Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion

Ottimo libro, da leggere!

Better just wake up in the morning..you don't need all this extra paperwork

If I ever resonated with any author's point of view on the same topics the most, this is Sam Harris. Sometimes I feel I am at an echo chamber of sorts when reading Sam Harris' work or listening to his podcasts or the Waking Up app.I had never read his work prior to my interactions with his podcasts and app. Waking Up (the book) is the first of his books I pick up and it has been an amazing experience so far. Apart from resonating with most of what I've thought about so far on the topics of consciousness and mindfulness, his explanations and examples, as well as his erudition on these things is a fresh view for me. It makes you re-think many concepts you probably had before, as well as make you critically think on others not before thought about.Highly recommended for inquisitive minds interested on consciousness, on how to consider mindfulness as not a mere life-hack tool for a facet of your life, but as an invitation to a contemplative life that can change your views on many things, if not all (in a good way).Mind you, the length of this book is not meant to give you all the knowledge you need on this topic, but is a good introduction to it especially if you have some certain knowledge on mindfulness (especially on its Buddhist roots).

The theme of this book was that the self you think as the thinker of thoughts i.e. the rider of consciousness is an illusion and there is nothing but awareness. This is not a wordplay jargon that we see from new age cults, it's a factual account of an experience anybody can go through. The story of his 20s full of months of solitude with 6 hours sleep is sort of unimaginable for a Stanford student who eventually had to complete his undergraduate course around 30. Audible is the way to go if you can get it. This book is a straightforward guide with nothing that you need to accept on faith. Yes, mindfulness is everything that it's cracked up to be and more.A Meditation Experience post: I am beginner who thought people were deluding themselves into meditation bliss similar to what religion entails, before I was introduced to Sam Harris through JRE. For the first time in my life, I sat down in a chair and tried to meditate, at 3:00am, with no disturbing noise, I was breathless for a good 30 seconds when guided meditation said "what is observing restlessnees/sleepiness is not infact restless or sleepy" I could calmly observe restlessness, which made zero sense unless conciousness is far wider than the immediate thoughts. I have never experienced that shattering experience again probably my bubble has burst or I know what's coming. It's clear to me thoughts are fleeting and the "awareness" is bigger than them, hence, we can choose to not to be our thoughts in any given moment. Looking forward to further disillusion of the self.He has said many profound things which don't even need to be said but we need to hear them, his death talk is a perfect example, probably his most influential work followed by free will and waking up. He did the same thing with the lying essay. He doesn't seem cater to any classical section of society like right or left, embodies intellectual honesty with an ingenious way of reaching conclusions. Sam Harris is one of the very few people I feel grateful to be in the same timeline as them.

In Waking Up, Sam Harris attempts to explain and guide readers towards, in rational and scientific terms, the common experience at the core of all spirituality, the realisation that the conventional sense of selfhood is an illusion. In my opinion, he succeeds spectacularly, and I was deeply grateful for this attempt to argue for a secular and bullshit-free form of one of the most profound and, I feel, important pursuits available to us.He supports the notion of a lack of an intrinsic self with some well selected scientific research, which goes into the necessary depth without ever becoming too dense or too academic. However, he is clear that a propositional understanding of selflessness is not enough; spiritual insight must take place in the domain of direct conscious experience, just as fear can be described in terms of neurology, but one must be afraid to truly know the subjective experience of fear. He writes about his experience in meditation, which is not inconsiderable. This was both evident in the lucidity with which he describes meditative experiences and insights, and, I believe, necessary to truly grasp the fundamental importance of spiritual pursuits in life.Harris rightly points out that transformational meditative insight is available for discovery, and there is nothing unscientific about it. However, these experiences are almost ubiquitously used to irrationally support ludicrous religious and metaphysical claims about souls, the afterlife, magical powers, and so forth. Harris strips away this supernatural paint with which the spiritual lily is all too frequently painted, and points the way towards the fundamental experience itself.For those who appreciated the message of Waking Up, I strongly recommend looking into meditation (I can personally commend vipassana meditation, which Harris mentions in the book, although there are a number of good alternatives) as a secular way to see the benefits of spirituality. An in depth guide to meditation was beyond the scope of the book, and though he does an excellent job of conveying its essence, many important nuances and much helpful guidance could necessarily not be included.This was a fascinating and deeply insightful book, and I appreciated the sense of scepticism and reason that Harris was able to maintain whilst discussing this essential subject matter, which is so often bogged down in mystical bollocks. I can barely recommend it enough.