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August 2008 
"This Is It," Alan Watts on Integral
Posted on Jan 20th, 2008
by 
shaman sun
shaman sun
"Psychologists with a slant to materialism therefore argue that mysticism is nothing more but sublimate sexuality and frustrated fleshliness, whereas the spiritists maintain that the love-imagery is nothing but allegory and symbolism never to be taken in its gross and animal sense. But is it not possible that both parties are right and wrong, and that the love of nature and the love of spirit are paths upon a circle which meet at their extremes? Perhaps the meeting is discovered only by those who follow both at once. Such a course seems impossible and inconsistent only if it can be held that love is a matter between alternatives, if, in other words, love is an exclusive attitude of mind which cleaves to on object and rejects all others. If so, it must be quite other than what is said to be God's own love, 'who maketh his sun to shine upon the evil and the good, and sendeth his rain upon the just and the unjust.'Love is surely a disposition of the heart which radiates on all sides like light."-
This is It, Alan Watts pg 119
Yeah! That's what I've been thinking. It's an excellent metaphor for what it means to be 'integral.' We simply observe any side, extreme, point of view in our awareness without demonizing it or rejecting it out right. It's accepted for what it is, just like when light shines, it does not shy away from the shadows, nor build fences to defend itself against the dark places. It simply resonates. We can do our best to reflect this ability in our lives. Applying this practically, Alan Watts was describing mysticism and the opposing views it had with his contemporaries. It still holds true today, however, when we look at magazines like Psychology Today, which typically reduce all spiritual and 'inner' experience to outer, empirical phenomenon. In that sense, and as Watts says, both sides are right and wrong.
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