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Alan Watts Was Right: You’re Not Who You Think You Are
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May 24, 2025
In this soul-shifting episode, we explore Alan Watts' radical philosophy on identity, ego, and what it truly means to be. If you’ve ever felt disconnected from yourself—like you're performing a life instead of living it—this is the video you didn’t know you needed. 🌿 Learn how to let go of control, stop chasing perfection, and remember your true nature. ✨ This is not motivation. This is awakening. 🔔 Subscribe for more thought-provoking videos every week. 💬 What part shook you the most? Let’s talk in the comments. 📤 Share this with someone who’s been feeling lost. Visit https://bayart.org/ - BayArt’s daily inspirational quotes, heartfelt messages, and uplifting poems offer fresh perspectives on life and love – wisdom to brighten your day. #lifelessons #advice #status #mindset #lifechanging #selfgrowth #selfhelp #wisewords #wordsofwisdom #psychologyquotes
View Video Transcript
0:00
do you ever feel like you're playing a
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role you didn't choose You wake up you
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check your phone you go through the
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motions maybe you try to be productive
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maybe you try to be a good person but
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deep down something doesn't feel real
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It's like you're watching yourself live
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your own life from a slight distance
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Like your smile isn't fully yours Like
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your voice sometimes sounds like a
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stranger's Alan Watts British
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philosopher speaker and modern mystic
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had a radical explanation for this
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sensation He believed the self we cling
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to doesn't actually exist Not in the way
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we think And if you've ever felt lost
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anxious or disconnected from who you are
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his ideas might not only explain why it
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might free you The person you think you
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are is a mask The word person comes from
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the Latin persona which literally means
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mask A character worn on a stage And yet
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it's the word we use to describe
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ourselves Watts believed most of us are
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walking around wearing masks we forgot
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we put on You're not doing it on purpose
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It's not a deception It's conditioning
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You were told from the moment you were
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born You are this You are that You're a
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good girl You're a bad boy You're too
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loud You're so smart You always do this
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and piece by piece year by year you
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assembled an identity You became someone
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but that someone isn't actually you It's
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a mental construct a bundle of memories
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ideas reactions judgments and
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expectations And here's the catch The
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more tightly you cling to that idea of
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yourself the more trapped you become
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Trying to define yourself is like trying
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to bite your own teeth Alan Watts
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You can't be who you think you are
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because the thinker is not the self It's
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a function an echo a voice in your head
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but not your essence The myth of the
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separate self From an early age you were
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taught that you are an individual a
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separate entity little me inside a skin
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bag navigating a big external world But
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Watts challenges this completely He says
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the idea of a separate self is an
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illusion one that causes nearly all of
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our anxiety fear and suffering You're
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not separate from the world You are the
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world You are not a drop in the ocean
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You are the entire ocean in a drop That
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sounds poetic but Watts wasn't being
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poetic He meant it literally Your breath
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is not just yours It's shared with trees
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Your body is not a possession It's made
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from stardust recycled earth and the
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food you eat Your mind didn't appear in
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a vacuum It formed through language
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relationships culture You are not an
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island You're a wave on the surface of
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reality You didn't come into this world
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You came out of it like a wave from the
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ocean You are not a stranger
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here Alan Watts And if that's true who
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exactly have you been trying to become
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The trap of identity Most of our lives
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are spent trying to prove that we are
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someone We obsess over our brand our
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status our labels We take personality
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tests We write bios We worry how others
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perceive us But Watts reminds us every
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identity is a limitation Every label
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good or bad locks you inside a box Every
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role comes with rules you didn't write
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And slowly that box becomes a prison You
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don't even realize the bars are there
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because they look like success like
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order like knowing who you are But
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inside you feel disconnected because the
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deeper you go into the performance the
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further you drift from your true
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experience The ego is nothing other than
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the focus of conscious attention It's a
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fiction Alan
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Watts The more you believe in the little
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eye the more you suffer because the eye
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is never satisfied It always needs
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validation It's always comparing It's
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always chasing something else to make it
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feel real But the real you needs nothing
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because the real you isn't a character
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It's consciousness itself who you really
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are According to Watts you are not the
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voice in your head You are the awareness
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hearing it You are not the face in the
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mirror You are the light behind the eyes
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You are not your memories not your
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beliefs not your image or your fears You
