Waking Up A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

An extraordinary and ambitious masterwork…  altogether spectacular… a superb read in its entirety, quite possibly the best thing written on this ecosystem of spiritual subjects since Alan Watts’s The Book of Taboo.

Harris’s book . . . caught my eye because it’s so entirely of this moment, so keenly in touch with the growing number of Americans who are willing to say that they do not find the succor they crave, or a truth that makes sense to them, in organized religion.

I used to roll my eyes when people described themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” Not anymore. With his usual sharp and elegant prose, Sam Harris—one of the great skeptics of our time—shows how spiritual traditions provide important truths that have largely been missed by the scientific and secular communities. Waking Up is an extraordinary book: It is a seeker’s memoir, a scientific and philosophical exploration of the self, and a how-to guide for transcendence. It explores the nature of consciousness, explains how to meditate, tells you the best drugs to take, and warns you about lecherous gurus. It will shake up your most fundamental beliefs about everyday experience, and it just might change your life.

Waking Up is a rigorous, kind, clear, and witty book that will point you toward the selflessness that is our original nature.

In his provocative new book, Sam Harris reminds us that awakening does not depend on religious belief. With his usual probing clarity, Sam points out the rational methodology for exploring the nature of consciousness. Waking Up really does help us wake up.

In this important and wide-ranging book, Sam Harris demonstrates that the practice of “rational spirituality” is not an oxymoron.  As a neuroscientist, Harris shows how our egos are illusions, diffuse products of brain activity, and as a long-term practitioner of meditation, he shows how abandoning this illusion can wake us up to a richer life, more connected to everything around us.

Sam Harris ranks as my favorite skeptic, bar none. In Waking Up he gives us a clear-headed, no-holds-barred look at the spiritual supermarket, calling out what amounts to junk food and showing us where real nutrition can be found. Anyone who realizes the value of a spiritual life will find much to savor here—and those who see no value in it will find much to reflect on.

Sam Harris has written a beautifully rational book about spiritually, consciousness and transcendence. He is the high priest of spirituality without religion. I recommend this book regardless of your belief system. As befits a book called Waking Up, it’s an eye opener.

The great value and novelty of this book is that Harris, in a simple but rigorous style, takes the middle way between these pseudoscientific and pseudo-spiritual assertions . . . [leading] to a profoundly more salubrious life.

A demanding, illusion-shattering book…