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Rational Spirituality and How I Got Here by Anastasia Somerville-Wong | Secular Liturgies Network and Forum

Rational Spirituality and How I Got Here by Anastasia

Somerville-Wong |

Secular Liturgies Network and Forum

Rational Spirituality and How I Got Here by Anastasia Somerville-Wong

March 22, 2019 by anastasia291 Leave a comment

Photograph by A.E. Somerville-Wong: Coast line of St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly

Beginnings

We discussed everything at home, almost everything: philosophy, literature, religion and politics, no holds barred. We were free to develop our own views, however irreverent. I am thankful for that especially, since I was born irreverent. The question of God was the one that kept coming back. Why did so many of my school friends and their families believe in something they couldn’t see, hear, touch, smell or taste? Since I couldn’t write them off as insane, nor could I write off their God. However, during the disillusionment that comes with being a pre-teen, when one realises that adults are wrong about a whole lot of things, I finally did write him off. After all, those fairies who lived among the stems of bamboo at the bottom of our garden didn’t actually exist. There was no evidence for them. Why make an exception for God? Wasn’t he too, a work of the imagination? And why were people so desperate to conjure him up anyway? He seemed pretty troublesome to me. I didn’t like the term ‘atheist’ though. After all, I wasn’t an ‘afairiest’ was I? I didn’t want to be defined by something I wasn’t. I wanted to be defined by the things I was.

Faith and Disillusionment

Being self-reliant, however, was not wholly satisfactory either. Without a god, how do we cope when our own minds and bodies let us down? After a period of prolonged stress in my mid-teens, brought about by the dysfunctional nature of family relationships, I somehow became frightened of myself, of my own mind. It started playing tricks on me, making me feel afraid when there was nothing to fear. I no longer felt alive. No one I knew understood anxiety disorders in the 1990s. They could have told me my symptoms were of stress and not of madness (the first step towards recovery), but they didn’t, so I suffered. My symptoms fed from my fear of them like ravenous beasts. It felt as if I had been thrown into a cosmic battle with an encroaching darkness against which I had no real defence. I headed up to university feeling like someone else, not myself at all, and with no idea of how I was going to cope.

Staring through the window of my room in halls one morning, at the very edge of despair, the sun came out, and I was enveloped in what I can only describe as deep, unconditional, all-pervasive love, of a kind I had never known before. It gave me a hope and a future. It was a shield that would keep the darkness at bay, far more powerful than anything I possessed, or so I thought. I could find no explanation for this love. It did not seem human. Thus, I became convinced it was a supernatural presence, a divine one. I had further moments like these, of overwhelming love, of profound peace and of pure elation, which at the time, I perceived as coming from outside myself. These experiences became more frequent, and they began to break through the clouds of my anxiety, forcing the darkness into retreat.

For the first time in my life, I was open to religious belief. I came across the New Testament in my student halls and devoured it. Around that time, I discovered a rarity, a religious young person, older than me by only two years – an exchange student from Germany. Our conversations contrasted with the anti-intellectualism of wider British society and our friendship seemed far more meaningful than the superficial, alcohol-fuelled relationships of convenience that were prevalent among students. Ours was an alternative path of moral seriousness, intellectual inquiry and warm companionship. Unlike the rest of the world it seemed, we could enjoy an emotional and intellectual intimacy, without judgment, and without any chemical assistance. This was where I belonged, and it felt ‘holy’. Surprisingly, I picked up a few others of a similar sort in various places, and before long there was a rather motley crew of us, living an alternative lifestyle to the typical university student.

It wasn’t long before I believed Jesus was the divine presence that had apprehended me the day the sun came out. Eventually, somewhat to my own surprise, I found myself a devout Christian, albeit with a certain sense of having run ahead of myself, a sense I began to repress. I followed the other religiously inclined youth into the Evangelical Churches, and into what I hoped would be the heavenly body of Christ on earth. These churches resonated with the joy of communal singing, and their adherents were enthused by what seemed to be a genuine pursuit of truth.

My devotion to the ‘divinity’ to which I believed I owed my life, was so strong, that I suppressed my inner discomfort with some of the things being taught at those churches – creationism, young earth theory, biblical literalism, female submission, male headship, the condemnation of homosexual lifestyles and so forth. Also, these things were often taught stealthily, so as not to frighten away any potential new converts, and events were deviously advertised in ways that hid their proselytising agenda! I openly disagreed with those things when the opportunity arose – and I aroused considerable suspicion and criticism for doing so – but to some degree I also ignored them, hanging out as I did, with internationals and intellectual types on the periphery of these congregations. When bigotry became impossible to ignore at one church, I moved to a church with a more diverse congregation (and consequently, less uniformity of belief), and then, when that proved too conservative, I moved to a church which was described as liberal evangelical, where there was still a good number of young people but where women were permitted to preach and a larger proportion of the congregation rejected six day creationism.

In truth, it hardly mattered where I went to church. My own spiritual life was centred elsewhere, in an ecumenical ‘faith group’ established by my German friend, where I would lose myself in song, in Taize chanting, in the strumming of guitars and ukuleles, and in the words of a Japanese friend who spoke in parables. Perhaps most of all, I would lose myself in an unprecedented freedom of creative expression, and in the joy of being appreciated for who I really was. It was only when my friends returned to their respective homelands, bringing an end to the faith group, that I became more involved in the core activities and communities of the churches, and began to feel deeply disturbed by what I saw. There had been glimpses of heavenly community among the eclectic ecumenists but there was certainly no heaven on earth in the churches.

Christians and their churches were, in spite of their claims to the contrary, just like every other group of humans and their institutions, and often a good deal worse. Indeed, they proved just as capable of cruelty as their heathen cousins, in spite of all their talk of love and forgiveness. All the pretence and hypocrisy they indulged in made them grotesque, and a feeling that I needed to escape grew increasingly urgent. The deeper a person’s involvement with these churches, the more they became like the religious authorities whom Jesus had spent his life rebelling against, and the further they strayed from the path he had chosen. Suddenly, the excessive drinking, promiscuity and other issues of wider society, which these churches so roundly condemned, seemed remarkably innocent in comparison to their moral vanity, bigotry and false spirituality. I watched my remaining friends become more established there, their hearts hardening by the day, while others lost their faith altogether and literally disappeared from my life with barely a ‘goodbye’.

Towards Naturalism

I felt able by then to question my faith more thoroughly, to go back in time to where I had gotten ahead of myself and reassess my decisions. I sought the truth about religion in general, the truth I had been studiously avoiding. I explored the history of the world’s religions and engaged in the historical criticism of their texts. I discovered the parallels between the stories and dogmas of different faiths, and the parallels between the varied expressions of these faiths – from the dogmatic, traditional and ritualistic to the mystical and charismatic. I explored the ways in which theology and religious practice had evolved to meet human psychological and social needs. Different types of religiosity and belief appealed to different personalities. Those more dogmatic, controlling, dominant and ruthless types who had established the traditional faiths, and whose personalities often stood in stark contrast to those of the founders and early enthusiasts, had exploited human psychological weaknesses to create complex power structures.

The elements of faith – the approved teaching, the scriptures, the dogmas, the rituals and the leadership structures – were all designed to control people, just as much as they were designed to provide people with a spiritual path. They had always been used by the few to control the many, and by the men of a society, to control the women. I had known this once. I had perceived it, even as a child. I remember as a seven-year-old, observing the obsequiousness of a nun before a priest, and instantly despising both cloth-bound creatures for their revolting display of pride (in his case), folly (in hers) and the underlying sexual motivations of which they were both in denial. However, we humans can learn to ignore and even disbelieve the things that we would prefer weren’t true, and for a time in my own context, even if to a lesser extent, I had also been guilty of that. Likewise, we humans can believe just about anything if we desire it to be true. The gods themselves have been created in the image of those who have imagined and invented them because that is exactly what so many of us wish for – an external, ultimate and eternal validation of who we are. Some, however, want a good deal more, seeking external and divine legitimacy for their dominion over others, hence the divine right of kings, the papacy, and the king-maker priests.

By my mid-twenties, I had become a Progressive Christian but I had done so on my own, through my own doctoral research and personal studies. I was rather taken aback later to find there were others, including celebrated authors such as Borg, Armstrong and Spong and a movement called Progressive Christianity. I was a panentheist then, believing God to be in the world but also greater than the world, and therefore, in some sense beyond it. God was the good within and beyond. This meant that I could appreciate divinity in nature (including people) when I perceived it but that equally, when nature (including human nature) revealed itself as corrupt, or even rotten to the core, I could turn to the God beyond it, and stand in solidarity with that God against the evils of the world. I still believed there was something ‘out there’ that was divine in the supernatural sense, something essentially mysterious and indefinable, and therefore, something which could not be reduced to the traditional conception of God as a person, creator and lawgiver – the conception which had always inspired dogmatism, tribalism and bigotry. Mine, however, was not a ‘God of the gaps’, who grew smaller and smaller the more we learnt about the universe – a God defined by what it is not. Rather, mine was a God who grew larger the more we learnt because this was a God who contained but was also greater than the universe.

I continued my pilgrimage from church to church in search of something as progressive as I was. I wrote my book of progressive liturgies and led special services using those liturgies at local liberal churches. I joined a preaching rota at one local church and taught a progressive Christianity there until I became too radical for them and was consequently edged out. I even went through the Church of Scotland ‘enquiry’ process to become an ordained minister but was turfed out of that once they realised they could not mould me into a more traditional minister. Yes, they welcomed me as a progressive at first, claiming to be a broad church, and then later admitted that they had no intention of ordaining a minister as progressive as I was! They had hoped they could change me, rather than allow me to change the church! It was around this time that I read my first book on Progressive Christianity, ‘The Heart of Christianity’, by Marcus Borg, and I also attended his conference in Edinburgh. His book and lectures reflected much of my own thinking, and gave me a great and comforting sense that I was part of a wider awakening. However, there was still something troubling me.

The problem was, that apart from not finding a sympathetic church community, there just did not seem to be any evidence for anything beyond the natural world. The God of panentheism, therefore, began to seem somewhat surplus to requirements, and even fanciful. Another problem was that the Progressive Christianity movement, which I was still discovering at that time, though vibrant, seemed largely to be a home for those recovering from the delusions and abuses of conservative religion. It was a valuable and necessary home but I still didn’t feel defined by what I wasn’t, and I still felt like I didn’t belong. After-all, I had not grown up in a Christian home, so in spite of the six or so years I spent as a devout Christian, my identity felt very different to the Progressive Christians I met who were unpicking a whole lifetime of indoctrination. I began to identify more as a humanist and secularist, though I still appreciated the Christian cultural inheritance I had gained, for some of its valuable insights and practices. And, having long admired elements of Secular Buddhism, as practiced by close relatives and family friends over many years, I identified with that heritage as well. Eventually, my journey around the churches led me to a Quaker Meeting, where the unassuming stillness and quiet offered considerable solace.

I tend not to speak of ‘God’ now, unless I am in the company of those who know I mean it in the literary sense, as a metaphor or personification of things that are in fact natural. However, while I do not believe in the God of any traditional religion, I do believe that we have profound emotional and psychological experiences of things like awe and wonder, love, self-transcendence and transformation, which we, being the social animals that we are, naturally personify, using words like God, YHWH or Allah, and which we experience as ‘divine’ in the sense of their ‘otherness’. These ‘spiritual’ moments seem a world away from our normal experience of reality but they are not supernatural, they are psychological and imaginative, and as such, they may still be true and meaningful to us at the subjective level.

We humans turn to words like ‘divine’ and ‘God’ as superlatives, when our ordinary words just don’t seem to do justice to the things we find awe-inspiring. We use our imaginations and our language to crown such things with greater meaning and importance when we communicate them, to show others that they are of great value, even if they are only really of great value to us, and even though they are, in truth, entirely natural things. One might survive a violent incident or illness against the odds, for example, and feel the only word that does justice to how much it means to us is the word ‘miraculous’. To others, however, and even to one’s own objective self, such events, though of immense human interest, are simply rare or unusual, like so many other events that take place in the world. Many things are, after-all, statistically unlikely but by no means impossible, and are therefore to be expected from time to time.

Eventually, I distanced myself from supernatural theism of any kind but I nonetheless embraced the fact that, at least for the time being, we humans, in spite of our rational capabilities, are largely driven by our irrational impulses. I acknowledge, with respect, the temptation for human beings (including myself) to invent beings and worlds of the imagination in order to ease our pain or enhance our joy. Even those of us who are committed to a rational approach to knowledge do this when we immerse ourselves in books and films of fiction and fantasy, when we talk to someone we love who has died, when we cry out to the God we don’t believe in because we are in crisis, or when we express gratitude to the universe for something that has worked out wonderfully in our favour. In those brief moments, alternative realities; gods, ghosts, a conscious universe – all these things are real to us, and sometimes more meaningful to us than anything else, even though they are not real in the literal sense.

