I’ve jut finished Sam Harris’ book Waking Up after it was recommended to me by a work colleague. I’ve got to say there were parts that were absolutely fascinating but other parts that had me shaking my head!
Let’s start with the good part. Sam Harris is a neurologist and he has done a great deal of research into the brain – most notably studies of patients where the left and right sides of the brain have been separated.
To give this a little background the left and right sides of our brain are normally connected via neurons – they communicate with each other all the time. However in a small number of people this causes problems, mostly those who suffer from epileptic fits.
Doctors have found that in these patients it can be beneficial for the two hemispheres to be separated. Those who have these operations generally go on to have fairly normal lives although numerous studies have shown the more subtle effects of this surgery.
The self and I in reality?
OK, hold that thought and let’s return to the Buddhist idea that you are made up of “I” and “the self” (or “me”). “I” can observe “me” and by doing so we can create distance between all sorts of disruptive things like stress and depression.
One of the core objectives of meditation is for “I” to observe the constant chattering of “me” and slowly try to stop that chattering – to “still the mind”.
These ideas were formulated thousands of years ago but what Sam Harris lays out in his book is how they might actually be founded physically. That the brain really is split into “I” and “me” and they can be separated as much by thought as by the surgeons knife.
In “Waking Up” he takes you through many of these studies and to me this was the absolutely fascinating part of what he covered.
Distracting thinking
Apart from that, if you have read Eckhart Tolle or Anthony de Mello there really isn’t much new in what Sam Harris has to say and yet he does try to come across as someone who thinks it is new.
If there was one real downside to his thinking it was his idea that one way to reduce stress is to think “it could be worse”.
He gives the example of a water leak in his house and how his wife had said “Well at least its not sewage” and that had made him feel much better.
So why the downside? Well its a fundamental distraction from enlightenment or mindfulness. If you think “it could be worse” about each situation or event then you (at some level) live in fear of the situation or event that is worse and so you are not really free at all.
Enlightenment would be: You see the water starting to leak and cause damage. You start to get stressed / angry / etc.
You move to the “I”. The “I” observes the person who is stressed/angry and understands that this stress and anger will pass. The I can then get on with resolving the problem unaffected by emotion which basically makes your response far more effective.
I particularly like Anthony De Mello’s analogy – the “I” is the sky, emotions and thoughts are clouds. The “I” can see the clouds, does not try to control them and knows they will pass.
You are then no longer living in fear of a possible “worse” event because there are no possible “worse” events. There are just events (that’s the “is” of it all!) and some events need to be dealt with.
Religion bashing
The other negative mark I’d give to this book is his constant jibes at religion. I’m not religious and I think the world would be a better place without religions but constantly attacking them, which is what Harris does, isn’t going to win any converts.
Harris is a well known fierce atheist but his criticism of various faiths in this book just seemed out of place. They didn’t add anything to the argument of waking up. It is possible to wake up and follow a religion but Harris tries to suggest the opposite by repeatedly pointing out how illogical faith is (basically because it is founded only on just that – faith).
Summary
In wrapping up I would recommend reading Sam Harris’ Waking Up just for the scientific studies but beyond that for a real understanding of enlightenment without the religion bashing I would stick with Anthony De Mello.