Alan Watts
Popularised Zen, Taoism and Vedanta in the West; the ego as an illusion
14 videos analysed · 45 quotes checked word for word · updated 2026-10-19
Key facts
- Born 6 January 1915 in Chislehurst, England; died 16 November 1973 in Marin County, California. Wikipédia 2026 · Alan Watts
- The official Alan Watts Organization preserves thousands of hours of his original lectures and seminars. Article 2026 · Alan Watts Organization (home…
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe left Christian ministry and held that the universe is one Self rather than a God standing apart from it. Scholars of his work have called this view pantheism. In his talks he says himself that "the Creator and the creature are one", and he mocks the image of God as a cosmic grandfather-king who demands reverence.
- For him the world is not a machine made by an outside architect but something that grows, like a living thing. Video 2020 · Alan Watts - Myth of Myself Full…2
- He reads creation as the one Self forgetting itself on purpose: the universe is a game (lila, play) in which it hides from itself. Video 2022 · Alan Watts: On Being God – Being…2
- The Creator and the creature are one; every being is a mask of that single Self, and he feels himself as an opening through which the universe is aware of itself. Video 2024 · Alan Watts - the universe is…2
- He rejects the image of God as a cosmic grandfather-king who demands reverence, and reads Jesus's message as 'wake up and find out who you are'. Video 2024 · Alan Watts - Consciousness,…2
If everything is God, then God is also the cause of evil and suffering.
If I am God and my house is on fire, I am scared. What do I do with that?
He says we scare ourselves on purpose, like at the cinema, to escape boredom, and that the actor on the stage must be convincing. He adds that he knows he is God only because he takes responsibility for what happens.
He says we do not know where our decisions come from: they pop up like hiccups. For him the idea of a separate self in control of its choices is part of the ego myth.
- We do not know where our decisions come from; they pop up like hiccups, so the 'I' that decides is not in charge. Video 2024 · Alan Watts on Trusting Universal…
If we are ordinary parts of nature and decisions just appear, no one is responsible for anything. We feel we can act otherwise.
He compares life to music or dance: you do not play music to reach the end. For him the point is in the doing, not in a goal set from outside. He goes further: the true meaning of life is no meaning, a "significant nonsense" like a dance.
No sourced position yet on: Source of knowledge, Certainty, Mind and body, Status of morality, Faith and reason, Human nature.
On the big questions
Does God exist?Pantheism
The universe is one Self that hides from itself by becoming everything in it.
- For him the world is not a machine made by an outside architect but something that grows, like a living thing. Video 2020 · Alan Watts - Myth of Myself Full…2
- He reads creation as the one Self forgetting itself on purpose: the universe is a game (lila, play) in which it hides from itself. Video 2022 · Alan Watts: On Being God – Being…2
- The Creator and the creature are one; every being is a mask of that single Self, and he feels himself as an opening through which the universe is aware of itself. Video 2024 · Alan Watts - the universe is…2
- He rejects the image of God as a cosmic grandfather-king who demands reverence, and reads Jesus's message as 'wake up and find out who you are'. Video 2024 · Alan Watts - Consciousness,…2
If everything is God, then God is also the cause of evil and suffering.
If I am God and my house is on fire, I am scared. What do I do with that?
He says we scare ourselves on purpose, like at the cinema, to escape boredom, and that the actor on the stage must be convincing. He adds that he knows he is God only because he takes responsibility for what happens.
Are we free?No free will
He said we do not know where our decisions come from; they pop up like hiccups.
- We do not know where our decisions come from; they pop up like hiccups, so the 'I' that decides is not in charge. Video 2024 · Alan Watts on Trusting Universal…
If we are ordinary parts of nature and decisions just appear, no one is responsible for anything. We feel we can act otherwise.
Is the mind the brain?The question is badly put
He said matter is only an idea and that nothing in the physical world is substantial: it is pattern, so the split between spirit and matter is a false one.
- Matter is only an idea, the concept of solid stuff you can catch hold of; the physical world is elusive and in the end it is pattern. Video 2020 · Alan Watts | Philosophy &…
- He rejects the split between spiritual and physical: a tomato is more spiritual than an abstraction. Video 2020 · Alan Watts | Philosophy &…
Even if we only meet patterns, there is still something it is like to feel them, and physics does not explain it.
