There comes a moment in every leader’s journey, and indeed in every human life, when we start to realise that all is not what it seems.
There’s “something going on”, something that we hadn’t quite clocked. As the truth begins to reveal itself, the veil is lifted and the scales fall from our eyes. Things come into sharper focus and we start to glimpse a new reality. One that is driven by some deeper workings, beneath the surface that we had previously missed:
Alan Watts, one of the most elegant interpreters of Eastern wisdom for Western minds, called this “waking up.” Yet he also issued a warning. Once we awake from our slumber, he said, there are certain things we should never share. Not out of secrecy or superiority, but because some truths cannot be told, they must be experienced.
As I reflect on Watts’ five cautions, I find that I agree with much of what he says, though not entirely.
His insights speak beautifully to the spiritual dimension of our awakening. But his metaphoric “don’t mention the war” left me, as a scientist and developmentalist, thinking we can’t sit passively by and not speak of transcendence.
People may not be ready to understand the awakening that they are experiencing, but that doesn’t mean we say and do nothing. We can proactively prepare ourselves, and others, for the moment of awakening. We can research how, when and why this happens. If we do this work, we’re much more likely to understand the wake-up call when it comes. Preparing correctly, reduces the likelihood that we fall back to sleep and can also prevent a total misunderstanding the entire experience.
Watt’s Five Cautions
1. Don’t try and describe the spiritual experience of waking up
Watts suggests that describing the experience of waking up is like trying to describe the scent of a flower to someone who’s never smelled one. You can talk about the chemical composition of the fragrance; you can discuss the science of olfaction, but this doesn’t capture the experience of smelling the rose.
We would agree that it is extremely difficult to capture the depth of an experience in a description of that experience. However, it is possible to describe the conditions that precede the experience of waking up. It’s also possible to described how best to nurture the possibility of awakening and how to support someone in the moment when it occurs. Once someone has had the experience of waking up it’s much easier for them to help others make sense of their experience.
At Complete, we help leaders wake up by describing the conditions needed to wake up. We offer guidance on the nurture sequence, the support required and how to interpret the experience when you have it. Making sense of the experience must take account of who you are, what you already know and your level of maturity.
2. Don’t try and teach people developmental practices
Watts suggests this because he believes what worked for you may not work for others. There is truth in this. Development is deeply individual. But there’s no reason to believe that “what worked for me won’t work for others” is any more or less valid than the assumption that it “will work for others”. We’ve found that certain practices work extremely well for many people. Often what needs to change is not the practice itself but the way you teach the practice.
At Complete we have developed more than 300 practices designed to help people “wake up” and “grow up.”
However, it’s important to not become attached to any specific practice. Once you’re awake then next major step is to grow up. Once you have grown up or developed to a new level then the goal is to consolidate your progress and embody the change. If you can live, not laminate, your change then you often don’t need to keep repeating the practice.
Becoming physically fit means, you don’t need to train with the same level of intensity to maintain your peak condition. Similarly, once you’ve received the gifts of meditation, you don’t need to spend so many hours on the cushion. As Watts himself once said, “When you’ve got the message, hang up the phone.”
Many leaders struggle to hang up the phone. They become addicted to striving. Some keep practising the same thing for years or go to the same retreat over and over again. If leaders don’t perseverate on a single practice, they often perseverate on finding the latest shiny new methodology or framework that promises to deliver what they already possess. Maturity is not about constant improvement; it’s about knowing when to stop searching. When we truly understand our nature there is nothing to do, just to simply be who we already are. We are liberated from the perpetual pursuit.
3. Don’t tell people about their errors of perception
People can only ever perceive the world from their current level of development. Pointing out people’s error in perception can be counterproductive and create significant resistance, making them less likely to develop. Watts suggests people will “wake up” when they are ready. This is partially true, but that doesn’t mean we must wait passively by, trapped in idealistic hope of a spontaneously eruption of enlightenment. There are many things we can do to help people wake up. Readiness for change is not static; it can be cultivated.
And resistance is not to be feared; it’s often a sign of progress. It suggests you’ve felt the tremors of growth. When we sense the early quakes of awakening, we should not wait. We should nurture the conditions in which change can emerge. A skilful developmental coach knows when to offer challenge and when to step back; and when to let the struggle itself become the teacher.
We can’t force someone to develop. But just like the blooming of a flower we can ensure they receive sunlight, water and the care they need. In that sense, developmental work is an act of cultivation, not interference.
4. Don’t share your experience of the meaninglessness of existence
Watt’s fourth caution concerns the experience of emptiness, or what Watts called “the groundlessness of existence.” He warned that this realisation, if shared too abruptly, can be deeply unsettling. He’s right. When someone begins to see that the self is nothing more than an empty construction, the ground beneath their identity can feel as though it is dissolving. As one of the world’s great zen masters once said to me “when you’ve spent 40 years meditating on the nature of identity and the Self, eventually you realise that it’s just a collection of ideas held together by spit”.
Handled skilfully, helping someone understand that we are not the atom of existence manifest and confined to a physical body. We are the wave of evolution and can experience life as flow rather than form. Mishandled, this grand awakening can be destabilising or even destructive. As Watts put it, the truth must be approached “at the right dose, at the right time.”
Deep work, to help someone understand the power and subtly of this insight, must, therefore, be timed with care and guided with sensitivity. It is not about shattering someone’s sense of self. It’s about expanding their capacity to hold the truth of impermanence without losing coherence.
5. Don’t share your sense of transcendent freedom or why you’re unconstrained by conventional rules and morality
Watts suggests that if you reveal that you don’t abide by the conventional rules, systems or structures that cage others, then people may believe you to be dangerous. My experience is that the accusation of dangerousness is rare. It’s much more common to be seen as weird, or arrogant (for seeing so clearly or being certain about things).
When you are liberated for the constraints that bind others, you act not out of the hope of reward but because moral action is simply what happens when you see clearly
People may accuse you of being patronising if you’re trying to help them; or absorbed by some sort of fake heroism; when all you are simply doing is operating from a point of compassion, in the service of reducing suffering, because as Watts says “there is no separation” between Self and other. The perception of separation is an illusion, an analogue interpretation of a digital world.
When we understand we’re non-separate why wouldn’t we help another person, because in so doing we are helping the world. We act with kindness, not because a rule instructs us to, but because unkindness would be as absurd as breaking a finger on our own hand.
True freedom does not mean rejecting rules; it means acting from understanding rather than obedience. The most coherent leaders I know don’t need to check whether their decisions are virtuous. Their clarity of consciousness ensures that their actions are ethical by nature. They follow the spirit of the law without being bound by its letter.
In the end, Watts concludes that we should live our awakening rather than talk about it.
I understand his reasoning, yet I would suggest a refinement. We can speak about awakening, but only with great skill. The aim is not to proclaim our enlightenment, but to point others gently toward their own.
As Watts reminded us, “Words are fingers pointing at the moon.” The danger is that people become fascinated by the finger and forget to look at the moon. Leadership, at its highest level, is about helping others see the moon for themselves.
Perhaps this is what Watts truly meant by the “silent” dimension of awakening. Silence is not the absence of speech; it is the presence of discernment. It is knowing what can be said, what must be lived, and when to let presence speak for itself.
Awakening, like great leadership, is not a performance. It is the natural expression of someone who has come home to themselves, and in doing so, helps others find their way home too.