Rational Spirituality

With or without God, we still need companionship and intimacy with other persons. We still need shared values and a purpose, and we still need words, symbols, places, buildings and rituals as reminders of these. We still need the free and creative expression that leads to self-actualisation. We still need love, forgiveness and hope. And for many of us, we still crave the experience of rapturous communal singing! I still don’t like the word atheist. I still define myself by what I am rather than what I am not.

I am confident that humanity can meet its psychological and social needs with a rational conception of spirituality, without the need for traditional faith. After all, a genuine spirituality is a rational one. It does not try to deny or escape from reality. Instead, it meets a messy reality head on, with compassion and positive action – demonstrating orthopraxy (right action), rather than imposing orthodoxy (right belief). Genuine spirituality does not set some people apart from others. Rather, it acknowledges our common humanity, its weaknesses and strengths, and brings us closer together. It embraces reason and pursues the truth, whether the truth is what we want it to be or not. It acts from kindness and refrains from doing harm, even when doing so runs counter to our feelings and impulses.

Genuine spirituality is the experience of wonder, of creativity, of love and self-transcendence, of connection to other living beings. It includes the cultivation of empathy and compassion for others through reflective exercises such as meditation and contemplation. Genuine spirituality demands honesty, freedom, tolerance and equality, values running counter to the religious power structures that have been dominant for so long. It is a process of rediscovering and having a renewed appreciation of our place in nature, an emphasis which contrasts with the efforts of traditional religion to set humanity apart from its natural origins and even to set us apart from the needs and pleasures of our own physical bodies.

And what about the problem of self-sufficiency? Well, I can still seek that which is outside myself to rely upon when my mind or body let me down – the good in others, modern therapies and the natural healing capacity of the body and brain. It was the modern medical understanding of my anxiety condition, after all, which saved me in the end, after a second bout of the condition, which actually came about because of the stress and inner conflict my faith and my involvement in the churches had caused me.

Awe and wonder are often the source of belief in a supernatural God but they need not be. We can worship instead in the sense of honouring (the original Anglo-Saxon meaning of the word) that which is good in reality, in nature, including in our human nature – though I do not recommend using the term ‘worship’ in general since it is far too widely associated with obeisance to a dictator of either the human or divine kind. This ‘honouring’ is not something strange and new-agey but something we actually do already when we celebrate one another at births, birthdays, milestones, marriages and funerals, when as a community or society we celebrate people who excel in their work and do a great deal of good for others, and when we celebrate the seasons and wonders of the natural world. We can, however, learn to do these things a whole lot better, with a whole lot more creativity, meaning, imagination and depth. Another look at what we count as success, and at who we choose to reward with our civil honours lists wouldn’t go amiss!

We can write secular liturgies and choreograph secular liturgical events, not only those that are morally or intellectually instructive but those which facilitate and create spaces for reflection and socialisation. We can create rituals that instil common secular values and goals, healthy habits, practical wisdom and critical thinking. We can create sustainable ‘sacred’ (special) spaces for liturgical events, events such as reflective ‘services’, which include readings, art-forms, meditations, rituals and so forth, and social events, such as community feasts.

A story, a poem, a dance, the process of painting a picture, a journey, a piece of music, a period of silence, and even the shipping forecast- these may all be described as liturgy. We can also explore the possibility of integrating liturgy, and what I call ‘liturgical moments’, into everyday life. Liturgies often define the values, goals and cultural identity of groups, from the tattoos and graffiti of youth subcultures, to the word-art one finds in the homes and workplaces of the aspirational classes. They are, therefore, even more than the writings and other liturgical expressions, which are read or take place at secular private or public gatherings. Secular liturgies explore, define, celebrate and convey the secular values of compassion, truth, freedom, equality, courage, tolerance and responsibility. They also seek to capture and communicate, in creative ways, the latest information and research that can help us to advance well-being and alleviate suffering. They have the potential to make secular cultures more resilient in difficult times, and inspire us to meet our global challenges.

The phrase ‘rational spirituality’ seems aptly to capture both a rational approach to knowledge and the general gist of what most people mean when they talk about spirituality – sincerity, love, empathy, compassion, respect, oneness, creativity, wisdom and reflective practices like meditation, contemplation, ritual and so on. It is this kind of spirituality to which I aspire at the end of a long, and at times painful, journey. It is the kind of spirituality I sought as a child. It is the kind of spirituality I try to nurture in my own children.

‘Is God a real or a nonsense thing?’ asks my son (aged five). ‘What would you like it to be?’ I reply. ‘Hmm, love, I think.’ he says. ‘Good choice’, I say, ‘then that is what ‘God’ is.’ After all, the literary sense, makes the most sense of all. He can believe in love and call it what he likes. He can also talk to it if he pleases. After all, children at his age talk to a lot of imaginary beings, which they don’t expect to actually encounter, indicating that most of the time, they do not really believe in their existence in the literal sense. Belief itself is a strange and transient thing. It cannot be pinned down, and many of us remain in a state of half-belief about a great many things. Belief is so very undeserving of the prominence that many religions have given it. One might believe in such a thing as ‘God’ (e.g. as love personified) when immersed in that other reality, within the mind, and yet act in the physical world with no reference to any supernatural agency at all – and many do, both the religious and nonreligious alike! There is only hypocrisy in this when a person insists their God is real in the literal sense, and that others should believe in it.

When children grow into young adults, many become deeply fearful or uncomfortable with the complex and ephemeral nature of real life, and they go in search of ideological and religious certainty – a very grave mistake! Sadly, just when so many of them need a little wisdom, love and reassurance from the those with more life experience, they are met instead with an adult world touting an array of erroneous and harmful ideologies, and with people who, out of their own delusion or for their own selfish ends, are more than willing to exploit the vulnerability of the young and the suffering.

I am, therefore, sometimes hopeful and sometimes despairing of our species – of its ability to overcome its cognitive biases, of its ability to change its behaviours in time to save the planet, and of its ability to develop a rational spirituality which will provide a healthy alternative to religious and political ideologies. However, putting aside those inevitable moments of despair, our efforts must take their strength from from our hope, rather than from any kind of certainty, and this precarious state of affairs is something we must make our peace with, while we do our best to bring about a better future for ourselves and our world.

Christian Devotional Classics: A Testament of Devotion | Emerging Scholars Blog

Christian Devotional Classics: A Testament of Devotion | Emerging Scholars Blog

Christian Devotional Classics: A Testament of Devotion
Oct 13, 2013
By Tom Grosh IV
1 comment
Posted in: Book Review/Discussion, Christ and the Academy
Tagged in: A Testament of Devotion, Christian Devotional Classics, Quaker, Thomas Raymond Kelly

Thomas Raymond Kelly and A Testament of Devotion

Thomas Raymond Kelly (1893 – 1941) author of A Testament of Devotion (1941). Source: livres-mystiques.com/partieTEXTES/Kelly/bio.html

“To read or not to read?” Ever have a book which has caught your attention a number of times over a period of years, but you have made the intentional decision not to read only to find it assigned for class?

Thomas Raymond Kelly’s (1893 – 1941) A Testament of Devotion (1941) fits this category for me.

Kelly was a cradle to grave Quaker, i.e., Religious Society of Friends. Although born in America, he had a passion for international education, service, pacifism, and spirituality. Although he studied chemistry as an undergraduate, he pursued further education with a mystical bend in religion and philosophy through a number of avenues including self study and a Ph.D. at Hartford. Kelly’s memory loss during his oral defense for a Ph.D. in philosophy at Harvard crushed him (1937). But with the publication of Explanation and Reality in the Philosophy of Emile Meyerson (1937) . . .

No one knows exactly what happened, but a strained period in his life was over. He moved toward adequacy. A fissure in him seemed to close, cliffs caved in and filled up a chasm, and what was divided grew together within him. Science, scholarship, method remained good, but in a new setting. Now he could say with Isaac Pennington, ‘Reason is not sin, but a deviation from that from which reason came is a sin.

He went to to the Germantown Friends’ Meeting at Coulter Street to deliver three lectures in January 1938. He told me the lectures wrote themselves. At Germantown, people were deeply moved and said, “This is authentic.” His writing writings and spoken messages began to be marked by a note of experimental authority.” — Douglas V. Steere, “A Biographical Memoir.” In Thomas Raymond Kelly. A Testament of Devotion. Harper & Brothers, 1941, 118.

In Searching for an Adequate Life: The Devotional Theology of Thomas R. Kelly by Jerry R. Flora (Spirituality Today. Spring 1990, Vol.42 No. 1), we read another quote from Steere regarding the transformation:

out of it seemed to come a whole new life orientation. What took place no one will ever know; but old walls caved in, the fierce academic ambition receded, and a new abandoned kind of fulfillment made its appearance.

AND a dramatic description of the last day of his life:

ON the morning of January 17, 1941, a college professor in eastern Pennsylvania exclaimed to his wife, “Today will be the greatest day of my life.”(1) He had just written to the religion editor at Harper and Brothers, accepting an invitation to speak with him in New York about a small book, on devotional practice. The firm of Harper was definitely interested in the kind of fresh material this writer could produce. That evening, while drying the dinner dishes, he slumped to the floor with a massive coronary arrest and died almost instantly.

At Kelly’s passing, his friend and colleague Douglas V. Steere pulled together five of his essays and wrote a brief inspirational “biographical memoir” to accompany them in A Testament of Devotion (1941). Kelly’s academic life experience and insights go hand in hand, particularly relevant to Emerging Scholars — complementing some of what the Urban Resident shared with us in Writing a Christian Personal Statement (10/11/2013). Furthermore, reading Kelly’s material raises to me the question of how to interact with an inspirational “Christian” figure with whom one finds deep resonance, while at the same time strongly disagreeing with on several key theological points.

A timeline to provide a context for Kelly’s work

Thomas Raymond Kelly was born on June 4, 1893 on a farm near Chillicothe, OH. His parents were dedicated Quakers who reopened a long closed old meeting room to renew Quaker worship in their area. But his father died when he was four, forcing his mom to move to provide for the family (including his sister Mary). She chose Wilmington, OH, for educational purposes, i.e., to earn the money and enroll in good schools including Wilmington College.
1909 – 1912: Kelly studied Chemistry at Wilmington College (OH) but finished at Haverford College (PA), exposing him to a wider perspective. At the time, studying one’s final year at Haverford was a common way to polish off one’s Quaker “college education.”Question: If you are familiar with Wilmington and/or Haverford, I am very interested in how close to their Quaker roots these colleges continue to be in the 21st Century. Furthermore, as to whether this tradition of finishing studies at Haverford has been maintained in any manner.
1914 – 1918: World War I. America declared war on Germany in 1917.

1914 – 1916: Kelly taught at Pickering College, a Quaker preparatory school in Canada. During his time in Canada, the Quaker mission to Japan and the evangelization of the Far East became an even greater passion for Kelly than science education.

1915: Thomas Merton born in France (Prades, Pyrénées-Orientales), but his family quickly departed to live with his mother’s family in New York due to World War I.
1917 – 1918: As a pacifist (which is part of the Quaker tradition), Kelly served German Prisoners of War (POWs). This gave him not only only a strong connection with the German people, but also deepened his strong Quaker pacifism which would play an important role in his relationship to World War II.
1919: Kelly graduated Hartford Theological Seminary (CT), married Lael Macy, and received a position to teach Bible at Wilmington (1919-21) setting him up for the “Roaring 20’s.” But he appeared to be largely unaffected by this era or the Great Depression except in caring for those in need in Germany. His relationship with Germans led to his concern regarding Hitler’s rise to power. Kelly visited in 1938 to encourage Quaker friends touched by his 1924 – 1925 mission.
1924: Kelly received a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Hartford Seminary. Thomas and Lael reinvigorated the labors of Quakers in Germany (1924 – 1925).
1925: Kelly taught Philosophy at Earlham College, Richmond, IN.
1928: Daughter Lois was born.
1931 – 1932: Kelly pastored Fall River Congregational Church, attended Harvard for a second Ph.D., and taught at Wellesley College.
1932 – 1935: Kelly returned to Earlham to teach
1935: While holding a staff position at Pendle Hill, a Quaker Center for study and Contemplation in Wallingford, PA, Kelly was exposed to Zen meditation. Kelly moved to —Hawaii to teach Philosophy. He not only encountered Japanese and Chinese Professors, but also studied Buddhism.
1936: Son Richard was born in Hawaii. Kelly became sick and returned to teach Greek and Oriental Philosophy at Haverford.
1937 “Failed Oral Exam at Harvard” led to a re-examination.—

In January 1938 Germantown Friends Meeting, Kelly gives three lectures on “God can be found.”
—In April 1938, Kelly wrote to Rufus Jones, “The Reality of the presence has been very great at times recently. One knows at firsthand what the old inquiry meant, ‘Has truth been advancing among you?’”
—Spiritual experience: Shared with his mother, “He was swept away by the presence . . . melted down by the love of God.”
—Over the course of the next 3 years, he received a series of messages and went from an academic to” a seeker of the experience within.”
—January 17, 1941: Received a call to publish works and within hours of that call he died of a heart attack.

