About us
The Alan Watts Academy was initiated by Richard van der Linde. In the winter of 2016-2017, he got captivated by the work of Alan Watts and took a deep dive. After months of reading, listening and summarizing Watts' work, a burst of laughter occurred – there was a shift of perspective that made all serious efforts look silly.
Talking about his experience, several friends became interested in the experience. Try outs followed, to see if it was possible to give people a peek beyond the paradoxes of non-duality by simply discussing the work of Watts and triggering intuition with discomfort practices at a private mini retreat.
Was it possible? Yes. In 6 out of 8 cases that summer, it only took 2-3 days for visiting friends to have the initial awakening experience. While at the time, each visitor was certain this would change their life, only one continued the journey.
Besides a management consulting job, Richard kept providing services to people with a desire for ego awakening or the integration in daily life. Meanwhile, he wrote a book about the subject and tried out several formats with the potential to assist people in integrating retreat results in daily life.
Aad Havermans is a long term Wim Hof Method instructor who developed a strong interest in non-duality. When he met Richard, they instantly got along. After Aad tried out Richard's coaching and retreat format, the Alan Watts Workshop format arose as the solution to the practical challenges Aad was facing to integrate his insights.
Richard
Aad
About Alan Watts
Alan Watts called himself a genuine fake or spiritual entertainer, not a guru, teacher or master. He was often accused of simply repeating the work of ancient wisdom traditions – not having unique philosophical ideas – which he took as a compliment.
At an early age, he learned about Buddhism and started corresponding with the Buddhist Lodge in London. When he got his father to take him there, the member were highly surprised to learn that the eloquent letter they had been receiving came from a 15-year old boy.
Watts went on to study religion, philosophy and etymology. He was one of the first to teach the Eastern concept of non-duality in the West. He died in 1973, but his work has remained popular every since, due to his great voice and the humor with which he explains serious topics.
"I love one statement of one of the most important people of the West, Alan Watts. He was a drunkard, but he was the man who introduced to the West the most essential parts of Zen and enlightenment. He wrote not as a scholar, but as a master. Before he was dying, he was still drinking and a disciple asked him, 'Have you ever thought... if Buddha had seen you drinking alcohol, what do you think he would have thought about it?'
Alan Watts said, 'There is no problem. I always drink in an enlightened way.'
The question is not what you do, the question is how you do it. Yes, I accept Alan Watts' statement. There is a possibility of a man to drink alcohol in an enlightened way. Enlightenment should not have any limits. And it should not have a particular formula, a particular pattern that you have to follow.
Enlightenment should be an individual experience - the most individual experience, incomparable and unique to everybody. Once this is understood, all the clouds that surround you with darkness start dispersing."
~ Osho
"
About Non-Duality
A good portion of self-development books is non-dual but it goes unnoticed. 20% of the world's population believes it, yet 75% of the population never heard of it.
Non-duality is often conflated with spirituality or even new age thought, but the difference is that non-duality is only about realizing the illusory nature of your perceived ego and walking through life looking from this awakened perspective. Although non-duality implies that time, space and, thus, even the materialistic laws of nature are merely an appearance, like a dream, it doesn't place any importance at one's abilities to defy the laws of nature.
In a way, a non-dual view of society is that it's a stage play with actors unaware of the play they are engaged in. Any social circle that doesn't operate from this mode of perception – however advanced in healing with energy, astral travels or foreseeing the future – is essentially egoic and still a stage play with unaware actors. It might be a nicer dream than the one ordinary society has to offer, but it's still dreaming. Non-duality is about waking up from the dream, not about making it nicer. But, waking up can bring a niceness to the experience, as you become authentic. Just like how being alone can feel nicer, despite the pain, than when you stay in friendships or relationships you don't like but that help you not feel lonely.
If you want to reduce non-duality to one simple principle, it's that living an authentic life is the most rewarding life, despite the discomfort it may bring at times. And to live authentic, you must eventually drop the comforting illusion called ego. A process that momentarily might feel like psychological death, right before it happens, but instantly feels like a big joke the moment after it happened.
About the Academy
We enjoy all the stages in the ego awakening process as well as optimizing the tools based on what we observe while working with people.
With more people reaching the meta-insight stage, the opportunity arises to host workshops in different areas. There's nothing special about the founders or current facilitators that participants can't reach.
Another future milestone is to have a permanent accommodation that allows for people who lives in areas where we don't offer continuous Alan Watts Workshops to submerge in non-duality for days, weeks or even months.
Alan Watts is a great source of inspiration to us, but nothing more than that. We're not aligned to the Alan Watts foundation or other organizations. Other sources of inspiration are the works of: Eckhart Tolle, Sam Harris, Osho, Jed McKenna, Rupert Spira, Mooji, Ram Dass, Michael Singer, Krishnamurti, Nisargadatta, David Buckland, Paul Hedderman, and many more.
Alan Watts was a marvelous interpreter of Zen Buddhism, Vedanta and Taoism as well as of teachers of his time like D.T. Suzuki and Ramana Maharshi, who based their knowledge on earlier teachings, such as that of Shankara or Nagarjuna. Similarly, we merely assist with interpreting Watts and his peers.
Our true goal of it all is to have a nice game – we're not driven by a desire to change the world or to save anyone from anything. We're just doing what we cannot-not-do after surrendering to the will of... God?