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.