—Douglas V. Steere gathered Kelly’s material in order for A Testament of Devotion (1941) to be published.

American involvement in World War II (1940-1945) was followed by the Cold War (1947 to 1991)
1941: InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA was incorporated. For more of the ministry’s history click here.

What does A Testament of Devotion (1941) have to say to us today?

A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Raymond Kelly (1893 – 1941).

Daily Reflections for the course of the next several days from which you pick up this post. The material is drawn from drafts I posted on the Emerging Scholars Network Facebook Wall as part of a class on Christian Devotional Classics at Evangelical Seminary.

Please email me know if you use the second section to stimulate campus discussion (e.g., brown bag lunch discussion group). I am particularly interested in suggestions on revisions for use in that context.

1. “By inner persuasions He draws us to a few definite tasks, our tasks, God’s burdened heart particularizing his burdens in us. And He gives us the royal blindness of faith, and the seeing eye of the sensitized soul, and the grace of unflinching obedience. Then we see that nothing matters and that everything matters and that this my task matters for me and for my fellow men and women for eternity. . . . Obedient as a shadow, sensitive as a shadow, selfless as a shadow . . . Holy obedience is the simplicity of the trusting child. . . . . which lies beyond complexity, naiveté which is the yonder side of sophistication. It is the beginning of spiritual maturity which comes after the awkward age of religious busyness for the Kingdom of God . . .”

— Thomas Raymond Kelly. A Testament of Devotion. Harper & Brothers, 1941, 43ff.

For Deeper Reflection: Thank-you to my friend Nelson. As part of an excellent presentation on Kelly and A Testament of Devotion, he shared the above quote with this conversation starter well worth our consideration:

“Kelly spent most of his life chasing the truth through academic means and went through a period of spiritual awakening / renewal and comes to the above conclusion: Simplicity and Humble obedience. How do we balance our time of study and our time of serving? Have we made it overly complicated? What if we ‘loved in humble service?’ Does scripture call us to both? . . .”

2. Thomas Raymond Kelly begins A Testament of Devotion with these words,

“Meister Eckhart wrote, ‘As thou art in church or cell, that same frame of mind carry out into the world; into its turmoil and fitfulness.’ Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself. Yielding to these persuasions, gladly committing ourselves in body and soul, utterly and completely, to the Light Within, is the beginning of true life. It is a dynamic center, a creative Life that presses to birth within us. It is a Light Within which illumines the face of God and casts new shadows and new glories upon the face of men. It is a seed stirring to life if we do not choke it. It is the Shekinah of the soul, the Presence in the midst. Here is the slumbering Christ, stirring to be awakened, to become the soul we clothe in earthly form and action. And he is within us all.”

For Deeper Reflection: As you have already discerned, I have great respect for Thomas Raymond Kelly’s wrestling with the relationship of faith and vocation as a Quaker. We have much to receive from his journey and his coming to an appreciation of living in the reality of ‘adequacy’ instead of trying to continually prove oneself in what I term ‘the academic chain of being.’

None-the-less it is hard for me to get past the first page, where I find myself in strong disagreement with his perspective on the Inner Light/Christ to be tapped inside of each human being.
Yes, we are all created in the image of God. But is there a Christ within each of us, accessible to “clothe in earthly form and action”? No, the seed of the Gospel is cast into broken/dark lives. Some receive and some even embrace the Gospel by the grace of God, but Christ is not already inside waiting to come out of a slumber.

A subject to be unpacked further . . .

As an Emerging Scholar, how do you prayerfully consider and interact with material which you disagree with in your discipline, in particular when you have assignments ‘forcing’ you to engage the material? How do you prayerfully listen, ask good questions, enter dialogue, even sharpen your own position/understanding?

3. “T.S. Eliot . . . ‘I cannot conceive of anybody agreeing with all of her [Simone Weil’s] views, or of not disagreeing violently with some of them. But agreement and rejection are secondary: what matters is to make contact with a great soul.’ — Scott McLemee. “Review of Julia Haslett, ‘An Encounter with Simone Weil.'” Inside Higher Ed. 8/14/2013.

For Deeper Reflection: Eliot’s quote is pertinent to my reading of Kelly’s A Testament of Devotion. Even though I disagree with his perspective on ‘The Inner Light,’ he has a great soul and much to teach.

4. I am surprised by the growing influence of “Evangelical” Quakers in Spiritual Formation, in particular Richard Foster of Renovare, Mary Kate Morse of George Fox Evangelical Seminary, and Dallas Willard of USC.

Note: Willard was active member of Quaker Meeting House in which Foster served the 1970’s. For ESN Blog posts exploring the life, work, and legacy of Dallas Willard, click here. Have you read material by any of these authors? If so, how would you compare their material with what I have shared from Kelly’s work?

——-
Note: Due the press of completing the final project and the complexity of the questions I found myself raising, I left further consideration of interacting with Kelly’s theology for a future date. Several months later I find myself still mulling over a proper response. I am looking for a time away to wrestle with several topics fall posts have raised and/or someone with whom to dialogue. If you have insights to share, please comment and/or drop me a line.

Consider this post “opening a can of worms”*, one to which I/we will return Stay tuned . . .
*As I shared above, “reading Kelly’s material raises to me the question of how to interact with an inspirational “Christian” figure with whom one finds deep resonance, while at the same time strongly disagreeing with on several key theological points.”

Tom Grosh IV
Tom enjoys daily conversations regarding living out the Biblical Story with his wife Theresa and their four girls, around the block, at Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ Church (where he teaches adult electives and co-leads a small group), among healthcare professionals as the South Central PA Area Director for the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA), and in higher ed as a volunteer with the Emerging Scholars Network (ESN). The Christian Medical Society / CMDA at Penn State College of Medicine is the hub of his ministry with CMDA. Note: Tom served with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA for 20+ years, including 6+ years as the Associate Director of ESN. He has written for the ESN blog from its launch in August 2008. He has studied Biology (B.S.), Higher Education (M.A.), Spiritual Direction (Certificate), Spiritual Formation (M.A.R.), Ministry (D.Min., May 2019).

To God be the glory!
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One Comment

Roger commented on March 31, 2014 Reply
I have just finished for the second time Thomas Kelly’s book whilst language is very evangelical the sentiment has a truly mystical feel ie the essence of Buddhism Quakerism

Welcome to a budding Buddhist Quaker... | Quaker Universalist Voice

Welcome to a budding Buddhist Quaker... | Quaker Universalist Voice

Welcome to a budding Buddhist Quaker…
by Anthony Manousos

PUBLISHEDMonday, 21 Mar 2011TOPICS

By Anthony Manousos

I couldn’t resist this pun (and for those of you who are addicted to punning, I recommend John Pollock’s excellent new book, “The Pun Also Rises”). Paul Lockey, a Buddhist newcomer to Quakerism, just wrote about the affinities between Quakerism and Buddhism (see below). That Quakerism and Buddhism (especially Zen Buddhism) have much in common has become a truism among liberal and Universalist Friends. Sallie King, a longstanding member of QUF and CIRC, describes herself as a Buddhist Quaker, and so, I believe, does Steve Smith, who has written an outstanding Pendle Hill pamphlet on his experiences as a Zen Buddhist Friend. I myself have lived for nine months in a Zen Buddhist center in Providence, RI, when I first became a Friend and was deeply influenced by Joe and Teresina Havens, weighty Friends who were deeply Buddhist in outlook.

So I want to extend a warm welcome to the Paul Lockey, who writes:
As a Buddhist new to Quakers (just four Meetings for Worship under my belt!), I accept that I am coming into a religious organisation that is ‘rooted in Christianity and has always found inspiration in the life and teachings of Jesus.’ [A&Q4] However, my understanding is that ‘Quakerism’ (like ‘Buddhism’) is more a way of living rather than a set of beliefs. Moreover, an important part of the practice is to ‘work gladly with other religious groups in the pursuit of common goals…’ [A&Q6] and to ‘respect that of God in everyone though it may be expressed in unfamiliar ways or be difficult to discern…’ [A&Q17].

Jesus said, ‘The Kingdom of God comes not from observation… the Kingdom of God is within you.’ [Luke 17: 20-21] As a Buddhist I can relate to that. I see no reason why Quakers should abandon their Christian heritage, nor would I ever ask anyone to do so just to make non-Christians like me feel more welcome. However, speaking the language of Christ is one thing – it’s quite another to argue that Christianity is the one true religion, or that Jesus is somehow superior to the other historical figures who are revered by people of different faiths. If the RSoF requires me to believe that then I’ll just slope off quietly and never darken the door of my local Meeting House ever again…

Whatever we imagine our God to be, It almost certainly isn’t. The human experience of divinity is a continuum ranging from the mundane to miraculous and all are of equal importance – it’s only ego that judges these experiences as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘external’ or ‘internal’, ‘superior’ or ‘inferior’, ‘sacred’ or ‘profane’… etc. By walking the Buddha’s ‘Middle Way’ I hope to tread a fine line between asceticism and hedonism while avoiding the pitfalls of holding extreme views (atheist materialism or religious fundamentalism, for example).

So what brings me to Quakers? Basically – a need for silence, to meet others along the spiritual road, to experience in different ways the Ultimate Reality of ‘Oneness’ (or God, if you prefer).
CommentsI'll tell what branch of Buddhism seems ever closer to Quakerism: Pure Land. I belong to a Jodo Shinshu or Shin Buddhist Sangha. I have also attended a Quaker meeting for many years. It a nutshell, both traditions are at their essence preaching the Gospel of Universalism. In Shin all are saved through the compassionate workings of Amida Buddha. I believe readers will easily note the obvious Christian parallel.Mike L. · 21 Mar 2011 at 4:28 pmThank you for this. I have been making use of Buddhist meditation techniques for several years, although I feel too ignorant and imperfect to label myself a Buddhist. I was raised in a very secular, socialist household; while not spiritual, it was deeply ethical, and my parents transmitted to me their belief in social justice and peace, taking me on marches for equality and disarmament as a child.

I started attending my local Quaker Meeting through friends, and have been attending every Sunday for about three months. I am constantly running up against ideas and practices that I was first introduced to in meditation classes or my reading on Buddhism. Last week I went to a workshop for Quakers on deepening the experience of Worship, and was amused to be presented with suggestions such as focusing on the breath as a means of centring down, walking meditation as preparation for Meeting - the workshop was bringing me back round to where I started from!

Right now, I'm not sure I can call myself a Buddhist, or a Quaker, or a Buddhist Quaker. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe learning to live through the uncertainty is part of the process/lesson.Charlotte Walker · 21 Mar 2011 at 5:12 pmI've functioned as one who practices Buddhism within my liberal Quaker meeting for many years and see no conflict. There is a lot of interest in Buddhism in my Quaker meeting, I would say. As a nontheist Buddhist, I have little difficulty drawing inspiration from the Gospel of Thomas, from Bernadette Roberts and other Christian contemplatives, and from Thomas R. Kelly, to cite a few examples.Phil Grove · 21 Mar 2011 at 11:21 pmI grew up in an unprogrammed meeting in a generally non-theistic setting. The emphasis was living the Gospel and a mystical communion with the Light of Christ. Christ was and is a living Guru. But he , I feel, encouraged me to continue to seek truth , to go further, and pursue U;timate Enlightenment/Buddhahood in order to really benefit others...............................so I feel he lead me to Lord Buddha who teaches methods of attaining Buddhahood. Then for me CHrist is my King and Buddha my Teacher.........or I consider them both my Gurus.....with my ultimate authority being the Buddha.Yeshe · 06 Sep 2011 at 5:42 pmI have had Buddhism, like a piece of grit, in the corner of my eye for about 55 years and since my retirement, about 10 years ago, I have taken it seriously - although I am trying to disentangle the teachings fromn their asian-culture background. I attend the local Quaker meeting (my wife is a Quaker) and consider that, although I follow the Buddha and the Dharma, the Quakers are my Sangha.
A piece that I read a couple of years ago had a profound effect on me (it "spoke to my condition" as the Quakers say).
A japanese Zen monk was appointed abbot of a monastary in New York state. In 1975, in one of his talks to the monks, he said:-
"It is time that we started cooking our own food and not just eating from asian take-aways....We are all Dharma pioneers"
To mix religeous metaphores - Go thou and do likewise!Geoff Whitehead · 29 Nov 2011 at 7:46 amHi Geoff, thanks for joining in! I am interested in more conversation from Buddhist Quakers/ Quaker Buddhists.
I agree with cooking our own (in my case American) food, but I have a slow appoach. I choose to belong and participate in a Buddhist Sangha, and with a Tibetan Guru, all of which as a strong dose of "foreign food". I can tolerate it to a fair degree, as long as I have other affilitaions that serve scumptuous Western fare. I am currently reaching out to Friends via internet to keep some of my Western sensibilities nourished. I am hoping that eventually our Sangha will move toward meeting the West half way..............I suppose the midway point between West and East is the Middle East!
Overall I consider myself more of a Quaker Buddhist than a Buddhist Quaker...........Peace ! YesheYeshe · 29 Nov 2011 at 7:41 pm « Previous Next »

The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life: David Brooks: 9780812993264: Amazon.com: Books

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The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life Hardcover – April 16, 2019
by David Brooks (Author)
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Everybody tells you to live for a cause larger than yourself, but how exactly do you do it? The bestselling author of The Road to Character explores what it takes to lead a meaningful life in a self-centered world.

