Having most vividly introduced the complexities of Eastern wisdom to the contemporary ideas
of the West, British philosopher Alan Watts is now considered a philosophic legend. He was
an author, a poet, a radical thinker, an ex-priest, a mystic, a teacher, and a critic of society.
He understood the concept of stepping back from all of the drama we create in life; he
understood the cosmic humour of it all. He was devoted to play. For this, he (as well
as many others) labeled himself as a spiritual/philosophical entertainer.
Alan Watts is one of the better-known philosophers in our world today. Admittedly, though, he
was an unlikely philosopher. As opposed to many philosophers before and after him,
he demonstrated to many wondering minds across the globe how to construct their own meaning
out of life.
Alan Watts was born to middle class parents in
the village of Chislehurst, Kent (now south-east London), in 1915, living at 3 (now 5) Holbrook
Lane, which was subsequently lived in by author John Hemming-Clark in the early 1900s. Watts'
father, Laurence Wilson Watts, was a representative for the London office of the Michelin Tyre
Company; his mother, Emily Mary Watts, was a housewife whose father had been a missionary.
With modest financial means, they chose to live in pastoral surroundings and Alan, an
only child, grew up playing at brookside, learning the names of wildflowers and butterflies.
Probably because of the influence of his mother's religious family, an interest in "ultimate
things" seeped in. But it mixed with Alan's own interests in storybook fables and romantic
tales of the mysterious Far East. Watts also later wrote of a mystical dream
he experienced while ill with a fever as a child. During this time he was influenced
by Far Eastern landscape paintings and embroideries that had been given to his mother by missionaries
returning from China. The few Chinese paintings Watts was able to see in England riveted him,
and he wrote "I was aesthetically fascinated with a certain clarity, transparency, and
spaciousness in Chinese and Japanese art. It seemed to float...". These works of art
emphasized the participatory relationship of man in nature, a theme that stood fast
throughout his life, and one that he often wrote about. See, for instance, the last chapter
in The Way of Zen.
Buddhism and School By his own assessment, Watts was imaginative,
headstrong, and talkative. He was sent to boarding schools (which included both academic
and religious training of the Muscular Christianity sort) from early years. Of this religious
training, he remarked "Throughout my schooling my religious indoctrination was grim and maudlin…”
Watts spent several holidays in France in his teen years, accompanied by Francis Croshaw,
a wealthy Epicurean with strong interests in both Buddhism and exotic little-known aspects
of European culture. It was not long afterward that Watts felt forced to decide between the
Anglican Christianity he had been exposed to and the Buddhism he had read about in various
libraries, including Croshaw's. He chose Buddhism, and sought membership in the London Buddhist
Lodge, which had been established by Theosophists, and was then run by the barrister Christmas
Humphreys. Watts became the organization's secretary at 16 (1931). The young Watts explored
several styles of meditation during these years.
Watts attended The King's School, Canterbury.He spent his spare time involved with the Buddhist
Lodge and also under the tutelage of a "rascal guru" named Dimitrije Mitrinović.(Mitrinović
was himself influenced by Peter Demianovich Ouspensky, G. I. Gurdjieff, and the varied
psychoanalytical schools of Freud, Jung and Adler. Watts also read widely in philosophy,
history, psychology, psychiatry and Eastern wisdom. By his own reckoning, and also by
that of his biographer Monica Furlong, Watts was primarily an autodidact.
In 1931, at the age of sixteen, Watts was
made the Secretary of the Buddhist Lodge. Sometime during this period, he also came
in contact with spiritual authors like, Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, Nicholas Roerich
and Alice Bailey and imbibed a lot from them.
In 1932, at the age of seventeen, he published his first book, ‘An Outline of Zen Buddhism’.
It was actually a 32 page pamphlet, but was highly appreciated by the scholars and is
still in print. By and by, he became the editor of ‘Buddhism in England’.
In 1936, he attended the World Congress of Faiths at the University of London, where
he met Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, esteemed scholar of Zen Buddhism. He had already read his works;
the meeting fascinated him to a great extent.
Also in 1936, he published his second book; ‘The Spirit of Zen: A Way of Life, Work
and Art in the Far East’. It was followed by ‘The Legacy of Asia and Western Man’
(1937).
