Sam Harris' rational mysticism

June 11, 1:00 PMSacramento Spirituality ExaminerSteve Curless

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Sacramento Spirituality Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Most prominent atheists seem to disparage all religion and spirituality as irrational nonsense. But neuroscientist and author Sam Harris is an exception. As we saw yesterday, Harris believes in the possibility of a universal spirituality divorced from the unproven and dubious teachings of particular religions, and this universal spirituality rests upon the practice of meditation.

Harris defines meditation as "a method of paying extraordinarily close attention to one’s moment-to-moment experience of the world," and he asserts that "It is an empirical fact that sustained meditation can result in a variety of insights that intelligent people regularly find intellectually credible and personally transformative." However, the problem, according to Harris, is that the experiences generated by meditation frequently occur and are interpreted within the context of a particular religion, and religious preconceptions can distort the interpretations of these experiences as well as make these interpretations impervious to sound rational and scientific investigation.

However, Harris believes that meditative experiences at their best can yield powerful insights, one of which is that

the feeling we call “I”—the sense that there is a thinker giving rise to our thoughts, an experiencer distinct from the mere flow of experience—can disappear when looked for in a rigorous way. Our conventional sense of “self” is, in fact, nothing more than a cognitive illusion, and dispelling this illusion opens the mind to extraordinary experiences of happiness. This is not a proposition to be accepted on faith; it is an empirical observation..."

Harris concedes that when these "insights" are examined in a rational or scientific manner, there is some faith involved. That is, there's faith that the scientific methodology the examination employs will yield true findings. But, unlike unfalsifiable--i.e., there is no methodology for undermining it--religious faith, it is well-grounded faith in rational inquiry that underlies investigation of the falsifiable "scientific hypothesis" that "if I use my attention in the prescribed way, it may have a specific, reproducible effect." Harris acknowledges that when "spiritual practice" serves up "insights," these insights need to be investigated by "contemplative scientists" using a sound "conceptual scheme," but the result could offer us a universal spirituality that renders our so-called sacred texts "no more useful to mystics than they now are to astronomers."

In a future article, we'll examine the possibility of a contemplative science capable of investigating the interpretations of "spiritual experience" in a more fruitful way than can traditional religion or science.

For more info: Please read Sam Harris' article 'Rational Mysticism' for a fuller treatment of his understanding of a positive universal spirituality as a viable alternative to negative secularism and which is divorced from circumscribed and dubious religious faith.