Vedanta

I recently stumbled upon the works of Alan Watts, a British philosopher, writer, speaker and guru of comparative religion. He essentially spent different parts of his life learning about all the major religions. His biography includes zen training, a Masters in Christian theology and a stint as a Episcopalian priest. He is best known for his interpretation and explanation of Asian philosophies to the Western world. Reading one of his most well know books (The Book - On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are) I came across an interesting concept I wanted to share: Vedanta. Vedantic philosophy is based on any single book and has 2 simple postulations:

1- Human nature is divine
2- The aim of human life is to realize that human nature is divine

Based on Watts’ book this is my understanding of this philosophy. Everything in the universe that we define has an opposite because without day there is no night, no mountain top if there is no valley, no space if there are no objects. In a nutshell, you would not know what light was if there was no dark. This is the same as the yin-yang concept in Chinese philosophy.
There is however one concept with no counterpart: God. I am choosing the word “God” because I speak English, but this is in no way the same God as Christianity. This is the concept of “God” which encompasses all of creation, the Self of the universe. In this context, God cannot be described since there is no counterpart. Thus, to this extent EVERYTHING is god: you, me the laptop you are using, oxygen molecules, etc. Watts uses a childish analogy to explain this concept: it’s as if God was playing hide and seek with himself through all of his creations: humans, stars, animals, plants, etc. God does this so well that he does not remember doing this and it takes time to remember. Ultimately, one day we will all wake up, stop pretending and realize we are all the same universal self. So when good or bad happens, it’s always “self-inflicted” by the Universal self.

I won’t complicate things with more details. I just thought this concept was pretty mind blowing. It reminds me of another concept I read awhile back which says that since the whole universe is made up of the same matter/atoms/energy, it is all one giant unity. We are a part of it, indistinguishable.

Have a good weekend my atom-brothers...