I also found this in the Alan Watts book too. It kind of gets back to the whole idea of being in the green room upon death, but he uses the metaphor more as an reason why a person passing on should be celebrated with great gusto. Also I have read on and realize that when Watts speaks of "Off and On" he is implying that they are two aspects of the same thing just as the head and tail of the cat are such. I guess I am trying to figure out how Off and On can be equal ideas since I can't seem to relate to an Off that then turns itself back on, just as my computer can't turn its self back on. I couldn't find the green room thread so I just added this quote here.
Quote:
And then comes the hitherto
unbelievable surprise: you don't die because you were never born. You
had just forgotten who you are.
All this comes much more easily with the collaboration of friends.
When we are children, our other selves, our families, friends, and
teachers, do everything possible to confirm us in the illusion of
separateness—to help us to be genuine fakes, which is precisely what is
meant by "being a real person." For the person, from the Latin persona,
was originally the megaphone-mouthed mask used by actors in the
open-air theaters of ancient Greece and Rome, the mask through (per)
which the sound (sonus) came. In death we doff the persona, as actors
take off their masks and costumes in the green room behind the scenes.
And just as their friends come behind the stage to congratulate them on
the performance, so one's own friends should gather at the deathbed to
help one out of one's mortal role, to applaud the show, and, even more,
to celebrate with champagne or sacraments (according to taste) the great
awakening of death.
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