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are the experience of being alive And
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that experience is not separate from the
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universe It is the universe becoming
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aware of itself When you breathe the
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world breathes with you When you feel
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the entire cosmos is feeling through you
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When you cry it's the ocean inside your
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heart remembering where it came from
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This isn't metaphysical fluff It's
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grounded in every spiritual tradition
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echoed in quantum science and lived in
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moments when we lose our identity during
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flow art love meditation In those
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moments we disappear And yet we feel
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more ourselves than ever It's not an
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accident That's the truth breaking
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through Why we cling to control If
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you're not the image of yourself if
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you're not the little eye in your head
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then what are you That's a terrifying
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question for most people Cuz if you
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aren't who you think you are then who's
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in charge Who's steering the ship That's
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where fear creeps in We cling to control
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because we're afraid of the unknown The
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ego the mind-made self hates surrender
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It wants to plan predict and protect
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itself But control is a myth Life cannot
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be controlled You can't control your
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heartbeat You can't control your
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thoughts You can't control what others
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feel You can barely control your
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breathing without effort And yet we live
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as if we're in charge of everything We
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fear change We fear death We fear chaos
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And so we create endless strategies to
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feel safe But Watt says to have faith is
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to trust yourself to the water When you
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swim you don't grab hold of the water
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because if you do you will sink and
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drown Instead you relax and float Trying
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to control life is like trying to grab
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water with your hands The tighter you
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squeeze the faster it slips away
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Surrender isn't weakness It's alignment
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Surrender doesn't mean giving up It
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means giving into the flow of life Means
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realizing that you were never in control
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to begin with And that's not something
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to fear It's something to be free of
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Watts teaches that when you stop
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clinging to control something beautiful
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happens You begin to trust life Not
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because life is always easy or fair but
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because life is you You are not the
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passenger You are the ride You and I are
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all as much continuous with the physical
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universe as a wave is continuous with
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the
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ocean When you realize that you're not
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separate from the world you stop
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fighting it You stop needing to force
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outcomes You stop playing mental chess
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with every possibility and you begin to
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live in rhythm with what is That's not
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passivity It's intelligence It's flowing
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with the river instead of trying to swim
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upstream The ego's fear of
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disappearing Letting go of who you think
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you are means allowing parts of yourself
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to dissolve And that's terrifying
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because the ego believes its own
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survival is your survival When you
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challenge its narratives when you stop
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chasing status validation and fixed
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identity the ego panics because it
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doesn't want you to know a truth that
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would destroy it You don't need it not
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to feel love not to feel peace not to be
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whole You've been whole the entire time
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Watts explains "The real you is not a
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puppet which life pushes around The real
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you is the whole universe experiencing
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itself." But the ego doesn't want to
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dissolve into something greater It wants
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to be special in control separate That's
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why most people resist awakening Because
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awakening isn't a glow up It's a death
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It's the death of the false self the
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death of illusion But what's born in its
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place is freedom What it feels like to
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wake up Have you ever had a moment just
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a flash where the mental noise stopped
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Maybe you were watching the sunset Maybe
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you were holding someone you love Maybe
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you were just sitting still not thinking
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not striving and for a second you were
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just here not performing not analyzing
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just present That's it That's the real
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you The experience of being without
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commentary Watts believed this is our
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natural state It's not something to
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achieve It's what's always been
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underneath the performance But we're so
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used to identifying with the noise in
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our head We miss the stillness that's
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been here the whole time You don't have
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to become someone new You just have to
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let go of who you're not And in that
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space life flows in Not the life you
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scripted not the one you curated for
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others but the one that's been waiting
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to be felt What changes when you realize
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the truth When you realize you're not
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who you think you are Everything changes