Should we fear death?Nothing to fear
He called death the most life-giving thing: accept that everything falls apart and you come alive.
- Life is always falling apart, so clinging to security is an illusion, like holding a rock that falls with you. Video 2025 · Alan Watts - Philosophy of the…
- Accepting death makes you come alive: he calls death the most life-giving thing there is. Video 2025 · Alan Watts - Philosophy of the…2
Death is an evil because it takes away the life we would still have had.
Who am I, really?No fixed self
He called the separate ego, shut in a bag of skin, a false conception. The real self, for him, is the whole.
- The gap between 'me' and the rest of the universe is only an idea, not a real difference. Video 2020 · Alan Watts - Stop Talking to…
- Everything in nature depends on everything else, and a person is known only in relation to what is other: the whole world, he says, bears each person's signature. Video 1971 · Alan Watts - Conversation With…2
- The 'real me' can never be looked at as an object, so trying to improve it is like lifting yourself by your own bootstraps; the 'higher self' is just the old ego. Video 2024 · Alan Watts - Consciousness,…23
- Meditation is the way we come to feel our inseparability from the whole universe, and that requires that we stop the inner chatter ('shut up'). Video 2020 · Alan Watts - Stop Talking to…
Something has to be thinking and feeling. I cannot doubt that I exist as a thinking self.
Does time really exist?Passage is an illusion
He said the future is an illusion and urged people to live in a timeless way.
- The universe begins now; the past only trails behind the present like the wake of a ship. Video 2022 · Alan Watts: On Being God (Being…
- The future is an illusion, so one should live timelessly rather than chase progress. Video 2024 · Don't Waste Your Life - Alan…
Lived time is real: we feel it pass, and a life is made of before and after.
In their words
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
the Creator and the creature are one
The higher self's your old ego
death is the most lifegiving thing there is
1 more quotes
I think a tomato is a lot more spiritual than one plus two equals three
How the ideas evolved
Click a step for details1936First book, and a meeting with D. T. Suzuki
He published The Spirit of Zen and met the Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki. He had been secretary of the London Buddhist Lodge since age 16.
1944Ordained as an Episcopal priest
He moved to the United States in 1938 and became a priest in the mid-1940s (sources give 1944 or 1945). He resigned in 1950 and settled near Millbrook, New York.
1953A weekly radio programme
He began an unpaid weekly programme on the Berkeley station KPFA. It ran until 1962 and built a large audience.
1957The Way of Zen
The book became one of the first best-selling books on Buddhism in the West.
1961Psychotherapy East and West
He publishes Psychotherapy East and West, bringing Eastern thought and psychotherapy together.
1962Psychedelics as instruments
He published The Joyous Cosmology about LSD, mescaline and psilocybin. He compared such drugs to microscopes and telescopes: tools, not an answer in themselves.
1966The Book
In The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, he argued that the sense of being a separate ego is an illusion.
1971A television conversation with himself
In a 1971 television special filmed at Druid Heights, California, he described himself as an aperture through which the universe is conscious of itself.
In their words« I feel myself as a a personing a Manning peopling of the whole universe »Feels himself as the universe 'peopling', not a stranger in it. watch
« a sort of aperture through which the whole universe is conscious of itself »Describes himself as an aperture through which the universe is conscious of itself. watch
« everything in nature depends on everything else »Everything in nature is interdependent and forms one organism. watch
1973Death on Mount Tamalpais
He died in his sleep on 16 November. His last book, Tao: The Watercourse Way, appeared after his death.
Allies and opponents
LaoziInfluence
He wrote on Taoism, including his last book on the Tao.
Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha)Influence
He studied Buddhism from his teens and presented Zen as a blend of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism.
Signature ideas
The skin-encapsulated ego is a myth
We feel like a separate self inside a body, facing a hostile world. Watts held that this picture is false: we are part of the whole universe.
The universe hides from itself
He described the universe as one Self that hides and seeks itself in a game, becoming every creature.
The universe is a game
He called it his fundamental philosophy that the universe is essentially a game: play, he says, not in the sense of something trivial; every way of life is a way of dancing. One Self plays itself through all forms.
The higher self is the old ego
Trying to improve yourself is like lifting yourself by your own bootstraps. The watching 'higher self' is only the ego moving up a floor to avoid being unmasked.