Every so often, you meet people who radiate joy—who seem to know why they were put on this earth, who glow with a kind of inner light. Life, for these people, has often followed what we might think of as a two-mountain shape. They get out of school, they start a career, and they begin climbing the mountain they thought they were meant to climb. Their goals on this first mountain are the ones our culture endorses: to be a success, to make your mark, to experience personal happiness. But when they get to the top of that mountain, something happens. They look around and find the view . . . unsatisfying. They realize: This wasn’t my mountain after all. There’s another, bigger mountain out there that is actually my mountain.

And so they embark on a new journey. On the second mountain, life moves from self-centered to other-centered. They want the things that are truly worth wanting, not the things other people tell them to want. They embrace a life of interdependence, not independence. They surrender to a life of commitment.

In The Second Mountain, David Brooks explores the four commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community. Our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments. Brooks looks at a range of people who have lived joyous, committed lives, and who have embraced the necessity and beauty of dependence. He gathers their wisdom on how to choose a partner, how to pick a vocation, how to live out a philosophy, and how we can begin to integrate our commitments into one overriding purpose.

In short, this book is meant to help us all lead more meaningful lives. But it’s also a provocative social commentary. We live in a society, Brooks argues, that celebrates freedom, that tells us to be true to ourselves, at the expense of surrendering to a cause, rooting ourselves in a neighborhood, binding ourselves to others by social solidarity and love. We have taken individualism to the extreme—and in the process we have torn the social fabric in a thousand different ways. The path to repair is through making deeper commitments. In The Second Mountain, Brooks shows what can happen when we put commitment-making at the center of our lives.

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“A hyper-readable, lucid, often richly detailed human story.”—The New York Times Book Review

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“The voice of the book is calm, fair and humane. The highlight of the material is the quality of the author’s moral and spiritual judgments.”—The Washington Post

“A powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin.”—The Guardian (U.K.)

The Social Animal

“Provocative . . . seeks to do nothing less than revolutionize our notions about how we function and conduct our lives.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

“[A] fascinating study of the unconscious mind and its impact on our lives.”—The Economist

“Compulsively readable . . . Brooks’s considerable achievement comes in his ability to elevate the unseen aspects of private experience into a vigorous and challenging conversation about what we all share.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Brooks surveys a stunning amount of research and cleverly connects it to everyday experience. . . . As in [Bobos in Paradise], he shows genius in sketching archetypes and coining phrases.”—The Wall Street Journal
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David Brooks is one of the nation’s leading writers and commentators. He is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and appears regularly on PBS NewsHour and Meet the Press. He is the bestselling author of The Road to Character; The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement; Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There; and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense.See all Editorial Reviews

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Hardcover: 384 pages
Publisher: Random House (April 16, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0812993268
ISBN-13: 978-0812993264
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David Brooks is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and appears regularly on “PBS NewsHour,” NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He teaches at Yale University and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the bestselling author of

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement;
Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There; and On
Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense.

He has three children and lives in Maryland.

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris | Goodreads

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Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

Sam Harris

3.91 · Rating details · 23,417 ratings · 1,646 reviews

For the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris’s new book is a guide to meditation as a rational spiritual practice informed by neuroscience and psychology.

From multiple New York Times bestselling author, neuroscientist, and “new atheist” Sam Harris, Waking Up is for the 30 percent of Americans who follow no religion, but who suspect that Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history could not have all been epileptics, schizophrenics, or frauds.

Throughout the book, Harris argues that there are important truths to be found in the experiences of such contemplatives—and, therefore, that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow.

Waking Up is part seeker’s memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris—a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic—could write it. (less)

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Hardcover, 256 pages

Published September 9th 2014 by Simon Schuster (first published January 1st 2014)

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Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

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Mar 01, 2014Dan Harris rated it it was amazing

This book is not out yet, but Sam was nice enough to let me read the galley. It's fascinating. It will surprise a lot of people to learn that this often acerbic atheist in fact has a deep history of meditation practice. In this book - which is part polemic, part memoir, part pop-science - he makes the case for a "spirituality" (he doesn't like the word, per se, but points out that there are sadly no other options) divorced from religion. Whether or not, you agree with his views on faith, Sam makes a compelling philosophical and scientific argument for the benefits of meditation. (less)

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Jan 29, 2014Chris rated it did not like it

Shelves: religion, spirituality, science, nonfiction, worst-books

After enthusiastically starting this book, I gradually became annoyed, and eventually angry, as it slid on a downward slope to the end. This embarrassing work is far beneath what I would have expected from a scholar such as Harris. What a surprise it was to find details on the sexual malpractices of spiritual gurus and how to find one that matches your "tastes," among other awkward and simplistic information.

I had been eagerly looking forward to reading Waking Up after its publication was announced in Spring 2014. Who better than Harris, the master of rationality, to offer a companion way to look at the world to sit side-by-side with my scientific outlook—one that embraces the spiritual without the religious? Who could object to experiencing another form of beauty in one's life that doesn't contradict the observed facts of the universe? Maddeningly, his book does not deliver on this promise, as other reviewers have also noted. What it does do is present a trivial prescription, not at all original, which is easily summarized: (1) "you" don't exist, and (2) empty "your" mind of all thought.

Those that have read Waking Up, should see evidence of my displeasure by noting the deliberately frequent use of "I" and "me" in this review: "I" being the very one who read his book and subsequently wrote this text with some passion. "I" am most certainly not an illusion, believe me. (You, on the other hand, are free to believe what you will concerning yourself.)

Of course, in this demotion of self and mind, Harris only reiterates ancient well-known aspects of Buddhist philosophy. He does so here without adding anything new. That reduces what's left of the book to its only other theme: that of the meaning and origin of human consciousness. Again, Harris adds nothing, this time to the relevant science, which is covered in great depth in several recent authoritative books by other scientists. An excellent example is the very readable Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts, by Stanislas Dehaene. Published in 2014, it's quite comprehensive, covering many of the points in Harris's book, with more depth and authority, and going far beyond.

In the final analysis, what's left? Only some surprising autobiographical material about his use of psychoactive drugs—that is, it's surprising if you are a Harris fan. Such use may be more common by others who are not necessarily public intellectuals. (I acknowledge that, like Harris, Aldous Huxley used mescaline and wrote a book about it, the classic The Doors of Perception. Huxley's is leagues ahead in spiritual depth, even if the science is somewhat dated.)

What am I critical of this book? Not for the link to Buddhism, I'm not a believer, never will be; not for the drug use, I'm not a prude; not even for the amateurish advice about gurus, since at least it is momentarily (ironically?) humorous. My ultimate criticism is his failure to teach us something new. He should have given us some real tools with which to make our lives meaningful in the spiritual sense without resorting to religion. The book's promise was forfeited. Concomitant with that failure, he has damaged his image as a leader in the American culture war, whether he wants to be one or not.

This book strongly deserves a 1-star. I'm struggling to maintain some intellectual respect in Harris. He's possibly now nothing to me, despite his great previous work advocating rationality over groundless faith (see The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason). Unlike him, who seems to think that an empty consciousness is man's highest mental state, I still consider human thought to be the ultimate expression of the Universe examining itself, not the true source of pain and suffering that Harris claims in this deeply weird book. (less)

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May 13, 2014Josh rated it it was amazing

This book is bound to ignite another firestorm in the skeptic community around the word "spirituality," but it really shouldn't. As Harris makes clear from the outset, his interests still lie squarely within the bounds of rational inquiry. One need not entertain any spooky metaphysics in order to honestly interrogate the mind and its limits. What he does argue, however, is that consciousness is an object of study unlike any other in science - because it is both the subject of investigation and the tool we're using to investigate.

A healthy portion of the book is spent fending off the attacks Harris anticipates from his less experience-hungry colleagues in the scientific community: spirituality is a term too loaded down with religious baggage, mystics and contemplatives are all on some level lying about the depth of their experiences, and the entire enterprise is ripe for fraud. Harris is quite willing to grant some ground to these objections, but having spent a serious span of his life on meditation retreats, experimenting with mind-altering drugs, and exploring the possibilities of consciousness, he insists that there really is a "there" there. And scientists would be well served not to dismiss it out of hand.

By the final pages, Harris has made a strong case with his usual verbal flair. All of us - scientists included - should be eager to openly and honestly explore consciousness because that's all that could ever really matter. And unlike so many self-help books, Waking Up suggests that the answer doesn't rest in learning more and more about the "self" but rather in dissolving it - and noticing that the thing that thinks our thoughts cannot be identical with the thoughts themselves.

While the program put forward in the book (and likely the online courses set to begin this September) is a daunting one, it's extremely hard to argue with Harris' reasoning. Who doesn't want to be happier, less neurotic, and more at home in one's own mind? (less)

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Oct 03, 2014Kaj Sotala rated it it was ok · review of another edition

A little disappointed with this one. Harris basically defines spirituality as the quest to see the ego and the self as illusions, and while that's certainly a worthy goal, it strikes me as a somewhat narrow definition for spirituality, as I personally find spirituality to also include things such as developing a sense of love and compassion towards other people.

The book is subtitled "A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion". In practice, the guide parts consist of a few meditation instructions, some arguments from neuroscience and philosophy on why there isn't a unified self, and a brief discussion about how psychedelics can provide useful insights to the nature of consciousness. The meditation instructions aren't bad, but there's also nothing particularly novel about them, and only a few of them are provided. The neuroscience arguments seemed weak even to someone who believed in the claim that they were trying to establish, as did the philosophy for the most part. Ken Wilber's No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth did the philosophy much better, I feel. I'm sure that there are people who find the content in this book interesting and novel, and there were a few useful nuggets of information, but for the most part it was either stuff that I had seen before or stuff that was novel but unconvincing.

And then there is the ranting and endless religion-bashing. Harris seems to use every possible excuse to attack religion and superstition. While I'm an atheist who agrees that religions have plenty of silly beliefs, I didn't get this book to read endless rants about their evils. Blah blah Christianity prevents people from correctly interpreting their meditative experiences and is generally evil blah blah blah Buddhism is better and has a lot of valuable stuff but still we shouldn't forget that it too has all kinds of silly nastiness blah blah YES I GET IT COULD WE PLEASE GET BACK TO THE TOPIC. Oh, only for a few paragraphs, then you want to get back to the ranting. Sigh.(less)

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Jun 07, 2016Lance rated it it was ok

Shelves: ditched

Much of this was about becoming consciousness and not being distracted by thought, but most of the time I was thinking of other things.

flag42 likes · Like · 3 comments · see review

Aug 30, 2014tall penguin rated it it was amazing

I have run the gamut in my life from fundamentalist religion to New Age spirituality. Once I settled into atheism and critical thinking, I became wary of meditation and all of the religious/spiritual trappings that seemed to automatically go with it. But I couldn't keep ignoring the science showing that meditation can be useful, once stripped of all of the metaphysical jargon and beliefs.

Harris explores the science as well as his own personal journey with meditation with ease, humour and depth. It was an easy read, one which had me both considering meditation as a tool for stress management and as a way to understand my place in the cosmos better. And I love that the book maintains Harris' wit. He actually did have me laughing out loud at points.(less)

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Aug 19, 2014Amanda rated it really liked it

I received this book through a goodreads sweepstakes. It came in the mail a few days ago. I couldn't put it down after I opened it. All finished reading it within three days. I was baptized Catholic and attended a Catholic school through 8th grade. I was later confirmed Catholic in high school because that was my grandmother's wish for me. The woman is my life, so I do as I'm told, but I never really felt like Catholicism was for me. Way too strict and judgmental. I went to a few other churches to try those out and none of them really fit me. I decided to change from religious to spiritual. This book breaks that all down for the reader. It makes it easy to see why more and more people are choosing to be good people because they believe they should be instead of because a priest or deacon tells them to be.

