"What peculiarly distinguishes human sexuality, is that it brings the partners closer and closer to each other in an intense state of united feeling. In other words it is a sacrament, the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace bringing about love. And so, if that is peculiar to human beings, then it is perfect nonsense to degrade human sexuality by saying it should only be carried on in the way that the animals do theirs. Because they have not, as it were, yet evolved to the place where sex is a sacramental expression of man and woman's love. And if love in that sense is a kind of enthusiasm, which means a, being possessed by the divine... falling in love although considered by practical people to be a sort of madness: Is actually the same sort of thing as the mystical vision, eh, a grace and in it's light we see people in their divine aspect when as the song says, 'every little breathe whispers Louise'. There is an extraordinary state of intoxication in which the ideal woman has become the goddess, which is, from one point of view, what every woman is if you see with the scales of your eyes. And likewise every man, seeing with the scales of her eyes."
- Alan Watts (January 6, 1915 – November 16, 1973) -
Alan, wow! You just rocked my world with that explanation of the beauty of romantic love. There is a moment, when a relationship ends - that I've experienced at least - in which you are torn between remaining with this vision which encompasses that whom you are in Love with, and the process of clearing the attachment to said person when the relationship no longer serves either you. It isn't easy, but becomes easier as you go and trust that whatever occurs is for your highest good. The process humbles you, it centers you; and if you choose to remain with a love for all of what life encompasses which was lit by the way of the experience of first falling in romantic love, you'll find that you are always in love; with life itself.
- Elena Huerta -
Some quotes from "The Wisdom of Insecurity"
- The common error of ordinary religious practice is to mistake the symbol for the reality, to look at the finger pointing the way and then to suck it for comfort rather than follow it. Religious ideas are like words- of little use, and often misleading , unless you know the concrete realities to which they refer. The word "water" is a useful means of communication amongst those who know water. The same is true of the word and idea called "God".
- If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o'-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss.
- Once there is the suspicion that a religion is a myth, its power has gone. It may be necessary for man to have a myth, but he cannot self-consciously prescribe one as he can mix a pill for a headache. A myth can only "work" when it is thought to be truth, and man cannot for long knowingly and intentionally "kid" himself.
- We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith, because in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would "lief" or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in with his preconcieved ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of th emind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.