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I find that the sensation of myself as an ego inside a bag of skin is really a hallucination. What we really are is, first of all, the whole of our body. And although our bodies are bounded with skin, and we can differentiate between outside and inside, they cannot exist except in a certain kind of natural environment. Obviously a body requires air, and the air must be within a certain temperature range. The body also requires certain kinds of nutrition. So in order to occur the body must be on a mild and nutritive planet with just enough oxygen in the atmosphere spinning regularly around in a harmonious and rhythmical way near a certain kind of warm star. That arrangement is just as essential to the existence of my body as my heart, my lungs, and my brain. So to describe myself in a scientific way, I must also describe my surroundings, which is a clumsy way getting around to the realization that you are the entire universe. However we do not normally feel that way because we have constructed in thought an abstract idea of our self.

Alan Watts#27

EgoNatureBodyEnvironment

About this quote

What does it mean?
The feeling of being a separate self inside a body is a hallucination. Your body depends entirely on the environment, so you are part of that whole system.
In plain terms
You are not separate from your environment.
What can you take from it?
See yourself as part of your environment.

Where it applies

  • philosophy
  • environmentalism
  • self-reflection

Putting it to work

  • observe nature
  • dissolve boundaries

Questions to consider

  • Where do you end?
  • What surrounds you?

Another view

We experience separation daily.

More from Alan Watts

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  2. I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.

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  3. Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you w…

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