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That we are no longer this poor little stranger and afraid in a world it never made. But that YOU ARE THIS UNIVERSE and you are creating it in every moment...Because you see it starts now, it didn't begin in the past, there was no past. See, if the universe began in the past when that happened it was now, see, but it still now. and the universe is still beginning now, and it's trailing off like the wake of a ship from now, and that wake fades out so does the past. You can look back there to explain things, but the explanation disappears. You'll never find it there... Things are not explained by the past, they are explained by what Happens Now. That Creates the past, and it begins here... That's the birth of responsibility...

Alan Watts#22

PhilosophySelfCreationPresenceUniverse

About this quote

What does it mean?
You are the universe creating itself now not a stranger from the past.
In plain terms
You are the universe acting now not a separate person from history.
What can you take from it?
Realize you create the present now not the past.

Where it applies

  • spiritual seeking
  • anxiety
  • creative work

Putting it to work

  • focus on now
  • claim agency
  • drop past stories

Questions to consider

  • What do you create now?
  • Where do you see yourself?

Another view

Past context still informs present decisions realistically.

More from Alan Watts

  1. The transformation of human consciousness though meditation is frustrated, as long as we think of it in terms as something that I, my self can bring about. bec…

    Permalink to quote #21
  2. If you know that 'I', in the sense of the person, the front, the ego, it really doesn't exist. Then...it won't go to your head too badly, if you wake up and di…

    Permalink to quote #23
  3. A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusion.

    Permalink to quote #20

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