My only complaint is all of the references in the back. Of course I had to cross reference a lot of them for more information, such a sucker for knowledge, so that took a little while.

Great book. Worth a buy or a rental.

ENJOY!!!!!!!! (less)

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Sep 25, 2017Thomas Strömquist rated it it was ok · review of another edition

My first acquaintance with Sam Harris was through one of the many YouTube snippets in which logically reasoning and science advocating people debates different religious people about the existence of god (along with about a million sidetracks). Being Swedish, I found this fascinating for a while (very few Swedes would ever define themselves as 'atheists' - for quite similar reasons why most people do not define themselves as "non-elf-believers"). I watched a bunch of these, until my fascination with the power of human self-delusion was exhausted and the fascination with Harris' and his team-mates patiences was long gone - and I will probably never have to watch another. I've also never picked up a book by any of the knowledgeables (Harris, Hitchens, Nye, Dawkins...) much for the reason that I know beforehand that I will agree on most counts and the compelling powers of logical reasoning in themselves are not enough to keep interest up for a lengthy text - or so I've always thought.

Harris (and Neil deGrasse Tyson) did stand out from the rest of the debate-willing sceptics (yes I do know this is not all these guys do!) by discussing more about how peoples' different beliefs affects all of us - from immediate family all the way through globally, short-term, long-term and impact on development, economics, humanitarian, personal freedom and many other levels. Some debating 'atheists' seem quite content with discussing the plausibility of talking snakes or likewise conversing burning bushes or the possibility of building an impossibly large wooden boat and sail on it for an extended time carrying two of every species on earth. This is why I have been a bit more interested and learned a bit more about and from these two.

And so, I was excited to happen upon this book. "...a scientific and philosophical exploration of the self" - and that far it's great. Chapter 2, "The Mystery of Consciousness" had some very interesting ideas and information, all expressed in Harris' usual eloquent and impeccable style and Chapter 3 "The Riddle of the Self" had me largely spellbound. Unfortunately, then the fun ended. "...and a how-to guide for transcendence", or the second half of this book contains, much to my chagrin, some of the same logical discrepancies (or at least the missing arguments) for much of the theories and "practises" taught that he himself has consistently accused his religious counterparts. First, the author does not offer a single piece of argument - much less evidence - before he jumps head-first into the art of meditation. Long story short: we don't know what thoughts are, how they come to be, how they work or why we have them. But we know that they spin around in our heads every waking hour. And therefore it must be right to try to turn off the flow, right? Wrong. You just jumped the first four questions and they should really be answered before the "solution".

So now, un-persuaded that I should really meditate for some unclear reasons, lots of the remaining text got less interesting. But that's not the worst. Harris - being a meditation fan - can't really avoid fan-boy:ing the "masters" of this trade. Problem is that the "masters" do seem to be lacking. Being an "enlightened" and ridiculously wise and 'good' person - would it be too much to ask that you refrain from sexually abusing your protégés? Or show a basic understanding of what they are used to, or the codes and ways of the society they where brought up in? Do we really need Sam Harris acting apologist to a bunch of men (always...) that are - by undisclosed standards - above the rest of us, but that are - in the cold light of reasoning - obviously as clueless as most of us? No, that stinks in my opinion. If meditation for some yet unproven reason is what an animal brought forward by millions of years of evolution must do to keep sane - is there one piece of information that leads us to believe that a Tibetan monk or an Indian outcast is the go-to authority on the subject? Asking an old guy, talking in riddles and surprising by obviously having it together in some respects, but sounding like a charlatan in the next instant - does this remind anyone of anything?

If Harris meant this to be any sort of primer, he failed miserably. Nowhere in this book did I find the reason to why I should strive to turn off my conscious thoughts (often by focusing on physical phenomena, such as how the bench of choice feels against my buttocks or worrying very much about breathing) for hours on end. Breaking negative thought cycles and breaking free from disabling pondering, I'm convinced is a good idea, from a psychological and personal experience viewpoint. Some people like fishing, I'm into equine therapy myself.

Two thought-provoking and great chapters, unfortunately that leaves more than half of this book with a lot more to be wished for. (less)

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Jan 27, 2015Sara Alaee rated it really liked it

Shelves: psychology, philosophy, non-fiction, spirituality

It’s not long since I’ve first come across the word “spirituality”. I’ve mostly heard it from people who practice meditation. As a beginner I didn’t quite understand it. This book gave me some good ideas.

Consciousness is at the core of the book. The hard question is this: What’s consciousness? And where does it come from? I really enjoyed Sam Harris’s reasons and responses to this fundamental question and the wisdom with which he promoted his ideas. His philosophical and scientific arguments regarding the benefits of a mindful life is quite thought-provoking. He addresses consciousness and the issue of “Self” in a clean way, shattering the mysteries of the latter while subscribing to an appropriate explanation of the former:

“The feeling that we call “I” is an illusion. There is no discrete self or ego living like a Minotaur in the labyrinth of the brain. And the feeling that there is—the sense of being perched somewhere behind your eyes, looking out at a world that is separate from yourself—can be altered or entirely extinguished.”
“Subjectively speaking, the only thing that actually exists is consciousness and its contents. And the only thing relevant to the question of personal identity is psychological continuity from one moment to the next.”

He believes that spirituality is an altered state of consciousness that can be induced by contemplative practice or drugs (psychedelics); none of which is in any way dependent to religious beliefs or rituals.
There is a bit of neuroscience in the book as Harris tries to demystify consciousness. He also discusses his personal transcendental experiences, first on a drug trip as a young man and then on a tour of Eastern contemplative practices. He then discusses the dangers of being taught about consciousness by imperfect gurus(spiritual teachers). (I’m quite fond of the last chapter. It’s really good.)
Despite all the risks, however, Mr. Harris believes that experience of spiritual states can drastically improve the quality of one’s life:

“It is within our capacity to recognize the nature of thoughts, to awaken from the dream of being merely ourselves and, in this way, to become better able to contribute to the well-being of others.”
“We are always and everywhere in the presence of reality. Indeed, the human mind is the most complex and subtle expression of reality we have thus far encountered. This should grant profundity to the humble project of noticing what it is like to be you in the present. However numerous your faults, something in you at this moment is pristine—and only you can recognize it. Open your eyes and see.”

I strongly recommend this book to all, whether one’s a believer, non-believer, questioner, rebel, upholder, abstainer, moderator, and the list goes on… It’s one of the best books written on the subject.
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Nov 06, 2014Gendou rated it did not like it

Shelves: philosophy, non-fiction

TL;DR the only benefit of meditation is investment justification.

This book made me so very sad, because I like the idea of spirituality without religion. Really, this book is about Vipassana meditation and Buddhism. It's just awful, which I never would have expected from Sam Harris.

Harris starts off with an accusation that "few scientists have developed strong skills of introspection". I've found the opposite to be true, both anecdotally in my personal life and in the biographical literature.

The thesis of this book is that we go throughout life "thinking without being aware that we're thinking" which is the "illusion of the self". If by "there is no self" he meant the Cartesian creature is fiction, I would agree.

But Harris is a believer in the "Hard Problem" of consciousness. He says that consciousness cannot be explained in terms of information processing. He doesn't accept that neuroscience can fully explain the emergence of consciousness by correlating mind states with brain states. "We know nothing about how such a miracle of emergence might occur." Well, maybe *you* know nothing about it, but other people do. Don't be fooled. This isn't philosophy. This is science denial. Worse, it's dualism. Plain and simple. Ironically, he rejects dualism in the first chapter.

His emphasis on consciousness is also ironic because later on he insists, "what does not survive scrutiny cannot be real." Well, the idea that there's something special called consciousness beyond what neuroscience can explain about the brain doesn't survive scrutiny at all! He nonetheless demands the reader accept the subjective experience of consciousness as undeniable evidence for its existence. This is totally unscientific. Subjective experience alone is not falsifiable, subject to independent verification, etc. and so is not scientifically reliable.

Harris tries to explain the illusion of the self by comparing it with the optical blind spot. This is a false analogy because the blind spot is real and can be measured. Meditation, on the other hand, produces no physiological or psychological consequences in excess of what we'd expect from undertaking a calming activity.

Harris caution the reader about meditation Gurus who abuse the power they have over their disciples. He cautions against believing claims of supernatural powers, though he doesn't dismiss their possibility, either. He sounds particularly credulous to ESP which I find hilarious.

I think the overarching problem with this book is that Harris doesn't fully appreciate the philosophy of science. He claims his baloney detector is fully functional, but I think his detection rate would be improved were he to study skepticism and critical thinking.

For example, people who claim great benefit from mediation are biased because they've got an imperative to rationalize the large amount of time they spend meditating. This conflict of interest goes unmentioned in the book.

Another telling example is when Harris describes an interaction with his young son. His son asked where gravity comes from, and after a thoughtful pause, he replied, "we don't know where gravity comes from." Um, yes we do, Sam! Mass! Gravity comes from mass! Duh!

Obviously, he was answering the childlike question "why does gravity behave the way that it does?" instead of the scientific question "how does gravity behave?" Harris seems not to understand that "why" questions are invalid in science. Only "how" questions are answerable by science. (less)

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Jan 30, 2017Brendon Schrodinger rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: atheism, psychology

"A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion" - sounds great. I feel spiritually stunted yet dread the involvement of religion.

The book started out great, thoughts on the use of spirituality with some academic references.

Sam then says that to be spiritual without religion you need to lose your sense of self.
He then explores the psychology and brain physiology of self and thinks he shows that the self doesn't exist. I followed most of the science, but when the philosophy came into it I was lost.

Alright, Sam, what else do you have to offer? Oh, the one true way to do this is to use a Bhuddist meditation technique cutting out the jumbo jumbo. Oh, you studied it yourself with your guru for like ever. Yeah, this is far from religion. How do you do it? Hand wavy stuff and you might want to study it yourself. Why thanks Sam. This really helps out.

Oh and now you want to go on about how gurus are often shady characters. Really holding up this argument well, Sam.

I couldn't deal with anymore.
In summary this is a pamphlet for some Bhuddist hippy shit that Sam got into in his twenties.

Note: There are a lot of reviews here that love this book. I definitely know there is a possibility that I was just too dense to get what Sam was on about. But I'm just a scientist who was hoping to develop his spirituality.(less)

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Jun 11, 2014Mike Dobbins rated it did not like it

This review concerns the MARKETING of the book, not the book. Serious ethical lapses are occurring in the marketing of this book. This is NOT a traditional spiritual book for "the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion" as the description states for Sam Harris has stated on numerous occasions that he DOESN'T BELIEVE in that type of spirituality. Still, this book is being marketed to spiritual people. VERY Disappointed in Sam Harris for putting profit over people and his ethics. I describe this problem in greater detail in an article in The Christian Post. Please read it and learn for yourself before purchasing a book that is being marketed as ONE type of spirituality, when it's actually about a completely different type. http://www.christianpost.com/news/wak... (less)

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Jul 17, 2014Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

I did not sleep much last night ---but I read this book during the dark hours --and finished it this morning!

I'm inspired!!!!!

On the bottom of page 43, Sam says, "I make no claims in support of magic or miracles in this book".[HE SHOULD!!!!]. 'Miracles' would manifest in the world if enough people read this book.

On the same page (bottom of page 43) , Sam goes on to say, "However, I can say that the true goal of meditation is more profound than most people realize -- and it does, in fact, encompass many of the experiences that traditional mystics claim for themselves. It is quite possible to lose one's sense of being a separate self and to experience a kind of boundless, open awareness -- to feel, in other words, at one with the cosmos."

SAM HARRIS wrote the ABOVE sentences! AMAZING!!! YES?/!!!! (For those who are familiar with Sam's other books --- its pretty cool to see SAM HARRIS writing THESE words. Sam? Cosmos? Sam-the-atheist?

Don't let his other AMAZING --LIFE-ALTERATING- books fool you to think Sam does NOT have his own 'spiritual' practice....(so to speak --for lack of a better way to say this).

This was the MOST personal -wonderful SAM HARRIS book to date! (he let us see into his personal soul and educated us at the same time).

The Chapter on "The Mystery of Consciousness" was and entirely new discovery --way of understanding for me. He talked about the 'split-brain' phenomenon. The isolated right hemisphere is independently conscious from the left hemisphere. (He/she does not know what the other is thinking --or even that he/she exists).

This chapter is so good--I've already re-read parts of it a few times. I'm still trying to figure it out with my OWN Right & Left brain.

