On 9/11/2014 7:39 PM, [email protected] [FairfieldLife] wrote:
Sam Harris' book Waking Up, a Guide to Spirituality without Religion
is now available as of Tuesday
>
/"No doubt that a great many atheists are not going to like this one
little bit. After all, atheists can sometimes be as narrow-minded as
believers. For many, spirituality is seen as practically equivalent to
religion."/ - Robert Middleton
http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Spirituality-Without-Religion/review/
<http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Spirituality-Without-Religion/dp/1451636016/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410529130&sr=1-1&keywords=sam+harris>
>
It is rather short with just five chapters and a conclusion, but it is
cogent and to the point. I am about halfway through it, having bought
it today.
Chapter 1: Spirituality
Chapter 2: The Mystery of Consciousness
Chapter 3: The Riddle of the Self
Chapter 4: Meditation
Chapter 5: Gurus, Death, Drugs, and Other Puzzles
Conclusion
There are simple instructions for meditation that look as simple as
TM: Vipassana (or mindfulness, or perhaps a better translation — clear
awareness), and of course it's free, and is the most researched
meditation technique. It is a brief guidebook for spirituality for
atheists, or anyone who does not buy the spiritual mumbo jumbo of
metaphysicians and those into the occult*. I suppose religious people
could read it too, religion is not really discussed that much. Unlike
TM, which proclaims itself not religious, this is what Maharishi could
have made of TM if he really wanted it to be non religious. Buddhism
is mentioned because its theory of self (they are not talking of Self
with the capital 'S' in Buddhism) has many parallels to scientific
research into the nature of self, which does not appear to exist.
Consciousness he seems to regard as a mystery, and the examples he
gives, give one pause as to the strangeness of what we call our awareness.
* supernatural, mystical, or magical beliefs, practices, or phenomena.
An example from the beginning of Chapter 5:
'One of the first obstacles encountered along any contemplative path
is the basic uncertainty about the nature of spiritual authority. If
there are important truths to be discovered through introspection,
there must be better and worse ways to do this — and one should expect
to meet a range of experts, novices, fools, and frauds along the way.
Of course, charlatans haunt every walk of life. But on spiritual
matters, foolishness and fraudulence can be especially difficult to
detect. Unfortunately, this is a natural consequence of the subject
matter. When learning to play a sport like golf, you can immediately
establish the abilities of the teacher, and the teacher can, in turn,
evaluate your progress without leaving anything to the imagination.
All the relevant facts are in plain view. If you can't consistently
hit the little white ball where you want it to go, you have something
to learn from anybody who can. The difference between an expert and a
novice is no less stark when it comes to recognizing the illusion of
the self. But the qualifications of a teacher and the progress of a
student are more difficult to assess.'
And Chapter 1 is on Harris' web site:
WAKING UP: Chapter One : Sam Harris
<http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/chapter-one>
image <http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/chapter-one>
WAKING UP: Chapter One : Sam Harris
<http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/chapter-one>
Sam Harris, neuroscientist and author of the New York Times
bestsellers, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and The
Moral Landscape.
View on www.samharris.org
<http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/chapter-one>
Preview by Yahoo
