid in Los Angeles

and turned himself into the police with a little note said,

please help me, signed Jehovah.

What would you do if you were God in that sense?

Everything is known to you.

Everything is under your control.

You know all futures, all pasts, and all presents.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.

What would you do?

Well, I think you'd say to yourself, man get lost.

Because you would be incapable of ever having a surprise.

That would be like making love to a plastic woman.

So it says, I mean in the Christian tradition, that God then created man,

and also the angels, with freedom of will.

So that they would surprise him.

You know, sit and do your own show.

But it never really came off.

Because it was said, you see, you've got freedom of will,

but you'd better obey me or else.

It's like saying to your child.

Now, you're my child, of course, but you must love me.

All nice children love their mothers.

And of course, naturally, I want you to love me

because you really want to, and not just because I say so.

And that is a trick known as the double bind.

Which is damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Because if you do, then you're a goody-goody.

And if you don't, you're disobedient.

And if you do it the way you're told to do it,

then you're just a replica of your parent.

And they wanted something different.

And that comes the plastic woman again, you see.

It's very difficult.

So suppose then it was a different thing altogether.

But God, and we're talking, I'm talking in a kind of symbolic language.

Instead of making an artifact universe,

manifested himself or itself or herself as the universe.

Instead of being always lording it over everything.

Became totally involved.

And in a certain way forgot infinite wisdom and knowledge.

There's a hint about this in St. Paul,

who always is so remarkably quotable out of context,

but where he says in the epistle to the Philippians,

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,

who being in the form of God,

did not think identity with God something to be grasped,

but humbled himself and made himself of no reputation,

was found in fashion as a man and became obedient to death.

An adventure called the kenotic theory,

K-E-N-O-T-I-C,

from the Greek kenosis,

which means self-emptying.

But there's also,

that's the kenotic theory of the incarnation,

of God becoming Jesus.

But there's also a kenotic theory of creation.

See that God not simply became only Jesus,

but you all.

Because if anybody individually gets up and suddenly says,

I've realized I'm God,

everybody says,

either you're blasphemous or crazy.

And we'll give you the benefit of the doubt

and send you to the lunatic asylum.

That's because, you see,

in our society we cannot accept

someone realizing that he is God,

because we have a political idea of God.

God as the boss man,

based on the Cyrus's of Persia

and the pharaohs of Egypt.

That's where the imagery comes from.

That's where even the titles of God come from.

King of kings and lord of lords

is the Jan Khan.

That's the Cyrus of Persia.

And if you're going to look at God

in the image of the Cyrus of Persia,

that's idolatry.

Every time you sing Kyrie eleison,

means Cyrus have mercy on us.

How can you,

as members of the Republic of the United States,

believe that the universe is a monarchy,

if you think that a republic is the best form of government?

If the universe is a monarchy,

then a monarchy is the best form of government.

See, that's how we're all mixed up.

That's how, like,

in the problem of getting exemption from the draft,

because you're a conscientious objector,

or to claim that you smoke marijuana

because it's your religious sacrament.

Well, the courts always say,

well, um,

do you believe in a supreme being?

They want to say to you,

is it in your conscience

that you are receiving orders

from a higher echelon of command

than the president of the United States?

And therefore,

it's always been terribly difficult

for Buddhists and Taoists and people like that

to register as conscientious objectors.

They say you don't believe in a supreme being.

You don't believe in a boss.

But you see, therefore,

the whole idea of the universe as being governed,

and when you think of man as made in the image of God,

in the sense of man being made in the image of the governor,

you get fundamentally an aggressive attitude to the world,

because the Cyrus of Persia ruled by force.

Do what I tell you or else.

Now, maybe I'll be a beneficent desperate

and say to you, well, I am going to try and persuade you

by sweetly reasonable activity,

or even by really putting myself out,

and the principle of this is going to hurt me

more than it's going to hurt you.

But I'm just going to convey

that if you don't do what I'm persuading you to do,

you're going to fly in hell forever.

Conceives of himself in the image of this tyrant.

He attempts to govern the world by attack.

And so we speak of the conquest of nature,

the conquest of space.

And of course, naturally, we're going to conquer cancer

and all this kind of thing.

See?

Out comes a thing like DDT.

Conquest of pests.

And we suddenly find it's a disaster.

And we don't realize, you see,

that we are on a spaceship already.

We don't need any rockets.

We're going zooming through space

faster than any rocket could be imagined to go.

All you need is sensitivity.

It comes to you through radar astronomy.

You don't need to go zooming out with these great phallic symbols

which may be satisfactory to the sexually unsatisfied males

who concern themselves with such things.

We don't have to go out with bulldozers

and attack nature

in ghastly fulfillment of the prophecy

that every mountain shall be laid low

and every valley exalted

and the rough places made plain.

We need to realize, you see,

that we, our body, is nature.

That everything, that the air,

that the temperature,

the grass, the plants,

they're all us.

The grass is just as much you as your own hair.

You can't live without it.

Just as you can't be a solid without a surrounding space.

