The Fear of Enlightenment – Alan Watts
- Each of us are really the Great Self
- We deny this because we don’t “feel it”
- We are frightened of feeling it
- We develop a method of practice of putting off feeling it
- We think we need to suffer and be worthy of being our Great Self
- All of this is just postponement, because we are afraid to see it in the here and now
- Suffering is something we (falsely) think we need to do to achieve enlightenment
- Suffering has nothing to do with realization of the Self
- Realization of the Self is just about “coming off it” (it being our own perceived model of the world)
- A guru/teacher is always saying to you “what are you doing? what is your game?”
- A guru/teacher has many methods of helping you see the reality of who you are
- If you have a thin shell, it can be easy for a guru/teacher to help you
- If you have a thick shell, it can be tougher