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You stop being obsessed with your image
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You stop comparing your journey to
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others You stop chasing purpose like
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it's something outside you Instead you
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start living You cry more easily You
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laugh more honestly You notice little
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things The sound of birds the smell of
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coffee the way light hits a wall You
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stop needing life to mean something and
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start letting it mean everything It's
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the paradox When you stop clinging to
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identity you discover true depth When
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you stop chasing happiness joy arises
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naturally When you stop performing you
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connect Watts wasn't trying to create a
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new dogma He wasn't trying to give you
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answers He wanted you to feel the truth
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you already know but forgot You are not
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separate You are not a role You are not
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broken You are life dancing in human
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form Life was never a problem to solve
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Most people go through life like they're
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solving a puzzle Who am I What's my
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purpose How do I fix myself How do I get
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more success more love more meaning It's
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endless But Alan Watts flips the entire
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premise He said "The meaning of life is
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just to be alive It is so plain and so
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obvious and so simple And yet everybody
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rushes around in a great panic as if it
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were necessary to achieve something
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beyond
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themselves Life was never a test You
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were never a problem And you don't have
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to become anything other than what you
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already are Tree doesn't rush to grow
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The bird doesn't plan its path The waves
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don't question their motion They exist
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fully unapologetically So why can't we
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Because we've been convinced that
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stillness means failure That if we're
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not striving we're falling behind That
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being isn't enough We have to become But
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Watts reminds us you are the universe
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experiencing
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itself What else is there to do but
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experience What happens when you let go
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When you stop identifying with the ego
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you stop fighting life You stop
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comparing your timeline to someone
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else's You stop trying to control what
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was never yours to control You begin to
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see life less as a battle and more as a
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dance There's a rhythm to it Sometimes
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fast sometimes slow sometimes joyful
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sometimes painful but always changing
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And when you stop gripping so tightly
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when you stop needing to be someone you
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start moving with life instead of
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against it You laugh more You forgive
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faster You rest without guilt You
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realize that peace was never waiting at
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the finish line It's been walking beside
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you the whole time Let go of becoming
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and just be You don't need a better
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version of you to be worthy That doesn't
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mean stop growing It means stop delaying
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love joy and peace until you've earned
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it You don't need to accomplish your way
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into aliveness You just need to notice
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it You're already breathing You're
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already feeling You're already here
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There's nothing to reach for Muddy water
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is best cleared by leaving it alone Alan
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Watts Sometimes the most profound shift
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isn't doing more But finally allowing
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yourself to stop to be quiet to listen
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to remember who you were before the
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world told you who to be That silence
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that space That's where the real you
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lives The gentle invitation Bots never
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claimed to have the truth He wasn't a
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guru He didn't want followers He simply
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wanted you to wake up to the fact that
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you've been chasing something you
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already are That your suffering isn't a
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sign you're broken It's a signal that
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you've believed something false He
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wasn't preaching a path He was offering
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an invitation to stop to look to wonder
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What if you're not a separate mind in a
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body What if you're not doing life What
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if life is doing you Wouldn't that
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change everything Wouldn't that allow
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you to breathe again Final reflections
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You are not who you think you are So
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let's come back to where we started
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You're not the story you've told
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yourself You're not the voice in your
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head You're not your fears not your past
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not your identity or your image You are
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the awareness beneath all of it The one
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who sees the one who feels the one who
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lives fully silently eternally And the
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moment you stop trying to become
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something you finally remember what you
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are Not a person chasing peace but peace
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in motion Not a mind trying to find
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truth Truth remembering itself Not a
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drop searching for the ocean but the
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ocean momentarily dancing as a drop Alan
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Watts didn't want you to adopt a new
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belief He wanted you to drop the ones
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that keep you from feeling alive Because
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life isn't somewhere else Life is now