WATTS, Alan.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. First edition, first printing, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "For the Golds - with best wishes, Alan Watts"; this title is rare inscribed. Watts's "manual of initiation into the central mystery of existence" (jacket blurb) draws on the ancient Hindu philosophy of Vedanta to investigate ideas of the "self".Watts's thesis is that the prevalent idea of the "self" as a separate ego which acts upon a world of objects is false and accords "neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy-religions of the East" (p. ix). This misconception underlies our misuse of technology and our mistreatment of our environment and contributes to a sensation of alienation from the wider universe. "You have seen that the universe is at root a magical illusion and a fabulous game, and that there is no separate 'you' to get something out of it, as if life were a bank to be robbed. The only real 'you' is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For 'you' are the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new" (pp. 117-8).

• Printing: first

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