Waking Up
Searching for Spirituality Without Religion
Sam Harris
For the people who want spirituality without
religion, Sam Harris presents us with a guide to meditation backed by
neuroscience and psychology. This book merges contemplative wisdom with modern
science.
Discover a non religious path to mindfulness and
spirituality.
In order to be spiritual, we need to find god and
open ourselves up to a higher plane. But that’s not quite it, discovering
spirituality – doesn’t require religion. All we need to find spirituality is to
transform the way we think. We have to stop thinking in terms of pleasure and
pain. Instead we have to concentrate on becoming more mindful of our thoughts
and ourselves.
Seeking pleasures and avoiding pain will not result in
happiness.
Our pleasures are fleeting. Even if we find that
perfect moment of pleasure, soon we’ll start chasing a new moment. This plays
out constantly in our daily lives too.
Not only are the moments of pleasure and pain
fleeting; they also depend more on our perceptions than reality. There is
clearly more to finding happiness than just seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
Although we see ourselves as a single unified
“self” this is not the case. Most of us assume that “I,” is the sense of self,
is a single entity that exists in the brain. However, this is simply not true.
Firstly, we aren’t the thinkers of our thoughts,
and our sense of control over them is illusory. Do an experiment.
Make yourself comfortable and try not to think any thoughts for an entire minute. Of course, you couldn’t do it. Indeed, we have little control over our thoughts. They simply appear in our minds uninvited.
Make yourself comfortable and try not to think any thoughts for an entire minute. Of course, you couldn’t do it. Indeed, we have little control over our thoughts. They simply appear in our minds uninvited.
Even the idea of the self as a single entity is an
illusion. The creator of our “selves,” the brain, has two different sides, the
right and the left, each with its own personality.
Doctors perform a medical procedure known as callosotomy, which splits the two hemispheres in our brain. Interestingly, people who have undergone this surgery display variety traits depending on which side of the brain is stimulated.
We overestimate our control over our thoughts, and as a
result we give them more power than they deserve.
Becoming “mindful” of our thoughts can help overpower
them. We have to simply observe our thoughts for a while. Where do they wander?
We aren’t able to live a satisfactory life because
we spend our time worrying about what has happened or what might happen instead
of living in the moment.
The problem isn’t the worries themselves. Rather,
because we let them overshadow us. But there is a solution: by using the
meditative technique of mindfulness, we can separate our thoughts and worries
from ourselves.
When we meditate, we become aware of what’s going
on in our mind. We also begin to recognize that they’re not the reality. They
are merely the constructs of your mind.
Meditation allows us to see that our thoughts are just
passing impressions and not reality.
By using these meditation techniques, we can start
making mindfulness a practical part of our life:
We have to close our eyes and focus on our breathing. When we focus on your breathing, thoughts and feelings pop into your head from time to time. We have to simply acknowledge them and return our focus back to our breathing.
By being mindful of our thoughts without letting
them control us, we’ll start recognizing that they are separate from our
consciousness.
Numerous studies have shown that our mind wanders
for about 50 percent of our waking life. During the periods of wistfulness, a
region of the brain called default-mode network (DMN) becomes more active. This
region is mostly responsible for our tendency to judge ourselves. It is the
root of the concept of “I,” the single, thinking entity. However, when we’re
focused on something, like meditation, we weaken the DMN.
Generally, meditation has two types of approach.
The first is the gradual approach, which traces its
roots back to the Theravada Buddhism which conceptualized selflessness, that
is, the rejection of the single, thinking self. As we travel along the road
toward our goal, we still think in terms of the self. The idea is to simply
come to the realization that the self does not exist.
Then there is the sudden realization technique, put
forward by the Dzogchen school of Buddhism. Here, you assume from the very
beginning that the self is an illusion. The idea is to then use that awareness
in ways that help you to lead a better life.
Of those two broad approaches, sudden realization
is better suited for dismissing the concept of “self.”
Spirituality is an empirical matter, and not a religious
one.
Many people believe that the concept of
spirituality is closely tied to religion. However, spirituality and religion
have little to do with one another. Spirituality is a little more than an
attempt to bring non-ordinary states of consciousness. There are a multitude of
spiritual experiences, like self-transcending love, bliss, ecstasy or “inner
light,” which are common among all types of believers, as well as
non-believers. Religious organizations cannot hold a monopoly on spirituality.
All claim to do so, but they all are not right.
Many people in the West can’t disconnect spirituality from religion, because their spirituality is entirely faith-based. The act of prayer itself is beneficial; however these benefits are attributed to the religious practices that inspire prayer, rather than the act itself.
Eastern religions, on the other hand, are empirical at their core. They’re concerned with experiences and observations of reality.
Choose your Gurus carefully
Starting on the path to mindfulness isn’t easy. It is very likely that, in order to succeed, you’ll need the guidance of an experienced teacher.
However, finding the right teacher is not easy. For
starters, it’s quite difficult to discern whether a spiritual teacher has the
necessary expertise or not, demonstrating mastery is simply impossible.
Also, the nature of spirituality makes it easy for ‘charlatans’
and ‘megalomaniacs’ to exploit the student-teacher relationship. Demands like
shaving your head and renouncing sex are not uncommon for spiritual
communities. The goal of deserting the illusion of self can be used as permission
for practices that can make you feel uncomfortable or are downright exploitive.
While finding a good teacher is important for your
journey to selflessness, it is also important to be careful in choosing the
right path. If you decide to use drugs on your path to spirituality, be
careful. Consuming alcohol can temporarily change your perception of reality
and yourself. This modification is even more extreme with other drugs. Drugs
like MDMA and LSD offer the benefit of altered consciousness, but they also come
with risks.
Drugs are also fickle things. They don’t always
deliver what they promise, and some experiences can also lead to unparallel
horror. While drugs might be a tool in the path to selflessness, they
are to be abstained or handled with utmost care.
To summarize our concept of self is illusory and
keeps us caught in a dream of malcontent and discursive thought. However, by
practicing meditation we can awaken from that dream, and in doing so live life
at full attention.
Ruchika Verma
You can purchase this book from Amazon
