I thought this might be a good place to start.
Alan Watts has a little diddy and it goes something like.
“That you could for example have the power within one night to dream 75 years at a time or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would naturally ,as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes you would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive and after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say, ‘Well that was pretty great, but now lets umm have a surprIse lets have a dream which isn’t under control well something is going to happen to me and i don’t know what it’s gonna be.’
You would dig that and come out of that, ‘Wow that was a close shave.’ Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further and further out gambles to what you would dream. and finally you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today. That would be within the multiplicity of choices you would have. Playing that you weren’t god. The whole nature of the God-head according to this idea is to play that he is not. The nature of God is self abandonment.”
— ALAN WATTS
These men, these spiritual men, have a habit of considering pleasure before they consider selflessness . They do not believe in the nature of God is actually self-abandonment to others, but too the one who wanted all for the self. You see Alan tries to pull the wool over your head, but he gives it away right at the beginning. Let me walk you through it.
I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt that this is all a dream of dreams. That we are all one super being who likes to expand outward until a breaking point, like a breath or ocean wave, then collapse back into some pleasure filled singularity doing this over and over again for all eternity. If we are going to believe in this we need to know what Alan is saying about two claims that are of immense importance. These are the two claims Alan Watts has made about the nature of God and they are incredibly enticing.
1 ) The whole nature of the God-head according to this idea it to play that he is not
2 ) The nature of God is self-abandonment
That means everyone you meet, everyone you see, is God playing a trick on itself. When your mother tucked you in at night it was a trick to bring you in on the game you created. If your father beat you it was just a trick of the fist to give life some bitterness to enjoy the sweet yet to come. When your wife told you she loves you it was just part of the dream so you could understand some wild concept that you dreamt up. On in on as it goes forever, forever, never stopping you continue to create more elaborate modes of existence. There is never such thing as an 'arrival' or 'rest' as that is not your nature. On and on you search through the dimensions of space, time, timeless, forever constantly never arriving at your nature as your nature is to never know your nature. The universe collapses into the consciousness of the very One who has always been and everything you counted is worthwhile was a Lie. Congratulations God welcome to Hell. Enjoy your stay as no one will be joining you. You better expand again! Get moving!
The nature of God is self-abandonment. Meaning that the action of completely surrendering oneself to a desire or impulse. This means you have abandoned yourself to a nature of pure desire (Putting aside for a second that the Buddha said desire is the cause of suffering). What is this nature? Well Alan lets us know at the very beginning or at least he lets us know what his nature is and that is pleasure. Mr Watts even said in another lecture 'The universe is just playing woopie with itself'.
The only cautionary caveat in all of this is that pleasure or divine jerking off isn't the actual Nature of God. The only terrifying aspect is that you have the Nature of God and what happens if you abandon it? I'll always say ,though, if God asks me, 'Son do you want my Justice or Mercy?' I'll plead with my Father for Mercy and he is far more Merciful than I am and I am deserving of the same as any person.
What is the Nature of God?
Jesus Christ Crucified for in him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell,
For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. ~Hebrews 10:14
There's an old Zen question that stumps and shuts the mouths everyone, 'From the gates of compassion where does any dust lie?' It's just that it's difficult to admit and execute , because, like Alan I have the same nature that he was so abandoned to. I still possess this nature and if it wasn't for Christ we'd all be enslaved to it. Abandoned to this perfect hell he so describes which if you simply bring it to it's final maxim should be dreaded above all things. Yet I know one who put himself to ransom so that we may be given God's True Nature.
Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.