If I am you and you are me, when I have sex with someone am I actually masterbating

I have been studying all about Buddha and Jesus for the past 6 years and now I see some strange relations between these 2 different religion. I was born as a strict buddhist so i know all about buddhism. After sometimes I became atheist and after my near death meditation session I finally found the god, the creator.

The main points -

1. Buddha hated life, Jesus loved life.

2. Buddha think life is suffering. Jesus think life is all about love and compassion.

3. Buddha borned as a human and studied the nature of mind-matter(existence). Jesus came from different angelic dimension and wants to help people understand the will of the creator (The god)

Thats the main difference. For me, I love life and I have seen after death, so I can be considered as a follower of Jesus. I am currently a buddhist who believes in jesus. Anyone the same?

Alan was my father and my teacher. I learned so much from him and other respectful teachers. I have finlly experience the awakening. Thanks to all the community helping me attain that state of bliss. Feel free to ask me anything! Consider me as your friend or brother . The nirvana is real, no joke.

https://preview.redd.it/f0i03kd2k0yd1.jpg?width=719&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d5c2b76a2dc2a3244e616d4f3dcf591f366d458

Alan Watts reminds us that to experience the fullness of life, we must open ourselves to both joy and sorrow. "We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being sensitive to pain," he says, inviting us to see that pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin. Often, we seek only the highs and try to avoid the lows, but true sensitivity—true aliveness—comes from embracing both.

Watts challenges us to consider: if we numb ourselves to pain, we also dull our ability to feel joy. If we allow ourselves to truly feel, to be fully present with each experience, we unlock a depth of life that goes beyond mere comfort. This isn’t easy, but perhaps this balance is where real peace lies—a peace that doesn’t reject sadness or suffering, but accepts them as part of the human journey.

By letting go of rigid expectations and embracing both the light and the dark, we find a richer, more profound sense of existence. It’s a beautiful, bittersweet realization: to be human is to feel deeply, to walk a path of contrasts, and to find balance in the dance of joy and sorrow. How might life change if we welcomed both pleasure and pain as essential parts of our growth?

Years of listening to watts has slowly but dramatically impacted my life in the most beautiful way as I'm sure many of you have experienced.

Currently, I am sitting in dead stop traffic, and i could not feel more at peace, loving, and in total content of my experience. & so my mind started to wander about the things going on in my life right now and I noticed something interesting that I would love to here y'alls opinion on.

Why do I feel so blocked when it comes to this one person in my life who i just totally loathe. There are many stressors going on in my life right now but none of them make me suffer as this person does. The person is my roomate, so I do have to be in their presence way to often. But still, I feel like I could easily take the same attitude and thought process as I do with other experiences and for some reason, it is so hard for me to even attempt.

Thoughts?

https://youtu.be/ODBeiAF9Dxc?si=BV6yAEN2s6dJZrLw

So what if you died right now? So what if you’re hurt? You don’t have to be anywhere or anyone other than where you are and what you are at this moment. Your situation is what it is. Take deep breaths. You are much more than this hurting heart of yours. Cry if you have to. Allow yourself to hurt. Have some empathy for yourself. If you are a caring person, you would comfort someone in that situation. Why then not believe you’ll be fine? Even if you have no one to confide in. The universe knows this. It understands your situation. It will direct you to the appropriate path. Just trust it. Trust the universe. Your best bet is to trust.

Enlightenment or Delusional Psychotic symptom?I tried hardmode meditation with minimum amount of food and water for 10 days, I saw all kind of demons, evils. scary faces, violance and hatred. I go through it all just by observing my body. I somehow reached to the centre of my brain and all my senses are turned into that nothingness. I cannot get out of it , I try all might to get out of that darkness but I just cant. I even stopped breathing for awhile then I just said "Its okay, we are okay". Then I woke up out of that darkness space and see myself as a newer version like a boy , i just met. Like i didn't realized it was my reflection and everything feels new and life is reset. My mind is clam and peace. The question I would like to ask is, "Is this the same awakening as other gods. Buddha,Shiva,Jesus,ect "or" Am I just psychotic in the head"? People I told about this experience thinks that I am somehow wrong in the head" I just want to know whats your opinion about my experience

“When we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else, we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us.” ― Alan Wilson Watts, The Way of Zen

I was astral projecting while contemplating about his talks and he just came back to me and talk to me. He show me what he saw and now i finally understood. It all clicks the moment he show me " IT "

“I am part of all this. I am, as it were, one of the cells in this tremendous brain which I can’t understand because the part cannot comprehend the whole.”

I’m guessing Alan Watts might not call them “intrusive” but that’s the term I’m using since it comes from psychology, that is, thoughts that go against our personal beliefs, desires, and morals and seem to come out of nowhere. Is there a reason for them? Is this our shadow side? Has Alan Watts said anything about this?

There is a video on YouTube of an Alan Watts lecture on 'Choices'.

Applied Alan Watts since my early 20s. I am 35 years old now and I can definitely say that it does not work.

The music is beautiful, but there are a lot of mistruths in that lecture.

Our choices, our decisions and our actions have consequences. Its an unavoidable truth of life like 1+1=2. The evil you do is easy but the problem is it comes back to you, your loved one's and future generations one way or the other. The good that you do is hard but the consolation is it comes back to you, your loved one's and future generations one way or the other.

This is why your choices and decisions constantly matter. You decide the direction you will take in life by your choices. Hating and avoiding one thing (preferably evil) and loving and going after the other (preferably good).

My Aunt gave me great practical advice. It wasn't fancy and it did not come with fancy music but it was the truth --

Happiness is a direct result of making good decisions and good choices. You are responsible for that.

I read that working for the future (for the purpose of making money) makes you miserable in the present and takes away your ability to enjoy the present moment fully.

