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Ep. 21 – Joyous Cosmology

March 13, 2023 · 1 h 10 min

Show notes

Offering us the possibility of waking up, Alan Watts contemplates the joyous cosmology that we are God playing the roles of ordinary people.

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In this episode, Alan Watts explores:

  • If there could be a theory of the world that justifies and makes worthwhile the difficulties and suffering that we undergo
  • The contemplation that an infinite omnipotent being would eventually get bored with being everything, so would begin to shield itself from this knowledge, and pretend to play the role of separate beings so it could experience the full thrill of waking up to itself
  • The idea of reality as God playing a game of hide and seek with itself for it’s own excitement and cosmic joke
  • The difference or potential complete non-difference between the experience and the experiencer
  • That what you think of as outside yourself is actually just a hidden you


“We have within us a higher self who is pretending to be the ordinary everyday person that we are, who’s acting it. In other words, our everyday life is a dream from which we have the possibility of waking up.” – Alan Watts



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