Ordinary Everyday Consciousness - Akira the Don, Alan Watts

The web of life

Let me try, from the first, to indicate the point that we’re aiming at

The point is this

That human consciousness is—at the same time as being a form of awareness,

and sensitivity, and understanding

It’s also a form of ignorance

The ordinary everyday consciousness that we have

Leaves out — more

Than it takes in

The ordinary everyday consciousness that we have

Leaves out — more

Than it takes in

And because of this, it leaves out things that are terribly important

It leaves out things that would, if we did know them, allay our anxieties,

and fears, and horrors

And if we could extend our awareness, you see, to include those things that we

leave out, we would have a deep interior peace

Because we would all know the one thing that you mustn’t know

The ordinary everyday consciousness that we have

Leaves out — more

Than it takes in

The ordinary everyday consciousness that we have

Leaves out — more

Than it takes in

You know, according to the rules of our particular social game

The one thing you mustn’t know;

that’s really not allowed

That is the lowdown on life and that the lowdown, on the one hand,

means the real dirt on things

But the lowdown is also what is profound, what is mysterious, what is in the

depths

And the something left out

And our everyday consciousness

Screens this out in the same way that, when you say you have weaving

You have say, on this rug here in front of us, when the black finishes here,

the black threads will go underneath, and then appear again over here,

then they’ll go underneath the white and they’ll appear again over here,

you know?

So that the back will be the obverse pattern of the front

Now—the world is like that

The ordinary everyday consciousness that we have

Leaves out — more

Than it takes in

The ordinary everyday consciousness that we have

Leaves out — more

Than it takes in

Our sense organs are selective

They pick out certain things;

they are receptive

For example, we have a small, small band of what you might call a spectrum of

light, of sound, of tactile sensation, and so on, to which the human organism

is sensitive

But we know that outside that small band there is a huge range of vibrations to

which we have built instruments that are sensitive

Things like cosmic rays, ultraviolet rays, gamma rays, hard x-rays, and so on

They’re all outside the band of our spectrum

And obviously, there are things that are outside the range of our instruments

We may build new instruments someday, which will evoke

Bring into our consciousness, other orders of vibration altogether, that,

as yet, we don’t know about them

So you could imagine, you see, the universe as a vast, vast system of vibrations

And has infinite possibilities

The ordinary everyday consciousness that we have

Leaves out — more

Than it takes in

The ordinary everyday consciousness that we have

Leaves out — more

Than it takes in

The ordinary everyday consciousness that we have

Leaves out — more

Than it takes in

The ordinary everyday consciousness that we have

Leaves out — more

Than it takes in