'The best book I've ever read on the nature of what actually is, what the world is about, and how you should behave' John Lloyd 'Watts' magnum opus' Jarvis Cocker One of Alan Watts' most beloved works, this spiritual classic explores an unrecognised but mighty taboo - our tacit conspiracy to ignore who we really are We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean "waves," the universe "peoples." Our goal-oriented lives leave something missing. Through our focus on the individual self, we have developed the narrow belief that the outside world "happens" to us, while we merely live in it as disconnected fragments. As the foremost Western expert on Eastern thought, Alan Watts urges against the idea that we are separate from the world around us. The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are shows us how to open our eyes and see ourselves not as coming into the world but as already a part of it; it teaches us how to know ourselves for who we really are.