I've just come back from Los Angeles.
I was down there to meet with a group of rather important people.
People in the movie industry, scientists and so on.
Who were considering calling a congress of the best minds in the world
to meet in Los Angeles in the near future,
to be a kind of planetary alarm conference.
They wanted scientists and statesmen, religious leaders;
to do something to impress upon the world through all the media
that we are in very serious danger of destroying the biosphere;
that is to say the whole envelope of living creatures
which covers this planet,
through pollution, over population, nuclear fallout,
poisoning of our food and very lack of food.
And we met to discuss the problem of organizing this conference,
and here are all these brilliant people,
and it came over us that we really didn't know what we ought to say.
I mean you can scream and create a state of panic,
but that won't do any good;
and when it came down to it, we didn't know what we ought to say
because we really don't know what to do.
Some things that we might do for example,
to increase the food supply with high yield crops,
may be ecological mistakes;
and so the consensus of almost everybody at the meeting,
was that in some way or other,
the human race has to learn how to leave the world alone
and let what is called the natural homeostasis;
that is the self-balancing process of nature, take care of the mess.
Now how are we going to do that?
This is Japanese ceremonial tea.
It's good on a cold day.
See our problem is we don't really know how to stop.
We've got something started and
we see it's going in the wrong direction;
and I think the difficulty is,
to borrow an old Chinese saying;
"When the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way."
In other words, there's something wrong with the way we think;
and while that is there, everything we do will be a mess.
Now what is it that's wrong?
Now as for as I can see, the basic mistake is
that we've invented this wonderful system of language and calculation,
and that it is at once
too simple to deal with the complexity of the world,
and also we are liable to confuse that system of symbols
with the world itself,
just as we confuse say, money with wealth.
A lot of people are in business to make money instead of wealth.
When they make the money they don't know what to do with it.
And so in the same way, we confuse happiness with status,
and we confuse ourselves as living organisms
which are one with this whole universe,
for something we call our personality.
Now what is our personality?
Our personality is what we call our image, our image of ourselves,
and also our thought about ourselves, our idea of ourselves,
this is the person.
In other words, what people meet and understand,
and what I understand as Alan Watts,
is a big act which is not really me;
because in the image of Alan Watts
there are not all my unconscious processes,
both psychological and physical.
The construction of my brain is not contained
in the concept Alan Watts, and the concept Alan Watts
does not contain the inseparable relationships which I have with all the rest of the universe;
and therefore that concept is a fraud!
and when it's mistaken for the real me, there's a confusion, because..
If somebody says to me "Alan Watts DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!"
the concept "Alan Watts" can't do anything.
In other words, because it's only a concept
you can't make it lift a weight,
just as '3' is a concept - (3 the number)
you can't make just plain "three" do anything.
So also you can't wrap up parcels with the equator,
it's a useful imaginary line but it can't do anything.
But we all feel that this concept of ourselves,
which we call our personality or our ego, can do something.
Because we think it really exists,
and I'll tell you why we think it exists.
What happens if I were to say to you,
"Now look hard at the television screen, really look at it!"
What do you do as distinct from just watching it in the ordinary way?
When you say, "Now I really got to see that!" - what do you do?
Notice, that you tighten muscles all around here,
that you frown a little, you clench your teeth perhaps;
now what has that got to do with seeing anything clearly?
It's absolutely nothing to do with it.
Same thing when you listen carefully,
"Now listen, catch everything that's said",
you start tightening up around your ears.
That has nothing to do with hearing clearly.
Now from the moment we were little children
when teachers in class screamed at us "PAY ATTENTION!"
we go tight in various ways.
Either to see or hear more clearly, to concentrate,
or to will something which is supposed to be difficult to do.
And that constitutes a habitual tension over the whole body
that's there almost all the time.
And that feeling of unnecessary tension, is as it were
the material sensation upon which we fasten this concept of "I".
We hang it on to that feeling.
The concept is not us, the feeling of tension is completely phony.
It has nothing to do with success in seeing, hearing or acting.
And so we get the marriage of an illusion with a falsehood,
and that we call ourselves.
No wonder we feel cut off from everything,
alienated, frightened of life and death.
So what has to happen is, we have to come back
to a sane view of our own life, which is the way we really are,
an organism functioning in terms of the whole environment
with the whole environment,
instead of this funny little separate personality.
But how are we going to do that?
People say "Well you can't change human nature overnight."
You're asking us to give up the Ego.
and that's the most difficult of all things to do.
Actually it isn't - because the Ego doesn't exist.
but of course if you try to give up your Ego WITH your Ego,
then it will take you till the end of time.
Because this is the point, you can't transform yourself,
you can't make yourself sane, you can't make yourself loving,
you can't make yourself unselfish.
And yet it's absolutely necessary that we be that way.
It's absolutely necessary, if we are going to hand over the direction of nature to nature,
which is what it comes to.
It's absolutely necessary, that we let go of ourselves, and it can't be done.
Not by anything that we call doing it, acting, willing, or even just accepting things.
You can't do it. Why?
Because you don't really exist, as that kind of a separate Ego or personality.
It's just an idea based on a phony feeling.
So when it comes down to it, it's shocking news for us - for the human race, for our pride.
You're only making a mess by trying to put things straight.
You're trying to straighten out a wiggly world and no wonder you're in trouble.
So you can't do anything, so you can't transform yourself. Now what can you do?
What happens then, if you actually realize you've come to a dead end.
And the human race has come to a dead end in my opinion.
What then? Commit suicide?
Or is there something else?
What happens when you just wait?
There's nothing you can do. You watch.
And all you see is what goes on that is happening of itself.
You're breathing, the wind is blowing, the trees are waving,
your blood is circulating, your nerves are tingling.
It's all going on of itself.
But do you know that's you? That's the real you.
The you that goes on of itself.
It's not the symbol, it's not the person;
it's you that's happening, as when you breathe.
Yes you can get the feeling that I am breathing by shoving in your breath,
but your breath goes on day in and day out,
without you doing anything about it or even thinking of it.
The same way your brain is functioning without you forcing it.
So when you come to a dead end,
and we are, individually and socially now in 1971 at a dead end,
this is the moment of which it is said "Man's extremity is God's opportunity."
Because we have to stop.
And when we stop we find a world that is happening
rather than being done, being shoved.
And that happening as distinct from doing, is our fundamental self.
And our fundamental self is not something just inside the skin,
it's everything around us with which we connect.
When you look out of your eyes at nature happening out there you're looking at you.
I'm not going to say what we should do from then on.
But simply, that before we think of doing anything, in this critical situation,
we realize the completely illusory nature of the beings that we think we are,
and get back again to the beings that we really are.
Which includes all this...
The outside world, no longer left outside.