In the same way, can you say that reading a book is the same? I think audiobooks and video content are much more stimulating and alive than a book. A book seems to be a dead thing. But i agree that books have more information in them than others.

Whenever i sit to read, i feel like i am putting a lot of effort to completely understand the book which takes away the pleasure. Even when i don't like doing it, i tell myself to do it. it becomes an compulsive activity.

In the same way, can you say that going to the gym is the same? people say that going to the gym improves your mental health. But thinking about this, it doesn't make much sense to me. Because you are going to the gym to look better in the future, attract opposite sex, etc. You are focused on a goal in the future and miss the present moment.

Whenever I watch Alan Watts or listen to him, I almost feel totally safe. I don't feel repelled against him or his ideas or his perceptions or his world views.

He speaks about reality in a way that it doesn't threaten me. It makes me want to live life. He explains it in a way I want to live more, love more, and expand more.

Whenever I watch self help gurus, capitalism in disguise basically, I almost want to shut it down. I sense a little non sense in it.

But when it comes to Alan there is total trust. I am not idiolizing him. But I just like his nature of being.

I don't know anyone I have seen in my life like him.

How can we be sure this isn't just another belief? Have you noticed any difference between saying it is so and actually experiencing it?

If we are self centered individuals living disorderly lives, is that the same thing as being the cosmos itself? I'm considering a man of Dao (Watts got me really into reading Daoism, also) that is described in Lao Tzu juxtaposed the common man. I'm not sure if I'm conveying what I'd like to.

If you say we are God in disguise, how do you know? I know some religious traditions are supposed to have said so, but how have you confirmed or disproven? I can't create new lifeforms, not omnipotent ect. I know from reading Watts "the book on the taboo of knowing who You are" that this is exactly what I'd be expected to say, but how could you confirm? I have looked at the question a good deal.

I don't mean to disparage Alan Watts or anyone, I'm really just interested in the question. I'd listen to hours and hours of Watts on youtube, from about 2016-2019 when there appeared to be much more material available there.

People take comfort in a belief in God, most people believe in God. Could this idea be a similar comfort?

I'm not advocating atheism. I'm not suggesting man's current view of himself isn't self limiting and incomplete. But I also know our views have been comprised of eons of beliefs, many of which have been disproven. So I'm very interested in this as a reality or a belief, or a belief in something that may be true in some circumstances or not.

Edit 1: Oh really getting downvoted a ton, is skepticism not allowed here? If anyone could explain I'd appreciate it.

This put me off as makes me sense things out of my perspective, once I found a video meditation from YT it started with an brief explanation about it and soon as it finished there was a Egyptian chanting and a somehow trance music,on it after some minutes I started dreaming while still being aware of my body,as being alive in this dream I was a detective in 80s and I was in an investigation,at the same time I was aware of being chased by a reptilian being but myself in the dream(who wasn't I) wasn't aware of this,so makes me wonder what if life is just like a movie and I am the observer in the reality experiencing while still being aware of my existence only that I don't recall it,all at once?

one of the greatest tragedies in life is that you will always be loved more than you will ever know. someone in class finds your presence inviting and warm, even if you've only ever exchanged a few words with them-maybe none at all. someone on the street loves your smile and it gets them down the next few streets. someone you used to be friends with still wishes to fondly call your name. someone you used to be friends with five years ago would give anything to be in the same room as you today. someone who regularly comes into work is disappointed when you aren't there to brighten their day. someone missed you today. someone noticed you were gone. someone loves you when you're there; someone loves you when you're nowhere to be found at all. you think you have always disappeared when you're no longer in the picture, but you've never left the frame.

Trying to find 3 stories i've heard in either a podcast or youtube I want to shar with my friend.

1. A story about a man seeking a monistary wanting to get admitted and the man had to sit outside, not beeing admitted before making a mockery of him self.
2. where Alan Watts talks about the word explain - laying a pooint out on a plain. Also in this tape he is talking about "a good architect, a great architech, will modell houses with the natural terrain" - not bulldosing the land to the ground and make "modern" buildings
3. Story of the survival of the "not wanted". He describe, among other things, a very old tree. The tree became so old because it was full of creeps (or something) so no one wanted to chop it down.

Any help?

https://youtu.be/ZmUCHYHsiXM?si=rMId5NjfdjeLZDB6

I think I heard him say that somewhere. It’s funny. I like all the weird gods and other worlds. Can we put those back?

I have been thinking about the reality and what we experience,I know partially what's the reality but the end goal on each incarnation is learning to lose the karmic debt inherited for this dream,right?like the fear we have this life,and life fully this experience to then once we learned this and we "wake up" we understand the reason for this reality,right? That would be the purpose of all

https://youtu.be/-Cm361A7OoY?si=PxkXtIHeSfKka9Qf

Don't we have to act as if the future exists to get anything done? Like planning to meet a friend at a specific time?

eg:

(A) Planning to meet a friend at 2pm tomorrow (present me planning for the future)

(B) Meets the friend at 2pm (present me acting according to a past me's planning)

So in this scenario, (A) had to act as if the future exists in order for (B) to happen.

(B) also had to act as if the memory of (A)'s planning also existed

While (A) and (B) both happen in their respective present, we know it's not the same present. So wouldn't the future exist at least in the context of planning?

edit 1: I think Alan would say something like "While (B) follows (A), it does not prove that (A) caused (B), but rather reality has a consistency in its nature" as he has said about determinism in his book; Wisdom of insecurity.

That being said, if I ask any of you guys to meet me tomorrow at 2pm, no one is going to say, "well tomorrow at 2pm doesn't exist so we cannot meet there." It exists as a mental construct/social contract that eventually becomes fulfilled, in the present ofc.