Alan Watts Opens Up About Religion (thought provoking video)

A lot of people don't know how we got the Bible at all. We Westerners got the Bible thanks to the Catholic Church, and they took over the books of the Old Testament, which even by the time of Christ had not been finally decided upon by the Jews. The Jews did not close the canon of the Old Testament until the year 100 AD, or thereabouts, at the Synod of Jamnia, and then they finally decided which were the canonical books of the Hebrew Scriptures, and embodied them in the Masoretic Text, the earliest copy of which dates from the 10th century, early in the 10th century AD. The books to be included in the New Testament were not finally decided upon until the year 382 AD again, at the Synod of Rome under Pope Damasus. So it was the Church, the Catholic Church, that promulgated the Bible, and said, we are giving you these Scriptures on our authority, and by the authority of the informal tradition that has existed among us from the beginning, inspired by the Holy Spirit. So you receive historically the Bible on the Church's say-so, and the Catholic Church insists therefore, that the Church collectively, speaking under the presumed guidance of the Holy Spirit, has the authority to interpret the Bible. And you can take that or leave it. Hindus believe that the Vedas are divinely revealed and inspired, with just as much fervor as any Christian or any Jew. Muslims believe that the Koran is divinely inspired, and some Buddhists believe that their Sutras are also of divine or rather a Buddhic origin. The Japanese believe that the ancient texts of Shinto are likewise of divine origin. And who is to be judged? So if the Church says the Bible is true, it finally comes down to you. Are you going to believe the Church or aren't you? So really, I won't deny anybody's right to hold these opinions. You may indeed believe that the Bible is literally true, and that it was actually dictated by God to Moses and the Prophets and the Apostles. That may be your opinion, and you are at liberty to hold it. I don't agree with you. I do believe, on the other hand, that there is a sense in which the Bible is divinely inspired. But since inspiration always comes through a human vehicle, it is liable to be distorted by that vehicle. In other words, I'm talking to you through a sound system, and it's the only one now available. Now, if there's something wrong with this sound system, whatever truths I might utter to you will be distorted. My voice will be distorted, and you might mistake the meaning of what I said. Now, so therefore, everybody who receives divine inspiration, and I'm using that in a very loose way, but anybody who receives it will express it within the limits of what language he knows. And by language here, I don't only mean English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, or Sanskrit. I mean language in the sense of what sort of terms are available to you. What kind of religion were you brought up with? My opinion is that Jesus of Nazareth was a human being, like Buddha, like Sri Ramakrishna, like Ramana Maharshi, etc., who early in life had a colossal experience of what we call Cosmic Consciousness. Now, you don't have to be any particular kind of religion to get this experience. It can hit anyone anytime, like falling in love, in greater or lesser degree. But it's found all over the world. And when it hits you, you know it. Sometimes it comes after long practice of meditations and spiritual discipline. Sometimes it comes for no reason that anybody can determine. We say it's the grace of God. That there comes this overwhelming conviction that you have mistaken your identity, that what you thought, what I thought was just old Alan Watts, was only completely superficial. So you can very well understand how people to whom this happens feel genuinely inspired. Because very often there goes along with it an extremely warm feeling. Because you see the Divine in everybody else's eyes. When Kabir, a great Hindu-Muslim mystic, was a very old man, he used to look around at people and say, to whom shall I preach? Because he saw the Beloved in all eyes. The traditions of Asia, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and so forth, are full of miraculous stories. And we take them in our stride. We don't think that there are any sign of anything in particular except psychic power. And I'm really a little scared of the growing interest in psychic power. Because that's what I call psychotechnics. And we've made such a mess of things with ordinary techniques, that heaven only knows what we might do if we got hold of psychotechnics. And started raising people from the dead and prolonging life insufferably. I mean the whole answer to the story of miracles is simply imagine that you're God. Now what happened? The apostles didn't quite get the point. They were awed by the miracles of Jesus. They worshipped Him as people do worship gurus. And it's, you know, to what lengths that can go, if you've been around guru land. And so the Christians said, okay, okay, Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, but let it stop right there. Nobody else. So what happened was that Jesus was pedestalized. He was put in a position that was safely upstairs. So that his troublesome experience of cosmic consciousness would not come and cause other people to be a nuisance. And those who have had this experience and expressed it during those times when the church had political power were almost invariably persecuted. Gordiano Bruno was burnt at the stake. John Scotus Origina was excommunicated. Meister Eckhart's theses were condemned. And so on and so on. A few mystics got away with it because they used cautious language. But you see what happens. If you pedestalize Jesus, you strangle the gospel at birth. And it has been the tradition in both the Catholic Church and in Protestantism to pass off what I will call an emasculated gospel. Gospel means good news. And I cannot for the life of me think what is the good news about the gospel as ordinarily