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Complex Phrase on Alan Watts Recording

English Language & Usage Asked on October 3, 2021

I am particularly fond of Alan Watts. So I was listening to one of his recordings the other day and I haven’t been able to figure out what is said at 32:05. It is highly complex to my foreign ears. It might be just as hard for the natives present.

3 Answers

He says "Is the which, than which, there is no whicher."

We can translate this from the metaphysical gobbledygook to "The great thing or being, than which, there is no greater".

Although equally, because of the use of "which", you can substitute "great" for any positive adjective, e.g. kind, wise, powerful, etc., etc.

Alan Watts has coined the nonce word "whicher" as a parallel and for alliteration/assonance (a figure of rhetoric called "repetition") in order to mean "Whatever the attributive adjective was that you give to your god or ideal."

Correct answer by Greybeard on October 3, 2021

It sounds like "The Which Than Which There Is No Whicher"; you can find that here for instance.

Answered by LPH on October 3, 2021

There's rhymes of perspective to "which than which there is no whicher" and in the jest of humility and enlightenment, riddles and thinking help usher a path of hard workings. But, fear not because even when given the answer it won't be understood since it still requires contemplation.

Here's the context for the quote:

Nevertheless, I know too that this temporary pattern, this process, is a function, a doing, a karma, of all that is and of the "which than which there is no whicher" in just the same way as the sun, the galaxy, or, shall we be bold to say, Jesus Christ or Gautama the Buddha. How can I say this without offense - without seeming proud, haughty, and pretentious? I simply, and even humbly, know that I am The Eternal, even though such supremely enlightened people as Jesus, Buddha, Kabir, Sri Ramakrishna, Hakuin, and Sri Ramana Maharshi may have manifested this knowledge in a more forceful and authoritative style. I would be affecting the most dishonest false modesty if I did not acknowledge this, and yet the idea of my coming on as a messiah or great guru just breaks me up with laughter.

When one tends to think of the cosmos, the self usually arises, then the self may question whom is questioning the self? And thus the recursion arises.

Answered by Daniel Fischer on October 3, 2021

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