For Book clubs that choose NON-FICTION books ---PICK THIS BOOK. Much to chew on for discussions!!!

I could go on and on ---
but I will leave you with just two more things to consider:

1) Read Moral Landscape --(if you've not already). Its a brilliant book that changed my thinking forever!!!!

2) "Where does gravity come from"? Sam's 3 year old daughter wanted to know. Do you? lol

GREAT BOOK!!! VERY TOUCHING --(Congrats to SAM!!!!)---- 'EXCELLENT'....[This book is needed 'now' & people might be able to hear the message today].
The Bonus: Wonderful teachings on meditation found in these pages, to boot!!!

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Apr 05, 2014Eric rated it liked it

Sam could have made his argument in just a few pages. I do really like his writing style, so I still enjoyed reading this. I just kept waiting for him to really apply what he was writing about. He went on and on about how beneficial mediation is, especially dzogchen, and how important it is to be taught exactly how to do it, instead of being taught in metaphor. But then he never talked about how to actually do it. Maybe that was outside the scope of his book. I was also looking forward to the chapter on psychedelics, but was disappointed to find that much of it was lifted from a couple of his blog posts from his site that I had already read a while ago. Overall, it's still worth reading.

Original review:
I can't believe I have to wait 5 more months for this to come out. (less)

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Oct 08, 2014Vince Darcangelo rated it really liked it

Shelves: existentialism, nonfiction, reviews, science, philosophy, sam-harris

http://ensuingchapters.com/2014/09/29...

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion

Sam Harris

My anticipation for the new Sam Harris book turned to anxiety when I learned it would be about spirituality. Was the firebrandtype philosopher and scientist—co-founder of Project Reason and author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation—changing teams?

Nah.

Perhaps a better title for this book, though, would be The Atheist’s Guide to Meditation.

At its core, Waking Up is about mindfulness, and as a fellow atheist who has attended a fair share of Buddhist retreats (including a recent one on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction), I can relate to some of the conflicts Harris encounters. No matter how secular the retreat, I get nervous when I find myself in a room full of people following the direction of a group leader offering spiritual betterment.

Harris takes out the touchy-feely and goes straight for the scientific foundation of a mindfulness-based approach to life. The result is a book heavy on Buddhist philosophy and refreshingly light on bullshit.

What makes Waking Up different is that it’s also what Harris calls a “seeker’s memoir.” We follow his journey from a skeptical teen to an adult struggling with the feelings of “unsatisfactoriness”—which is his interpretation of the concept of dukkha, rather than the traditional definition of suffering.

He had my attention early in the book, when describing the disquiet of his solitary thoughts and the relief he felt when experimenting with MDMA, LSD and DMT: “It would not be too strong to say that I felt sane for the first time in my life.”

Through his seeking, Harris reveals that, for him, spirituality is not the existence of a higher being in the ethereal realm, but rather the cognizance one has of an immaterial self. “Subjectively speaking, the only thing that actually exists is consciousness and its contents. And the only thing relevant to the question of personal identity is psychological continuity from one moment to the next.”

Speaking of continuity, Harris gets a little far afield the deeper we delve into the book. Beyond memoir, he explores the scientific underpinnings of consciousness and meditation, drops some knowledge about psychedelic drugs and, justifiably, rants on the silliness (and scientific dishonesty) of Proof of Heaven and other accounts of near-death experiences.

While I really enjoyed many of these sections, they didn’t have the cohesion of a linear narrative. It read more like a collection of essays on a single topic—which is fine, just not what I was expecting.

Harris’ informed and enlightened discussion of psychedelics resonates the most with me. Not only do I agree with his observations (and share some of his experiences), but Harris also challenges some of my long-held assumptions.

For instance, Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception is a seminal bit of psychedelic literature, and for years I bought in fully to Huxley’s description of the brain as a “reducing valve.” Harris debunks this by drawing on modern neuroscience, causing me to think about mind-manifesting drugs in a new way.

All told, Waking Up is an interesting and enjoyable read. There’s a bit of science writing, philosophy, memoir and a unique take on spirituality and meditation. (less)

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Aug 17, 2014Matt Manry rated it it was ok

Shelves: philosophy, psychology, science, theology-religion, science-and-religion

I really wanted to like this book, but Sam Harris just can't resist taking so many cheap shots. At points, Waking Up was very interesting and engaging. However, other parts of the book were so bland, boring, and completely anti-religious that I could barely take it.

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Nov 08, 2014Morgan Blackledge rated it it was amazing

If we colonized the moon, people who lived there could ostensibly have a perfectly decent life. But based on our evolutionary inheritance as earthlings, we would, in all likelihood, crave gravity and greenery.

This is an interesting analogy to living life as an atheist. We can live quite well without religion. But because so much of our history as humans has revolved around spiritual pursuits, there may be something akin to gravity and greenery that we atheists lack and long for and even need.

Personally speaking, there is simply no way for me to accept many of the core premises of the spiritual traditions. Particularly in light of evolutionary biology, neuroscience and psychology. But I still engage in contemplative practices, I still seek the renewal found in total engagement, I still love to meditate in a group, I still love yoga, I still find deep meaning and gratification in being of service to others. There is gravity and greenery in these pursuits.

But precisely, what is the spiritual equivalent to gravity and greenery. What exactly is it that we atheists need and crave and more importantly, how can we get it without betraying our rigorous, critical, sceptical, monist selves. This book is Harris's stab at answering these questions.

If you're interested in mindfulness or other forms of contemplative practice, and you want a clear, secular context in which to ground your experiences in, than this book may be good news. It certainly is for me.

Unlike many other secular, rational presentations of mindfulness and meditation to date. Sam Harris goes for the gold by attempting to construct a secular account of "enlightenment".

I personally can live without the whole business of enlightenment. At least as it is traditionally rendered. I actually think it's a pernicious myth. But self transcendence (for lack of a better phrase) is something I can't live a full, rich, meaningfull life without. And as far as I can tell, plain old, nuthin fancy, butt normal, no magical powers, self transcendence (again, an awful term without a better alternative) seems to be what Harris is referring to when he uses the term enlightenment, and I'm unreservedly only moderately uncomfortable with that.

If you're familiar with Harris's work, you may be as surprised as I was to hear him freely use constructs such as spiritual, ego etc. His rationale was simply that there aren't good alternatives as of yet. Rather than try to create new words, he stuck with the old ones despite the problematic connotations. I nolonger believe in ghosts or souls. So needless to say the word spiritual has been awkward for me for a while. This book is helping me reclaim the word.

I'm still taken aback by the fact that the point man of the New Atheist movement, is a former Hindu/Buddhist meditation doing, acid dropping Dharma bum. And he is still all the way in the game. Attempting (like many of us) to make sense of our spiritual and psychedelic experiences based on what we currently know about the brain and psychology (not an easy job).

Harris refers to this task as snatching the jewel (i.e. the legitimate value of contemplative practice) from the dung heap (i.e. the cringeworthy religious beliefs/claims/practices of the contemplative, mystical and religious traditions).

I knew I loved this guy, but I had no idea how much of a bro he actually is. I have to give him huge props for risking everything and coming out in this way. This is a huge move that will inevitably bring him a torrent of criticism from every angle.

If for no other reason, this balls out move compelled me to give the book 5 stars.

Harris does a terrific job of parsing out the spiritual use value of psychedelics with out overstating (or understating) their benefit. A subject I have been unsuccessfully wrestling with for years. I know there was immense value in my early psychedelic experiences. I also know they were limited and degenerated into vastly diminished returns by the end of my psychedelic carrier. And I also know that I will not use them again, for various great reasons. Harris takes aim and clarifies this tricky subject in a seemingly effortless paragraph or two, tosses in a hilarious bad trip story for good measure and moves on. I love this guy!

It's like the baby boomers had a huge (and unsanitary) spiritual drug orgy and their love child, Sam Harris appeared from behind the bong and cleaned up the intellectual mess without (a) shoveling all of it into the trash, or (b) framing it like it was fine art.

Good job bro!

I have to say. I've been waiting for someone to write this book. It's not without flaws (I think invoking the "hard problem" of consciousness is a major one, I think the very idea that consciousness is a special i.e. magical hard problem is actually creating a bad problem), but I don't feel like dinging him at the moment. For now I'll simply enjoy the feelings I'm having after reading this awesomely interesting, sassy, and even lol funny book.

S.H. Rules! (less)

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Mar 25, 2015Stephanie rated it really liked it

This is not a very long book—only 206 pages in hardback, or 5 hours on audiobook—but it took me a while to finish it. For every minute I spent reading, I spent another 2 minutes thinking about what I'd just read. And some of it just sailed past me, no matter how hard I tried to understand it. Harris is a clear writer, one of the clearest, so I have to assume my own cognitive limitations are at fault and not his power of explanation. Still, I can't quite grant a full 5 stars to a book that I didn't fully grasp.

I got a lot of it, though. I'm an atheist who took an 8-week class in mindfulness meditation, and I meditate regularly. I studied Buddhism a bit in college and decided that of all the religions, it was my favorite, because it was more like a philosophy than a religion. I have Buddhas all over my house. But I am a scientific-minded materialist, so I could never fully embrace Eastern religions because they are just too laden with, well, religion. Like most atheists, I have an allergy to the word "spiritual" because it seems like an unnecessarily woo-laden term for a normal, entirely earthly emotional experience.

This book was exactly right for me, then, because Harris is open to Eastern spirituality but will not sacrifice his Western rationality to the cause. He has his feet completely on the ground, he's inoculated against silliness. As someone who wanted to bolster her meditation practice, and get better at finding that self-less place of equanimity, I was really ready for Harris's approach. And it did help. The self-portrait of Ernst Mach, in particular, gave me a jarring sense of sudden understanding. (Jarring in the way that the Rubin vase illusion is jarring when you suddenly see two faces instead of a vase, or vice-versa.)

I also enjoyed his writing about drugs, especially psychedelics. His paragraph about his hopes for his two daughters, in relation to drugs, was almost eerily similar to my own advice to my kids about drugs, maybe because our experiences are/were somewhat similar. Though I only tried psychedelic drugs a few times and never had a bad trip—thankfully. I knew exactly what he was talking about when he discussed what such drugs do to your consciousness, and the possibilities they bring to light. But he seems to indicate meditation practices can get one somewhere near those experiences, and mine certainly never have. (Then again, I haven't spent months in silent retreats in Tibet.)

The bit about gurus was very entertaining but not so useful to me. He's worried about people who might get snared by charlatans, and that is a legitimate worry, but it seems somewhat unlikely that people who are reading a book by Sam Harris are especially credulous. Still, it's always a good reminder that one should not allow oneself to become abused in the service to any spiritual goals, and that anyone who insists you need to do harmful things in order to achieve enlightenment is someone you should avoid.

I think this is a good book for someone like me, someone who is familiar with Buddhism, who is attracted to its teachings, but who is not keen on religion. It's useful for someone who knows something about neuroscience and philosophy. It's a good addition to Harris's other writings. If someone is entirely new to any of this, I'm not sure this book will sit well. The requirements for the "right" audience seem fairly stringent.

I do recommend the audiobook. Harris narrates it himself and there's something about his inflection that helps make the meaning of his words clearer. That's not always true with writers who narrate their own books, though you'd think it would be. He gets into some difficult concepts, and hearing his voice somehow made it easier for me to understand. That being said, the paper book has diagrams and images that are also necessary to understanding. So: check 'em both out. (Thank you, public library.) (less)

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Sep 12, 2014Gary Beauregard Bottomley rated it liked it

The hard question is "what is consciousness". In the past we had Leibniz's monads and Descarte's homunculus unsatisfactorily explaining consciousness. 'Cogito ergo sum' gave western thought the mistaken impression that there is a single self inside the brain. The author suggests another path for understanding the hard question namely gaining self awareness (of our non-existence) through meditation from which one can discover the illusion of the self which leads the individual to 'enlightenment'...more

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Dec 01, 2017Muthuvel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite, philosophy, psychology, audiobook

Try devouring this Buddhist Parable:

"A man is struck in the chest with a poison arrow. A surgeon rushes to his side to begin the work of saving his life, but the man resists these ministrations. He first wants to know the name of the fletcher who fashioned the arrow’s shaft, the genus of the wood from which it was cut, the disposition of the man who shot it, the name of the horse upon which he rode, and a thousand other things that have no bearing upon his present suffering or his ultimate survival. The man needs to get his priorities straight. His commitment to thinking about the world results from a basic misunderstanding of his predicament. And though we may be only dimly aware of it, we, too, have a problem that will not be solved by acquiring more conceptual knowledge."
The term 'Spirituality' is more colluded with Religious doctrines obliviously. And in time, many presume that both are the two sides of a same coin. Astronomers and Astrophysicists, Physicists like Sagan, Neil Tyson, Brian Cox gets some of us 'spiritually' enlightened, getting awe with the depth of understanding which previously believed impossible, when they started talking about their specialized fields. Some Writers like Shakespeare, Kurt Vonnegut(personal option) made many people realise that they could lead a happier life, prouder to be alive than previously believed possible. Musical artists like Beethoven, Mozart made the same using the tools and medium they knew. Now, take a religious person listening to a 'Spiritual' Guru, he would feel connected and profound relevantness of his existence with respect to that Guruji's words and view of world. Sam Harris connects the word with understanding the brain and it contents both physical and emergent, of course rational content free of dogmas and bullshit stuffs, which is equally important to knowing the worldly facts and phenomena.

