Waking Up Book Summary - Waking Up Book explained in key points

Waking Up summary

Name: Waking Up
Rating: 4.3 (69 reviews)
Author: Sam Harris

Sam Harris

A Guide to Spirituality without Religion

Table of Contents

Waking Up
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Discover a non religious path to mindfulness and spirituality.

We know what we need to do in order to be spiritual: we need to find god and open ourselves up to a higher plane. Right? Not quite, discovering spirituality – or a different form of consciousness – does not require religion. We can all do it here in the mortal world.

All we need to find spirituality is transform the way we think. We must stop thinking in terms of pleasure and pain or that we are a single, rational being. Instead we have to concentrate on becoming more mindful of our thoughts and our true selves.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

how many “selves” you have;
why you shouldn’t always trust a “guru”; and
why the path to spirituality may lie with acid.

Seeking pleasures and avoiding pain will not result in happiness.

So what’s the best way to live a happy and fulfilled life, if not by seeking pleasure and avoiding pain?

Children may spend their time eagerly eyeing the cookie jar while kicking and screaming to avoid having to eat their broccoli. While tantrums like these may get children their pleasures, it, unfortunately doesn’t work out so easily for adults.

In part, it’s because our pleasures are fleeting. Even if you find that perfect moment of pleasure – absolute bliss even – the feeling will soon fade, and soon you’ll start chasing a new moment.

This plays out constantly in our daily lives. Imagine, for example, that you finally have your long-awaited day out at the beach. The sun feels wonderful on your skin until you start to break a sweat. So, you seek a new pleasure – relief in the shade – until that cool breeze becomes a little too cold. As you reach for the warmth of your t-shirt, you notice how tattered it’s become, and you need a new one. You like the idea of new clothes, but you hate shopping, and so on.

Not only are these moments of pleasure and pain fleeting; they also depend more on our perceptions than reality.

Imagine, for example, that you’re sitting on a chair wired to a “feeling machine” that can trigger any feeling in you. The sadist operating the machine inflicts great pain on your body: all your muscles tense, you start sweating and breathing heavily and your heartbeat is throbbing in your head.

Our experience, that is, the pain in our bodies, is perceived as a horror – one that we would almost certainly avoid at all costs.

However, aren’t these sensations the same as the ones we experience when we lift weights at the gym? Some people love that feeling!

Clearly, there is 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.

What are you, really? Who is the “I” that you speak of? Most of us will assume that “I,” as in their sense of self, is a single entity that exists in the brain and which they identify with, which observes through the eyes and that is the originator of our thoughts.

However, this is simply not the case.

Becoming “mindful” of our thoughts and worries can help us overcome their power over us.

Try this experiment: simply observe your thoughts for a while. Where do they wander? Do you think about the things you’ve done in the past, or perhaps the future?

This is all perfectly natural. We spend most of our time worrying about the future and brooding about the past. But is this actually in our best interest?

Meditation is the process of increasing your awareness, which allows you to see that your thoughts are just passing impressions.

Having an intellectual understanding of the illusory self is good, but you also need some ways to make this information applicable to your life. So how can we influence our mindfulness? One way is with meditation. By using these meditation techniques, you can start making mindfulness a part of your life:

First, start by closing your eyes and concentrating on the act of breathing, slowly and purposefully.

There’s a slow approach and an immediate approach, that both lead to the realization that “I” is an illusion; take the fast route.

In meditation, there are two main types of approach, generally speaking.

The first is the gradual approach, which traces its roots back to the earliest surviving form of Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism. Theravada Buddhists conceptualized selflessness – that is, the rejection of the single, thinking self – as being the end of a very long road.

Spirituality is an empirical matter, and not a religious one.

In everyday language, the concept of spirituality is closely tied to religious thought. In actuality, however, spirituality and religion have little to do with one another.

Spirituality is little more than the attempt to induce non-ordinary states of consciousness. Although people often turn to religion to achieve this, these efforts also lend themselves to meditation or even psychedelic drugs.

Choose your gurus carefully.

Starting on the path to mindfulness and a more spiritual life isn’t easy. It is very likely that, in order to succeed, you’ll need the guidance of an experienced teacher. In fact, certain paths, such as Dzogchen, require you to follow an instructor.

However, finding the right teacher is no small feat!

If you decide to use drugs on your path to spirituality, be careful.

If you’ve ever imbibed enough alcohol, then you will certainly testify that the experience temporarily changed your perception of reality and yourself. For instance, you may have felt more confident or aggressive, or had a hard time following an argument.

This modification of your consciousness is even more extreme with other drugs, some of which even offer a glimpse of what it’s like to experience a selfless consciousness.

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What is Waking Up about?

Waking Up takes a neuroscientific approach to spirituality and shows how meditation can enrich the lives of even non-believers. It provides both a rigorous explanation why our concepts of self are illusions and offers practical advice on how to discard the self to lead a more meaningful life.

Best quote from Waking Up

Even for extraordinarily lucky people, life is difficult.

—Sam Harris

Who should read Waking Up?

Atheists who are interested in meditation
Anyone who thinks spirituality is unscientific nonsense
Anyone who worries too much

About the Author

Sam Harris is an American neuroscientist, as well as a contemporary critic of religion and proponent of scientific skepticism. He is the author of several best-selling books, including The End of Faith and The Moral Landscape, and is the co-founder and CEO of Project Reason, a foundation dedicated to spreading secular values and scientific reason.

Categories with Waking Up

Religion & Spirituality Mindfulness & Happiness

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