Well, you say the space isn't there.

It's just nothing.

But supposing the space around me disappeared.

Could you see me?

Where would my outline go

if there were no background space?

How could I move without it?

Maybe space is more real than solid.

When scientists start to talk about properties of space,

curved space, expanding space,

the average layman can't understand what they're talking about

because he thinks that space is nothing.

It's all been overlooked.

When you concentrate, therefore,

on the solid against the space,

and want to take all facts, say, as being hard facts.

People don't talk about soft facts.

All this is an attitude of aggression.

You see?

Based on the theory that success,

the crisis we are in,

is the complete blowing up,

the complete debunking,

a self-contradiction,

is the best word to use,

of the notion that success comes through force.

Look at the war in Vietnam.

Shooting mosquitoes with machine guns.

And we think, you know,

let's kick the shit out of it.

That sort of attitude,

that sort of nasty,

over-specialized male attitude,

which is exemplified in so much of our population.

Going to move anything that way is not force.

Real power is using your weight.

It all comes to him who waits.

When in judo,

you want to move something towards you,

you don't crawl like this.

You do this.

You use your weight.

And if the enemy attacks you,

and pushes at you,

you just drop to the floor.

And he spins right over your head,

and lands against the wall.

That's his problem.

The earth is falling around the sun.

All energy follows the line of least resistance.

Water is the most powerful thing in the world.

But it always takes the course of least resistance.

Using its weight.

You can't cut water.

It doesn't resist you,

but you can't wound it.

You know,

you can push your finger into it,

but the moment you withdraw it,

the hole's gone.

And that is,

in a way,

a feminine property.

So Lao Tzu,

the great Chinese philosopher, said,

While being a male,

retain in yourself always a female element.

And so you will become a universal channel.

And that is the problem of this whole

paternalistic God the Father conception

of the ground of being.

It's aggressively male.

And it needs modification with the symbol

of the female.

The earth mother,

the lover of the earth.

And women are always fundamentally concerned

about whether the vegetables are grown,

whether the children are nurtured.

We've tried to masculinize our women

to an enormous extent,

with a good deal of success.

And it's really tough on us,

the lack of real female women.

Civilize our men.

That's where we stand, you see,

in this whole ecological crisis.

Now, again, I repeat,

to those of you who are devout Christians or Jews,

I'm not trying to knock your religion.

I'm merely saying that you've got the wrong symbols,

the wrong symbols,

and you've got a choice of others.

Besides the symbol of the kingdom of God,

you have the symbol of the body of Christ,

which is an organic,

as distinct from a political symbol.

You've got the idea,

I am the vine and you are the branches,

which is a vegetative symbol.

Instead of this notion of God,

who is above,

and has a mallet,

and goes,

BANG!

like that,

and puts order into everything,

like a sculpture with a chisel,

chisel,

don't, don't, don't.

Think of it the other direction,

like a flower,

where the energy comes through the stalk,

out into the pebbles,

and the leaves.

See?

You have an expansive,

non-forcing,

but rather growing,

organization.

And in those terms,

we can conceive a kind of stelliform universe,

the center of the whole thing,

is also the center of each one of us.

Where we don't force creative action,

but allow it to happen through us.

Just as,

you cannot force yourself to circulate your blood,

you cannot force yourself to sleep,

you cannot force yourself to breathe,

or to digest your food,

you have to allow it.

And so, in exactly the same way,

you have to allow yourself to love,

not only other people,

but also,

this whole universe,

which is your own body.

Instead of regarding yourselves,

as poor,

frustrated,

angry,

little outcasts,

infesting

a ball of rock,

that revolves round an unimportant star,

on the outer fringes,

of a minor galaxy.

It's the way things are, baby,

and I'm a real tough guy,

because I recognize that.

You may believe in God,

and someone up there who cares,

but that's for little old ladies and children.

Space in space is considered as the middle of all space,

because it's curved.

Any point on it is the middle of it.

Everybody's in the middle.

The tiniest little amoeba thinks it's human.

Don't,

don't,

lose center.

Another way in which we lose center

is to explain ourselves away

as mere results of a past.

That's on the analogy of billiards,

which is Newtonian mechanics.

You're just a billiard ball

that's been hit by a cue called motivation.

Why did you do it?

Well, my mother had a complex.

It works the other way around.

The ball hits the cue.

The weight flows from the ship.

To insist that the past controls you,

that's your privilege.

We're in the middle.

The middle isn't just ego.

It's the whole energy of the universe.

The important thing we can do is to realize that.

Because if we don't,

we can't deal with the ecological problem.

That's why the solution is religious.

If we try to deal with it,

we'll just make a mess of it.

Because when the wrong man uses the right means,

the right means work in the wrong way.

The wrong man, you see,

he still confuses himself with his idea of himself.

This is KPFK Los Angeles.

We have just heard Alan Watts with a 1960s discussion

before a live audience on ecology and religion.

So let's continue.

Yes.

Let's go back and talk.

We'll be right back.