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Waking Up: A Guide To Spirituality Without Religion (2014)

by Sam Harris(Favorite Author)

3.83 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1451636016 (ISBN13: 9781451636017)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Simon & Schuster

review 1: It was informative, but I found the book slightly lacked structure. I didn't feel the chapter-to-chapter progressions made sense. Moreover, there was a fair bit of theoretical talk but nothing about what action to take. The book covers some different types of meditation but we are not told how to pick what to practice, how to practice it, or how to evaluate it. Since this has "guide" in the title, I was expecting it to be more action oriented. It does provide a good overview on the concept of "self" if you haven't covered it before. For a better text on that topic of 'self' though, I recommend "The Mind's I". It's a collection of essays about the 'self' with commentary by Daniel Dennett and Douglas Hofstadter (in 'Waking Up', Harris attacks some of the commentary of Hofsta... moredter – read both and form your own opinion)
review 2: This may be my favorite of Harris's books. However, it is worth noting that this book is heavy with neuroscience (he is a neuroscientist after all). Though Harris makes the neuroscience accessible to all readers, you might not enjoy the subject matter much if you were hoping for a heavily philosophical book or another of Harris's antitheistic rants. The majority of the book really focuses on the illusion of the self and the problem of consciousness. For Harris, the benefits of meditation (and perhaps the occasional use of psychoactive drugs) relate back to these two topics. less

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