handed down. Here is the revelation of God in Christ, in Jesus. And we are supposed to follow his life and example without having the unique advantage of being the boss's son. Born of a virgin. Knowing he is the son of God. Having the power of miracles. Knowing that basically it's impossible to kill him. He's going to rise again in the end. And we are asked to take up our cross and follow him when we don't know that about ourselves at all. So what happens is this. We are delivered therefore a gospel which is in fact an impossible religion. It's impossible to follow the way of Christ. Many a Christian has admitted it. I am a miserable sinner. I fall far short of the example of Christ. But do you realize the more you say that the better you are. Because what happened was that Christianity institutionalized guilt as a virtue. And therefore you will always be aware of your shortcomings and so the more shortcomings you feel the more in other words you are aware of the vast abyss between Christ and yourself. So you go to confession and if you've got a nice dear understanding confessor you'll say my child you know you've sinned very grievously but you must realize that the love of God and of our Lord is infinite and that naturally you are forgiven. And you know you've committed a murder and robbed a bank and fornicated around and so on and the priest is perfectly patient and quiet. Well you feel awful to the love of God I've wounded Jesus grieved the Holy Spirit and so on. But you know in the back of your mind you're going to do it all over again. You won't be able to help yourself. You'll try but there's always a greater and greater sense of guilt. This is the Christianity of most people. Now there is a much more subtle Christianity of the theologians the mystics and the philosophers but it's not what gets preached from the pulpit. What would the real gospel be? The real good news is not simply that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God but that he was a powerful Son of God who came to open everybody's eyes to the fact that you are too. And this is perfectly plain. If you will go to the 10th chapter of Saint John verse 30 there is the passage where Jesus says I and the Father are one. There are some people who are not intimate disciples around and they're horrified and they immediately pick up stones to stone him. He says many good works I have shown you from the Father and for which of these do you stone me? And they said for a good work we stone you not but for blasphemy because you being a man make yourself God. And he replied isn't it written in your law I have said you are gods? He's quoting the 82nd Psalm. Is it not written in your law I have said you are gods? If God called them those to whom he gave his word gods and you can't deny the scriptures how can you say I blaspheme because I said I am a Son of God? Well there's the whole thing in a nutshell because if you read the King James Bible that descended with the angel you will see in italics in front of these words Son of God the Son of God because I said I am the Son of God and most people think that the italics are for emphasis. They're not. The italics indicate words interpolated by the translators. You will not find that in the Greek. The Greek says a Son of God. So it seems to me here perfectly plain that Jesus is got it in the back of his mind that this isn't something peculiar to himself. So when he says I am the way no man comes to the Father but by me this I am this me is the divine in us which in Hebrew would be called the Ruach Adonai. So the point is that the Ruach is the divine in the creature by virtue of which we are sons of or of the nature of God manifestations of the divine. This discovery is the gospel that is the good news but this has been perpetually repressed throughout the history of Western religion because all Western religions have taken the form of celestial monarchies which is not the religion of Jesus which was the realization of divine sonship but the religion about Jesus which pedestalizes him and which says only this man of all the sons of woman was divine and you'd better recognize it. Utterly exclusive. Convinced in advance of examining the doctrines of any other religion that is the top religion and so it becomes a freak religion just as it has made a freak of Jesus an unnatural man. It claims uniqueness not realizing that what it does teach would be far more credible if it were truly Catholic that is to say restated again the truths which have been known from time immemorial which have appeared in all the great cultures of the world. If then we can see this that Jesus speaks not from the situation of a historical deus ex machina a kind of weird extraordinary event but he is a voice which joins with other voices that have said in every place and time wake up man, wake up and realize who you are. No scolding, no rational demonstration of the right way to behave is going to inspire people with love. Something else must happen. I feel then you see that it's enormously important that churches stop being talking shops. They become centers of contemplation. What is contemplation? Contemplum, it's what you do in the temple. You don't come to the temple to chatter but to be still and know that I am God. And this is why if the Christian religion if the gospel of Christ is to mean anything at all instead of just being one of the forgotten religions along with Osiris and Mithra we must see Christ as the great mystic. In the proper sense of the word mystic not someone who has all sorts of magical powers and understands spirits and so on. A mystic strictly speaking is one who realizes union with God by whatever name. This seems to me the crux and message of the gospel summed up in the prayer of Jesus which Saint John records as he speaks over his disciples praying that they may be one even as you father and I are one that they may be all one. All realize this divine sonship or oneness basic identity with the eternal energy of the universe and the love that moves the sun and other stars.