How surprised, then, was I to learn, in his final chapter (before the epilogue), that he recommends individual observation of one's own consciousness, very much along the lines of Eastern practitioners of Buddhism and some forms of Hinduism. (Harris spent several years inquiring into these practices before he undertook his baccalaureate degree in philosophy at Stanford University.)
Though I may have more to say about the thought of Sam Harris (I haven't yet read his sequel: Letter to a Christian Nation), I'll leave you now with the concluding paragraph of the epilogue of The End of Faith*:
Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mytery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and the ground of any experience we might with to call "spiritual." No myths need be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshiped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbors, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. The days of our religious identities are clearly numbered. Whether the days of civilization itself are numbered would seem to depend, rather too much, on how soon we realize this.This concluding paragraph resonates happily with my own "mystical" temperament. Harris doesn't exactly sound like a man with horns, does he? He's not what people tend to imagine when they hear that someone "is an atheist."
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* My reading of the book began with the epilogue, which entirely captivated me the first time I read it and compelled me to read the book.
I think that he would say, yes, he's an atheist. And he presumably agreed to be featured, along with fellow atheists Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, in the cover article of this month's Wired Magazine: "The New Atheism." (And a couple or three weeks ago, Newsweek profiled him under the title, " Belief Watch: The Atheist.")
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that I can honestly say I'm an atheist, but I resonate so with Harris that I suspect I am.
My "waking dream" that rainy but beautiful New England afternoon wasn't "the most profound thing that has ever happened to me," but it was profound, and it was memorable, and I'm sure that it shaped my life and thought, even though I don't think I've returned to it in bad times for strength. More in good times for reaffirmation.
Do you mean to say that your experience has tended to make "the rest of your life feel like nothing more than a pale imitation of 'reality'"?
I have a friend, a filmwright, who had a "transcendental experience" in Vietnam that seems to have been of that order. It has indeed profoundly affected his life. He has lectured on his experience there and on the potential centrality of such an experience in a person's life (as you yourself indicate). (I heard his lecture at UNC-Chapel Hill ten or twelve years ago, midway through the 25 years I've known him.) He became a protege around 1985 of West Virginia "guru" Richard Rose (who had an even more profound experience, to hear him tell it, in a hotel room in San Francisco maybe 50 or 60 years ago). He produced a documentary film about Rose and a few months ago wrote a long essay on being present when Rose died. He has written a screenplay about his experience for a movie set in Vietnam during the war.
I'm not sure whether this friend "believes in God" or not, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be in any sense that your typical church-going American would recognize. If he believes in God (and it's not even the kind of question that I'd ask him) he'd probably give an answer along the lines of Harris's final chapter (before the epilogue). In fact, my friend has also written a translation of some Eastern texts: Instructions on The Way: New English Versions of Yoga Sutras, Dhammapada, Ashtavakra Gita, Tao Te Ching. It's a translation in the sense that he studied numerous English translations (he doesn't command the original languages) and, using his own writing skills, refashioned a text so limpid it almost hurts to read it. (He's one of the two best writers I've had the privilege to know personally.)
Southern, thank you for your comment! Is your experience something you've described already or might describe...?