The Book deals with signifying the importance of being "spiritual" which the author implies removing the illusion of self. By "illusion of self" he meant that the illusion of inner-self, some kind of agenticity within our body having control over it which adds up concepts of soulful mind duality, and freewill stuffs. And breaking this illusion of the self, he says that our minds can have different and better 'conscious' experiences irrespective of our emotional states. It's not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience; it is the act of experiencing more clearly, including the arising of thoughts themselves and the problem is not thoughts themselves but the state of thinking without being fully aware that we are thinking. Even though he explained things in simpler terms, I felt like I was listening to the most complicated man alive. He explored the split brain phenomena, Nature of Consciousness, Contemporary meditation techniques as per the western as well as the Eastern cultural and psychological understanding, the yogis, gurus who were considered as enlightened (still many consider themselves enlightened) in context to the core objective of enabling the readers to understand about our mind a little better and more profound. He also had his exquisite intellectual ponderings on the effects and usage of 'drugs'. The term 'drugs' collectively defines a wide variety of neurotransmitters and chemical enhancers of neural activities in which substances in both category has both neurotoxic, epileptic as well as excrescence enhancing tool for consciousness. Collectively labelling them as 'drugs' disables us to have intellectual discussion on the ethical, psychological, biological, legal effects amd usage of such substances like Psilobin, DMT, Ketamine, LSD, MDMA (commonly known as Ecstasy), etc.,. It is also worth noting that some substances stereotypically labelled as 'drug' has lesser effects than widely legalised Alcoholics and tobacco.

"The power of psychedelics, however, is that they often reveal, in the span of a few hours, depths of awe and understanding that can otherwise elude us for a lifetime."

He repeated the phenomena many times with various illustrations to make sure the listeners/readers could really understand and ponder out the stuffs. As Carl Sagan once said, Brain is a small place with a very enormous space and capabilities.

He used fluids to define the nature and physical foundation of consciousness, as emergent phenomena.

"Consciousness is the prior condition of every experience; the self or ego is an illusory appearance within it; look closely for what you are calling I, and the feeling of being a separate self will disappear; what remains, as a matter of experience, is a field of consciousness—free, undivided, and intrinsically uncontaminated by its ever-changing contents."

Even though I've already read a book of Sam Harris on Free Will, i got to know more about him than being a skeptical neuroscience spokesperson. His early life encounters with drugs, in search of his spiritual encounters inside USA. While he was in his 2nd year at Stanford, he took off 11 years to spend time in India and Nepal, trying to understand the case of which he described briefly in this book.

"I have long argued that confusion about the unity of religions is an artifact of language. Religion is a term like sports: Some sports are peaceful but spectacularly dangerous (“free solo” rock climbing); some are safer but synonymous with violence (mixed martial arts); and some entail little more risk of injury than standing in the shower (bowling). To speak of sports as a generic activity makes it impossible to discuss what athletes actually do or the physical attributes required to do it. What do all sports have in common apart from breathing? Not much. The term religion is hardly more useful.

The same could be said of spirituality. The esoteric doctrines found within every religious tradition are not all derived from the same insights. Nor are they equally empirical, logical, parsimonious, or wise. They don’t always point to the same underlying reality—and when they do, they don’t do it equally well."

Well for general audience, there's nothing novel about this work; Its just about trying to become happy. The Conventional sources of happiness aren't always reliable depending upon various transient conditions. It is difficult to raise a family happily, to keep yourself and the people you love healthy, to acquire wealth and find creative and fulfilling ways to enjoy it, to form deep relationships, to contribute to society in ways that are emotionally rewarding, to perfect a wide variety of skills—and to keep the machinery of happiness running day after day.

See if you can stop thinking for the next sixty seconds. You can notice your breath, or listen to the birds, but do not let your attention be carried away by thought, any thought, even for an instant. Keep away from mobile or computer, and give it a try.

"If your golf instructor were to insist that you shave your head, sleep no more than four hours each night, renounce sex, and subsist on a diet of raw vegetables, you would find a new golf instructor."

There is no question that novel and intense experiences—whether had in the company of a guru, on the threshold of death, or by recourse to certain drugs—can send one spinning into delusion. But they can also broaden one’s view.

Before trying this book, I've checked the reviews of this work and found too many negative reception about it. Many of them indicated themselves as ardent followers of Sam Harris by his support and critical views on religion and his science popularizing façade but disappointed with Sam Harris for supporting the Meditation via 'buddhist' techniques and this illusionary concept of 'self' and many didn't feel like it's science at all because of confusing usage of consciousness. Sam did answer those things in the book itself,

"Search your mind, or pay attention to the conversations you have with other people, and you will discover that there are no real boundaries between science and any other discipline that attempts to make valid claims about the world on the basis of evidence and logic. When such claims and their methods of verification admit of experiment and/or mathematical description, we tend to say that our concerns arescientific; when they relate to matters more abstract, or to the consistency of our thinking itself, we often say that we are being philosophical; when we merely want to know how people behaved in the past, we dub our interests historical orjournalistic; and when a person’s commitment to evidence and logic grows dangerously thin or simply snaps under the burden of fear, wishful thinking, tribalism, or ecstasy, we recognize that he is being religious."

Overall, I feel the book is well worth reading, pondering out our brain stuffs. Though the brief summary of the book is very simple but one has to go through every word vigilantly, to avoid confusion, to avoid misconceptions. So I wouldn't recommend it for all. (less)

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Mar 22, 2019Malia rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

This is my second book by the author and again offered a number of thought-provoking arguments. Even if Harris didn't exactly convince me of all his points, he has a way of explaining them that makes me think. This book will stay on my mind a while longer, I predict.

Find more reviews and bookish fun at http://www.princessandpen.com

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Apr 25, 2015Mohit Parikh rated it liked it

A book written for atheists in a christian nation. Sam wants to assure his readership that he still belongs with them - and with Dawkins and Hitchens and Sagan - even as he takes a step further and talks about Spiritual Awakening. He wants to suggest that there is nothing irrational about spirituality the way he defines it.

Problem is: He isn't the greatest explorer of spirituality.

The question for me was: why should I trust you to tell me that astrology is bullshit and ghosts do not exist but love is the substrate of the universe? Which is to say, why you are qualified to tell me the boundaries of what is irrational and what is rational to accept in spirituality?

Sam Harris is smart. He is just lagging behind in the conversation.

Also, I wish he was less self-conscious about how he will be received by his largely liberal atheist American readership.

By the way, here's an awesome review of the book:
http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/sle... (less)

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Sep 26, 2014Lena rated it really liked it

Shelves: how-the-brain-works, non-fiction

Ever since the planes crashed into the Twin Towers, Sam Harris has been making the argument that we can no longer afford the luxury of religious belief. In his writings, he has explained his theories about not only why the unproven beliefs of dogma are so dangerous, but also how many of the benefits that religion provides can be found in secular places.

In Waking Up, Harris addresses the issue of what he terms "spiritual" states - altered states of consciousness that can be spontaneous or induced by things like contemplative practice or drugs. Most religions point to such states as proof of their assertion that there is a world beyond this one. Harris, however, uses these pages to argue that a.) they do no such thing, and b.) they are worth cultivating anyway.

There is a fair bit of neuroscience in this book as Harris delves into what we currently know about consciousness. He also discusses his personal experiences with transcendent states, first on an Ecstasy drug trip and later as a rationalist in deep study of Eastern contemplative practices. He also discusses the risks of both of those paths, including the dangerously unpredictable impact of psychedelics and the hazards of attempting to learn about consciousness from imperfect human teachers.

Despite the risks, however, Harris's book is an unapologetic argument that the cultivation and experience of spiritual states can drastically improve the quality of one's life.

I agree with Harris about a number of things, including that experience of such states can be potentially life changing. I also agree that there is an urgent need for people who experience such states to be given an opportunity to understand them outside the context of a particular religion or the New Age book aisle.

Where I am not totally on board, however, is with his assertion that people who have never experienced such states should try to do so. Harris believes that the cultivation of such states can reduce human misery and suffering. I don't doubt that's been true for Harris and for many others. What I question is whether or not consciously exploring such states can work for everyone. As I understand it, the current research on meditation as not sufficiently answered the question of whether people who seem to be experiencing the benefits of contemplative practice do so because the contemplative practice actually changed them or because they had brain chemistry that predisposed them to self-select for contemplative practice in the first place. Harris himself acknowledges that traditional concentration practice has significant limitations, and the value offered by pointing-out practices is often lost on those who are exposed to it without previous context.

The role of psychedelic drugs in Harris' own journey also raises questions for me - did that fundamentally alter his brain chemistry in such a way that he was enabled to have experiences he couldn't have had without those drugs?

Ultimately, I'm not certain someone starting from scratch could induce the kind of experiences Harris describes by following his instructions. I think it's a question well worth asking, and I applaud Harris for asking it. I'm just not quite as convinced of the answer as he is. (less)

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Apr 16, 2015Adam rated it did not like it

Shelves: 1970-present, non-fiction

So. Sam Harris felt the need to publish a book that states, without novel argument, what everyone already knew. One that doubles as a guide to being a dipshit dogmatist on the irreligious side of the binary. He also deems it necessary to inform us right off the bat of his mind-expansion under the influence of MDMA. Which, man, at least begin the book by talking about a non-stupid psychedelic if you're going to rant about this transformative event in your life that pretty much exactly parallels every secular person's experience with psychedelic trips.

And if you don't know anything about mindfulness or meditation practices, information is everywhere. Sam Harris gives a half-decent overview at certain points, but you're better off getting your information from other sources. Most of which are freely available online. And I mean, shit, that Jack Kornfield guy isn't particularly invested in any religious doctrines. If you come across evidence of doctrines that don't resonate with you, justignore them. I know the covers of Kornfield's books make him seem pukey and the Spirit Rock website is laden with images of creepily smiling middle-class, middle-aged white people, but. And the guy's a legitimate authority in the Western Buddhist tradition.

I'm no friend of organized religion or woo-woo new agey shit, guys. Those of you who know me know this. But my position on organized religion does not create an obligation to take Harris at his word. In fact, basic examination of much of what Harris says (in this book and in others) reveals an extraordinary lack of basic scholarly skill and critical thought.

I mean, this guy got decimated in an argument with JOE FUCKING ROGAN. Not that Joe Rogan is an idiot. But that the Fear Factor/DMT/I-got-high-and-have-Ganesha-statues guy could so easily demonstrate the faults in the thinking of one of our most visible and well-regarded public intellectuals really says something about the quality of our public intellectuals.

Okay, so I dislike Sam Harris. But I'll give him some credit for writing a clear enough book about why meditating or doing something similar does not automatically render one a new age loony and about how valid and true many ideas from Buddhist thought are even in a scientific, rational context.

Finally, and this concerns mostly the "I'm going to meditate and not consider Buddhist thought at all" crowd more than Harris himself, perhaps: I think there is potential value in entering a sacred traditional practice with something resembling the mindset of people who actually believe the practice is "religious" (if the meditation of Theravadin Buddhists is considered religious in the same way as prayer). If you're assured enough in your agnosticism or atheism, entering practices with the traditional context in mind can help maintain the integrity of the practice itself. Otherwise, you end up with braided asshole stoners going to yoga class to hit on chicks in yoga pants and laugh at the teacher's accent and pay no attention to the fucking yoga. There are miles between "I'm going to ignore what yoga means and why it exists; this is just like going to the gym" and "I'm yoking myself to the gods and this area in my lower spine is going to cure all my ailments" or whatever the fuck. Similarly, there are miles between "I'm going to do this weird meditation thing and it's not real anyway so I don't have to listen to the teachers and understand its foundations" and "meditation will bring about a good rebirth and help me attain literal nirvana." (less)

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Feb 23, 2016Hoz Kamaran rated it really liked it

If you are looking for the meaning of spirituality beyond religion, this is the right book to read. If you find religious spirituality illusional, that doesnt mean spirituality doesnt exist.

Alot of people think that with the progress of science religion dies, thus spirituality must also die. But once you realize what is spirituality and its independence of a religion or personal god, you will realize that its necessary for a better understaing of existence and science.

We often think we are a one. we think our body and mind are both unified under a soul. And we think we have 1 soul. But, Sam harris amazingly rejects the idea of having a soul by presenting the (split brain experiment) in which the 2 hemispheres of the brain start behaving independently and unlikely of each other. It is like a person has 2 souls, because everything related to the human thought, brain, behavior...... gets non-unified while it is still the same body. And this really makes the idea of having a spirit/soul really doubtful.
You will better ubderstand the split brain experiment as you read the book.

Sam Harris thinks the spirit can mean consiousness, thus spirituality can mean contemplating at consciousness.
Consciousness is not yet defined, but it can be contemplated and felt.

Our joys are temporary. We get happiest only for a few days, then everything gets back to its ordinary track. Our joys are external and they depend on our friends, environment, job, money, achievements, or winning competitions of life. But can we find joy internally? can we still get happy without the need of the externall world?
These are questions that spirituality seeks.

Sam harris finds Buddhist meditation one of the most effective ways to understand consciousness/spirituality. Unlike most of the other religions, Buddhism is not concerned with threatening people with hell, or telling people what to do, feel, or think. This feature gives Buddhism- as a philosophy, not religion - the privilege to be the most effective and peaceful path for understanding spirituality.

Sam harris also talks about the illusion of near death experience, and how NDE may occur in the brain according to neuroscience.

The book is not so easy to read. talking and writing about spirituality is not an easy task. The book does not still give full answers to spirituality - which makes 3 stars suitable for this book, but it is still worth 4 stars for that it cant be better for now. (less)

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Jul 29, 2015Alex rated it it was ok

Wow! Where to begin? This book is extremely cerebral. Sam is a clearly a skeptic towards many things related to spirituality, which is fine, but his extreme judgment toward various religions comes seeping through his text. That is, except for Buddhism, which he often seems to put on a pedestal.

I felt disillusioned by the book, based on the cover. It should have said this was a philosopher's guide to spirituality. And how true that is! Make sure you're awake and a pot of coffee before reading! He writes in a fairly highfalutin way and certainly doesn't wait for you to catch up on where he is headed. He is very opinionated and had a haughty tone throughout.

And it’s apparent his intended audience appears to be other educated philosophers or at least neuroscientists. If that wasn’t his intention, then he has certainly failed at trying to reach a broad audience. The majority of the book read more like a college textbook than a book meant for the lay reader.

He got too bogged down in superfluous details about the brain and it got in the way. And many of the studies he referenced were irrelevant to his central thesis (which that itself was unclear). As a psychologist, I almost always find information on the brain interesting, but I can easily see how most people would check out with glossy eyes after the first few studies he cites.

It got so intense, I couldn't help but fear he was writing a textbook on psychophysiology or neuroscience and accidentally wrote in this book instead! This seemed to intensify around the midway mark. (Later, he did begin to get back on track with spirituality, but again from a stripped down Buddhist/meditation perspective and kept his ideas to primarily this vein.) I also realized around this time that his description of spirituality, and thus the book, was really just a covert autobiography of his OWN route to spirituality; however, instead of coming clean and conceptualizing from this way, he came from a perspective of being judgmental and projecting his scientific skepticism to any other route to the Divine than what he has found. It was almost like he was saying, “Hey, I was a very judgy, skeptical, and depressed person and found my way to spirituality via Buddhist meditation, so therefore this is THE way to being spiritual, and everything else is fanciful, hyped up crap, and the only other options to explore spirituality are either Dogmatic religions or New Age woo woo.”

It was just disappointing how narrow minded he was, especially for pointing the finger at others who come from (although he's right here) that same narrow-minded place. I would have thought someone who is writing about spirituality would be more inclusive and open minded to how there can be a VARIETY of ways to the divine: multiple ways to the mountain top.

Waking Up is also extremely theoretical and conceptual in nature. And don’t go in hoping he will give you a number of exercises either. While he does offer a suggestion here and there, they're rare, vague, and not always practical.

Toward the end he starts a discourse on mind-altering (illegal) drugs. He shares his own use of DMT and other drugs, briefly noting the realistic fears and dangers that come from such use (both from personal experience and in a general sense), but then goes on to conclude his desire for his young girls to try LSD or other psychedelics when they become teens/early adults, saying otherwise they would have “missed one of the most important rites of passage a human being can experience.” Huh?! I was appalled he would write such a thing so openly in a book! Then, later, he contradicts himself saying that there are natural ways to get every sort of synthetic high.

Overall, the book left me feeling very unsettled, like a real bad taste in my mouth after a mediocre meal. At the end, I was still hung up on his viewpoints of frivolity with having his daughters take LSD, or how he'd repeatedly lump Spirituality into the Religion category.

To quickly summarize his book in a few sentences: In order to be more spiritual and less religious, disregard all mainstream religions (save Buddhism which I put on a pedestal) because they are silly, trite, and filled with barely anything more than fanciful, imaginal, illogical, and mostly untrue ideas. Practice mindfulness and follow most of what Buddhism says and call it a day. Oh, and if you want to learn about semi relevant (at best) studies conducted on various parts of the brain, I’ve included this as well for your reading pleasure.

But I also don’t want to only dog on the book. There were some valid points he touched on and some quotes I enjoyed.

If you're a scientist or atheist who is allergic to any sense of religion, metaphysics, or modern sense of spirituality and are in the very first stages of "waking up" (i.e., in the “I'm not awake stage but just beginning to recognize that I might not fully be dreaming”) then you might benefit from this book. (less)

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Sep 01, 2014Rob Gleich rated it really liked it

Shelves: science

I used to think that good friends, a purposeful life, and a healthy reverence for the wonders of the universe were sufficient replacements for everything that traditional religion could provide, and anything offered beyond that was either pure superstition or plain old happiness gussied up in fancy language. Having finished Waking Up, I'm no longer comfortable giving such a dismissive and self-satisfied answers to The Big Questions of spirituality and meaning.

After a broad overview of his mission, Harris addresses consciousness and 'The Self', posing the mystery of the former and destroying the latter. He handles these vast and troublesome topics well, summarizing the relevant science and philosophy in two short chapters. The section on meditation combines memoir and instruction manual, and finally persuaded this reader to grab a cushion, find a quiet room, and take some to to think (or is it ‘not think’?) about thinking. The last chapter is a patchwork of drugs, near-death experiences (NDE’s), and psychic phenomena, but probably the most fun to read. His evisceration of neuroscientist and part-time heaven dweller Eben Alexander was a particular delight.

As noted by other reviewers, Harris does lift some material from his blog, and he published the entire first chapter online a few weeks back. But who doesn’t like a free samples? Check it out for yourself!http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/ch... (less)

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Dec 03, 2014Peter Mcloughlin rated it really liked it

Shelves: 10000-bce-to-500-ce, 1960-to-1989, 1990-to-2019, biology, complexity,general-science, general-history, intellectual-history, nonfiction, psychology

Sam Harris explores spiritual practice and peak experience usually ascribed to religious revelation. Harris tries to explain these states of mind where we come to see the self the illusion it really is feelings of transcendent well being, love, awe and gratitude without ascribing supernatural metaphysical baggage to them. These experiences were considered the property of the worlds great religions and in part advertising for the truth of their propositions. Harris wishes to divorce these importa ...more

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Aug 22, 2014Ian Wood rated it it was amazing

This is the complete review as it appears at my blog dedicated to reading, writing (no 'rithmatic!), movies, & TV. Blog reviews often contain links which are not reproduced here, nor will updates or modifications to the blog review be replicated here. Graphic and children's novels reviewed on the blog will generally have some images from the book's interior, which are not reproduced here.

Note that I don't really do stars. To me a book is either worth reading or it isn't. I can't rate a book three-fifths worth reading! The only reason I've relented and started putting stars up there is to credit the good ones, which were being unfairly uncredited. So, all you'll ever see from me is a five-star or a one-star (since no stars isn't a rating, unfortunately).

I rated this book WORTHY!

WARNING! MAY CONTAIN UNHIDDEN SPOILERS! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!

I'm a huge fan of Sam Harris's writing, but I was not impressed by this effort when I first began reading it. He is the author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, and Lying, all of which I've read and enjoyed, but this one initially imbued me with the feeling that I wasn't going to end up with a worthwhile take-home message. Having finished it, I still feel like that, but I was impressed by the chapters that came after chapter one. I found them fascinating, and this is why I think this is a worthy read.

This is subtitled "A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion" yet there are critics who quite evidently have paid no attention to Harris's explanation of what he means by that. His basic thesis is that spirituality has nothing to do with religion and we can lead spiritual - useful, content, fulfilling lives imbued with a sense of joy and wonder at the universe - without having to delude ourselves that there's a magic giant in the sky who, despite being the creator of literally everything (so welre expected to believe), has consistently shown himself incapable of subduing evil!

I agree with Harris's thesis, but I'd take issue with the wisdom of his decision to employ the term 'spirituality', which has evidently confused way too many people because of the baggage with which it comes so effectively larded. I don't know: maybe Harris is trying to reclaim it for secularism? Good luck with that!

Harris meditates, and offers some guidelines to how to do it in this book and on his website. He doesn't do it to link to 'the godhood' or some numinous higher consciousness. He simply does it to center himself and bring a balance to his thoughts and actions, and there's no better reason.

I'm not a meditater myself. I believe you can get to precisely the same place by employing any number of more mundane methods: listening to your favorite music, occupying yourself with your favorite craft or hobby, watching a good movie, taking a stroll in the countryside, reading a loved book, pursuing your favorite sport, enjoying an art gallery, cooking your favorite meal or treat, playing with your kids or your pets, conversation with someone you care for, any any other number of pursuits many of which l'm sure I haven't even considered, but Harris offers evidence for his perspective, so maybe this is another option.

The advantage of meditation of course, is that you can pretty much do it anywhere. It's rather harder to read a book when you're at work (that's an advantage of working in a bookstore - which are sadly in decline), or watch a movie (again, with the decline of video rental stores it's a lot harder to work in a place that lets you play movies isn't it?!).

Harris tells an interesting tale, but for me he spoiled the purity of his message with too many asides. That's what most annoyed me in chapter one. The book reads more like a scientific paper than a guide to secular spirituality, and this detracted too much from his message for me. I also think he did the scientific theory of evolution a disservice, not because he doesn't accept it - he does - but because the terms he employs when talking about it are so easily distorted by its ignorant detractors.

Given the number of times people of scientific backgrounds have been abused by the profound dishonesty of religious nut-jobs in taking the words of scientists and thoroughly warping and distorting them (when they're not outright and knowingly misquoting them), I find myself in askance that so many people of science still speak so loosely.

Harris, for example says, "25 percent of Americans believe in evolution (while 68 percent believe in the literal existence of satan)." thereby equating the fairy tale of religion with the fact of evolution! Evolution isn't a belief, it's an honest acceptance that the fact of common descent cannot be denied by any honest, rational person. It's not a belief. It's not dependent upon faith. Claiming that 'Satan' is real is a pure faith assertion because there's no more evidence for a satan than there is for a god. To equate those desperate delusions with a scientifically established fact by using the word 'believe' is a serious mistake. Shame on Harris for making it.

The discussion of what is self and what is consciousness in the chapters succeeding chapter one were what really changed my mind about this book because to me they were fascinating and in some instances revelatory, particularly the discussion of how each of us is, in a very real way, a split-personality by dint of the fact that we have a split brain. This book is worth reading for that discussion alone. I recommend it. (less)

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Oct 27, 2014Safat rated it liked it

Shelves: 2014

I personally very much dislike Sam Harris since I've read his email exchange with Noam Chomsky, where he championed state violence. This one I read a while ago, and now I think a review is due. Though I don't like Harris, I admit that this is a good book.

Harris is a notable atheist, one of the 'four horsemen of new atheism'. Unlike this fellow comrades, he was very much interested in spirituality since his adolescence, when he experimented with spiritual drugs. This book is the outcome of his spiritual enquiry in India and various spiritual cultures.

Sam Harris tries to maintain his agnostic attitude towards spirituality while experimenting with multifarious spiritual exercises. In the end, he turns out to be a proponent of spirituality. The crux of the book is the message that you don't have to be adherent of no particular religious belief system to have a spiritual experience. You can be an atheist, have scientific mindset, and be spiritual. Like the historical Buddha said, 'Belief nothing, no matter who said it, even if I said it, unless you know it to be true by yourself'.

If you are a atheist or agnostic and want to explore spirituality from a secular viewpoint, this would be a good start for you. After all, irrespective of our believes, human being is a spiritual animal, we all have transcendental experiences from time to time. Spirituality shouldn't be confined within some religious institutions. (less)

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