Deep down, most people think that happiness comes from
having or
doing something. Here, in Alan Watts’s groundbreaking third book (originally published in 1940), he offers a more challenging thesis: authentic happiness comes from embracing
life as a whole in all its contradictions and paradoxes, an attitude that Watts calls the “way of acceptance.” Drawing on Eastern philosophy, Western mysticism, and analytic psychology, Watts demonstrates that happiness comes from accepting both the
outer world around us and the
inner world inside us — the unconscious mind, with its irrational desires, lurking beyond the awareness of the ego. Although written early in his career,
The Meaning of Happiness displays the hallmarks of his mature style: the crystal-clear writing, the homespun analogies, the dry wit, and the breadth of knowledge that made Alan Watts one of the most influential philosophers of his generation.
Table of Content
Contents
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to Laymen and Specialists
Introduction
1. War in the Soul
2. The Answer of Religion
3. The Way of Acceptance
4. The Return of The Gods
5. The Vicious Circle
6. The One in the Many
7. The Great Liberation
8. The Love of Life
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Alan Watts, the author of more than twenty books and a countercultural icon, was also a spiritual philosopher, scholar of Eastern spirituality, Anglican minister, and chaplain at Northwestern University. He died in 1973.
More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
758 Ebooks in this category
