Watts wrote:  “The prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy-religion of the East … This hallucination underlise the misue of technology for the violent subjugation of man's natural environment, and, consequentially, its eventual destruction.”  In this book Watts'  plays intellectual Zen master to the West.  Humorous, yet seriously concerned with the direction of the human world, he works to bring about a change of perception, urging his readers to accept the responsibility inherent in living as an aspect of God.

What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only
the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of
the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future,
and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just
as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything,
there is never anything to be gained–though the zest of the game is to pretend
there is.

We do not “come into” into this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin.