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  • Waking Up

  • By: Sam Harris
  • Narrated by: Sam Harris
  • Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (2,600 ratings)
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Waking Up

By: Sam Harris
Narrated by: Sam Harris
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Summary

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

From best-selling author, neuroscientist, and "new atheist" Sam Harris, Waking Up is for the increasingly large numbers of people 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 sceptic - could write it.

©2014 Sam Harris (P)2014 Simon & Schuster, Inc. 2014, published in the UK by Random House Audiobooks

What listeners say about Waking Up

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This is Important.

Possibly one of the most important book you can read about spirituality today.
Performance wise is also top level. I have read Sam's books and follewed him for some time on YT, blog and podcasts. I knew the book will be of the highest quality but the audiobook somehow enhanced the experience even more. Listening to Sam's voice is so much better than merly reading the book in your own voice inside your head...
This is an ultimate journey to spirituality guided by one of the most important figure in line of scientific and spiritual/religion field.
You simply cannot afford to miss it.

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17 people found this helpful

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An illusory Sam Harris loses his self to Booodism

I had such high hopes for this book, but regret to say, it is something of a train wreck.

Harris theoretically shoots himself in the foot in several places and his quest to dispel the "illusion of self" turns into the search for an egoless high. More worryingly however, is that in his forthright advocacy of Buddhism and outright condemnation of every other religion, he goes from militant atheism to religious bigotry.

To be fair, the book kept me listening to the end, and there are some wonderful chapters on dodgy gurus, psychedelic experiences and spurious NDEs. However, it is in these sections that he inadvertently undercuts his own case.

For example, having repeatedly asserted that through mindfulness meditation, the "illusion of self" is transcended to experience a transpersonal realm of pure consciousness, in later chapters he convincingly argues that the self can never escape the physical brain (eg. in an NDE). This makes his earlier transcendence more like an "adventure in the head" than a transcendental spiritual experience.

He repeatedly asserts that the "self is an illusion", without ever defining what he means. As "self" is defined (online OED) as "A person’s essential being that distinguishes them from others", it's hard to see how this can be an illusion, unless he is challenging the reality of either our difference from others, or our essential being (eg. our history, personality, identity, brain structure, genetics etc.). It seems more likely that these oceanic realisations that the "self" is an illusion are themselves illusory, akin to losing awareness of our body under sensory deprivation.

So, maybe "Waking Up" is about the loss of our 'self-centredness', the domination of our self-image, "I" or ego? If so, as Huxley points out in "The Perennial Philosophy", (which Harris dismisses early on), this is the quest of all major contemplative religions, not just Buddhism. "The Cloud of Unknowing" or Pseudo-Dionysus' "Mystical Theology" advocate a very similar goal and methodology to mindfulness meditation! In his study of Yoga, Sam Harris must have come across the 3 paths to such liberation or union - through devotion, knowledge or action, yet his contempt for all but Buddhist mindfulness meditation is palpable throughout the book.

In fact, what Harris presents is really "Western Buddhism lite", avoiding awkward doctrines like Reincarnation or the goal of Nirvana as 'escaping from the cycles of suffering and rebirth', which as a materialist atheist can make no sense. Thus, instead of Nirvana being an eternal goal, attained after many lifetimes, his spiritual quest is reduced to repeated experiences of egolessness. This might be fine, but what comes across in "Waking Up" is not humility or selflessness, but contempt and self satisfaction at having found the "one true path".

Overall, this book is interesting and entertaining, but if, like me you hoped to find a "spiritual but not religious" path with heart, you may come away disappointed.

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14 people found this helpful

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Wonderful!

I never thought an atheist would write such a helpful perspective on spirituality. I'm not an atheist and have never understood how you could be one and be interested or truly open to spirituality but this book proved me wrong. I appreciated his insight and felt it helped me appreciate atheists more.

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12 people found this helpful

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Thank you Sam Harris

This book is truly brilliant, Sam's idea that a spiritual life can be enjoyed in a secular way is as beneficial as it is important. I don't know if you will ever read this Sam but thank you for helping me sort through the knots in my mind and find peace.

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8 people found this helpful

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Starting Again

Refreshingly free from the self aggrandisement and spiritually justified obfuscation that so often accompanies spiritual teachers, Sam Harris shines his laser-like mind onto the most intractable questions the modern spiritual seeker is likely to encounter: God, gurus, enlightenment, the self, life after death, right and wrong etc. That rarest of things, accomplished scientist and accomplished meditator, he brings a fresh perspective that, for this rather jaded spiritual seeker, is enough to dust-off the meditation stool to ‘start again’.

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7 people found this helpful

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The most important book of the modern era

It should be a legal requirement that young adults read this book. Harris calmy tears apart the very foundation of what people think it is to experience life.

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6 people found this helpful

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Not impressed

Sam Harris narration was too fast for non native speakers. Book is strange, very bias and without a clear conclusion. He is trashing other theories without giving an alternative solution other than meditation (for which he claims you might never be able to do properly anyhow). Weird book. Not impressed. Sorry

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5 people found this helpful

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A solid case for a reasonable spirituality

Sam makes a strong and well-argued case for a a thoroughly reasonable spirituality with his uniquely humorous sober candour. He gently nudges you in to a desire to explore..

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Shallow and inhumane

Somewhat of a tub-thump for Buddhism (or 'boodism' as the narrator weirdly pronounces it). Lately the narrator has also become a cheerleader for Osama bin Laden.

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Dull

not too sure what the point of this book is.... spend half your life meditating for a deeper insight...into what?...half a life you haven't lived!

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