I asked ChatGpt for the most insightful quotes by Alan Watts & got these

Here are some insightful quotes by Alan Watts:

1. “We do not ‘come into’ this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean ‘waves,’ the universe ‘peoples.’ Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.”
2. “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
3. “The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
4. “We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience.”
5. “The art of living… is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.”
6. “This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”
7. “No one is more dangerously insane than one who is sane all the time: he is like a steel bridge without flexibility, and the order of his life is rigid and brittle.”
8. “The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.”
9. “You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”

“Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.”

These quotes capture Alan Watts’ unique perspective on life, consciousness, and the human experience. They invite us to question our assumptions and embrace the present moment with curiosity and openness