In 1938, he left England for the United States of America with his family. Initially they
settled in New York, where he began his formal training in Zen Buddhism. Unfortunately, he
could not adapt to his teacher’s method and so he left without being ordained as a
Zen monk.
Looking for a vocational outlet for his spiritual inclinations, he joined Seabury-Western Theological
Seminary, an Episcopal (Anglican) school in Evanston, Illinois. Here he studied Christian
scriptures, theology, and church history.
In 1945, on receiving his master’s degree from the seminary, he became an Episcopal
priest and joined the Northwestern University at Chicago as its chaplain. He was very popular
among the students, who joined him in a spirited discussion on Christian as well as Eastern
philosophy. During his stay at Chicago, Watts wrote three
books on Christian mysticism. However, he found it very hard to reconcile his Buddhist
beliefs with Christian doctrines. Moreover, he got entangled in an extramarital relationship.
So he left Chicago and in early 1951, shifted to San Francisco.
At San Francisco, he joined the American Academy of Asian Studies as faculty and met many international
scholars. He was especially influenced by Saburō Hasegawa, the well-known Japanese
painter, from whom he learned a lot about Japanese art, customs as well as their perception
of nature.
He also seized the opportunity to learn Chinese language as well as Chinese brush calligraphy.
Apart from that, he studied many other subjects ranging from Vedanta to quantum mechanics
and cybernetics.
Later, Watts became the Dean of the Academy. From now on, he began to give regular talks
on the KPFA, free radio station at Berkeley. His talks attracted a wide range of audience.
At the same time, he continued writing and in 1957, published his bestselling book, ‘The
Way of Zen’.
Sometime now, he also started experimenting with psychedelic drugs and its effect on mystical
insight. He began by taking mescaline. Next in 1958, he worked with several other researchers
on LSD, taking the drugs several times. Later he worked with cannabis and wrote about their
effects in his forthcoming books. Alan Watts experimented with LSD and other drugs. He
saw them as being of use in offering "glimpses" to a greater spirituality, and in helping
individuals understand their connection to the universe. He later concluded that, "If
you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments,
like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently
glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen.”
In 1958, Watts went on a tour to Europe. On returning to San Francisco, he recorded two
seasons of a television series titled 'Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life' on KQED television
channel.
From early 1960s, he went to Japan several times. Also from 1962 to 1964, he had a fellowship
at Harvard University and in 1968, became a scholar at San Jose State University. In
fact, by the late 1960s, he had become a counterculture celebrity with many followers as well as critics.
*Soon he began travelling widely to speak at universities and growth centers across
the US and Europe and by early 1970s, he became the most important interpreter of Eastern
thoughts in the Western world.
On spiritual and social identity In regards to his ethical outlook, Watts felt
that absolute morality had nothing to do with the fundamental realization of one's deep
spiritual identity. He advocated social rather than personal ethics. In his writings, Watts
was increasingly concerned with ethics applied to relations between humanity and the natural
environment and between governments and citizens. He wrote out of an appreciation of a racially
and culturally diverse social landscape. He often said that he wished to act as a bridge
between the ancient and the modern, between East and West, and between culture and nature.
In several of his later publications, especially
Beyond Theology and The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Watts put forward
a worldview, drawing on Hinduism, Chinese philosophy, pantheism or panentheism, and
modern science, in which he maintains that the whole universe consists of a cosmic Self
playing hide-and-seek; hiding from itself by becoming all the living and
non-living things in the universe and forgetting what it really is – the upshot being that
we are all IT in disguise. In this worldview, Watts asserts that our conception of ourselves
as an "ego in a bag of skin," or "skin-encapsulated ego" is a myth; the entities we call the separate
"things" are merely aspects or features of the whole.
Alan Watts' books frequently include discussions reflecting his keen interest in patterns that
occur in nature and which are repeated in various ways and at a wide range of scales
– including the patterns to be discerned in the history of civilizations.
In 1968 some of those who have gathered around him as students
founded the Society for Comparative Philosophy as a vehicle for his teaching
He died November 16th 1973.
To all of you I deeply recommend this author as his writings and views
about our world will change yours.
There is so much more there than we can imagine.