Closest and furthest
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All sources (43)
- Alan Watts Wikipedia · 2026
- Alan Watts biography Alan Watts Organization · 2026
- Alan Watts Organization (home page) Alan Watts Organization · 2026
- Philosopher Alan Watts Explains That Life Is Not a Journey Because the End is Not the Primary Goal Laughing Squid · 2015 *
- Alan Watts - the universe is essentially a game YouTube (republication) · 2024
- Alan Watts - Consciousness, Existence, and Our Everyday Being YouTube (republication) · 2024
- Alan Watts: On Being God (Being in the Way podcast, ep. 6) YouTube (republication) · 2022
- Alan Watts on the purpose of existence YouTube (republication) · 2023
- Alan Watts - Veil of Thoughts Part 1 YouTube (republication) · 2020
- Don't Waste Your Life - Alan Watts On The Present Moment YouTube (republication) · 2024
- Alan Watts on Trusting Universal Determinism and Letting Go YouTube (republication) · 2024
- Alan Watts - Mind Over Mind YouTube (republication) · 2025
- Alan Watts - Myth of Myself Full Lecture Part 1 - Alan Watts Organization Official YouTube · 2020
- Alan Watts - Myth of Myself Full Lecture Part 1 - Alan Watts Organization Official YouTube · 2020
- Alan Watts: On Being God – Being in the Way Podcast Ep. 6 – Hosted by Mark Watts YouTube · 2022
- Alan Watts - Consciousness, Existence, and Our Everyday Being #philosophy #psychology #alanwatts YouTube · 2024
- Alan Watts: On Being God – Being in the Way Podcast Ep. 6 – Hosted by Mark Watts YouTube · 2022
- Alan Watts - Stop Talking to Yourself (Meditation, Motivational No Music) YouTube · 2020
- Alan Watts – MIND OVER MIND | Self-Improvement, Grace, and the Paradox of Control (FULL TALK) YouTube · 2025
- Alan Watts - Stop Talking to Yourself (Meditation, Motivational No Music) YouTube · 2020
- Don't Waste Your Life - Alan Watts On The Present Moment YouTube · 2024
- Alan Watts on Trusting Universal Determinism and Letting Go Black Screen Meditation YouTube · 2024
- Alan Watts - the universe is essentially a game YouTube (republication) · 2024
- Alan Watts - the universe is essentially a game YouTube (republication) · 2024
- Alan Watts - the universe is essentially a game YouTube (republication) · 2024
- Alan Watts on the purpose of existence YouTube (republication) · 2023
- Alan Watts on Trusting Universal Determinism and Letting Go (meditation) YouTube (republication) · 2024
- Alan Watts - Conversation With Myself (1971 television special) YouTube (republication) · 1971
- Alan Watts - Conversation With Myself (1971 television special) YouTube (republication) · 1971
- Alan Watts - Conversation With Myself (1971 television special) YouTube (republication) · 1971
- Alan Watts: On Being God (Being in the Way podcast, ep. 6) YouTube (republication) · 2022
- Alan Watts: On Being God (Being in the Way podcast, ep. 6) YouTube (republication) · 2022
- Alan Watts - Stop Talking to Yourself YouTube (republication) · 2020
- Alan Watts - Philosophy of the Tao pt. 1 YouTube (republication) · 2025
- Alan Watts - Philosophy of the Tao pt. 1 YouTube (republication) · 2025
- Alan Watts - Philosophy of the Tao pt. 1 YouTube (republication) · 2025
- Alan Watts - Philosophy of the Tao pt. 1 YouTube (republication) · 2025
- Alan Watts: Religion of No Religion – Being in the Way Podcast Ep. 31 Hosted By Mark Watts YouTube · 2024
- Alan Watts - Consciousness, Existence, and Our Everyday Being #philosophy #psychology #alanwatts YouTube · 2024
- Alan Watts – MIND OVER MIND | Self-Improvement, Grace, and the Paradox of Control (FULL TALK) YouTube · 2025
- Alan Watts - Mind Over Mind YouTube (republication) · 2025
- Alan Watts | Philosophy & Society | Veil of Thoughts Part 1 (full) YouTube · 2020
- Alan Watts | Philosophy & Society | Veil of Thoughts Part 1 (full) YouTube · 2020