*“THIS STORY, obviously mythical in form, is not given as a scientific description of the way things are. Based on the analogies of games and the drama, and using that much worn out word ‘God’ for the player, the story claims only to be like the way things are. But to most children and many adults, the myth is at once intelligible, simple and fascinating.
By contrast, so many other mythical explanations of the world are crude, tortuous and unintelligible. But many people think that believing in the unintelligible propositions and symbols of their religion is the test of true faith.
People who think for themselves do not accept ideas on this kind of authority. They don’t feel commanded to believe in miracles or strange doctrines such as what Abraham felt when commanded by God to sacrifice his son Isaac.
The social hierarchies of the past, where some boss above you always punished any error, conditioned men to feel a chain of harsh authority reaching all the way ‘up there.’
Now the average person no longer learns to seek forgiveness from a wrathful God above - but instead knows a cold hell - solitary confinement in this life without a God to damn or save it.
Until man figures out the truth about who he really is, he has no reason at all for his existence. Empty, finite, he knows only that he will soon die. Since this life has no meaning and he sees no future life, he is not really a person but a victim of self extinction.
But the secret that Alan Watts’ story slips over to the child is that ‘God’ or the ‘Self of the world’ is you. Not of course the everyday self that you are assuming or ‘pretending’ to be, but that innermost Self which escapes inspection because it’s always the inspector. In other words - you’re IT!..
God@Play 5...
Dan’s Quote: “I believe because it is absurd.”~ Tertullian on Christianity
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*Edited excerpt from ‘The Book on The Taboo against knowing who you are’ - Alan Watts 1966.
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