 I just finished one of the best books I've ever read which is Waking Up by self-proclaimed atheist Sam Harris who has found spirituality while still being atheist. Stay tuned as we discuss this book. What's up everybody this is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and in this video I'm going to be reviewing this book Waking Up by Sam Harris. I read a ton of books and with these books I read it's how I make a lot of these videos. I try to share this information with you to help you out with your mental and emotional well-being so make sure you check out the description if you're interested in this book there will be a link and if you buy the book with that link it helps support the channel. I get a little bit of dough off of it but also there will also be a link to my full reading but anyways this book was absolutely amazing well my best friend has been telling me like you gotta check out Sam Harris you gotta check out Sam Harris I'm like okay I will check out Sam Harris and I'm so glad that she made me check him out because this is literally one of the best books I've ever read in my life I love it and one of the reasons why is because I often explain to people and I tell them I'm like I'm spiritual but I'm not religious and Sam Harris even touches on this in his book he says when you tell people that you often get disturbing looks from both sides right from religious people as well as atheists but there is a reason why one of the things that Sam Harris starts this book off with he talks about how the English language or even modern times has kind of altered what spirituality actually means chances are if you're watching this you might have immediately equated spirituality to a religion right there's a lot of people who didn't even click on this video because when they hear hear the word spirituality they immediately think of religion and that's not the case something that Sam Harris talks about in his book is that spirit actually comes from the Latin word breath that's it and spirituality all spirituality is is an inward investigation of the mind as well as its consciousness and through that we begin to find freedom and more truths about you know our perception of what reality is so this is what people who meditate have been doing for years it's this kind of inward kind of a diagnosis of the human condition and of the mind so many of us are running on this autopilot and we don't even understand that we're we're running off of these core beliefs that have been implanted in us by you know our parents or society and a lot of things based on our happiness are because of these things and when we meditate and we slow down and we do this inward reflection we start to find the truths about things for example oh wait i'm not ugly i just have this false idea of what i think a guy my age and my type should look like you see what i mean oh wait um i don't need all this money i just think i need this money so i can buy things to impress people so spirituality is really diving into ourselves and seeing what's going on so one of the one of my favorite quotes from this book um and yes like if any of you have been watching my channel i do audio books when i say read i'm actually listening but here's one of my favorite quotes right here thinking is indispensable to us it is essential for belief formation planning explicit learning moral reasoning and many other capacities that make us human thinking is the basis of every social relationship and cultural institution we have it is also the foundation of science but our habitual identification with thought that is our failure to recognize thoughts as thoughts as appearances and consciousness is a primary source of human suffering it also gives rise to the illusion that a separate self is living inside one's head all right so that was towards the beginning of the book and this is something that i talked about in another video which i will link in the info card above but we identify too closely with our thoughts and that leads to suffering we have this idea one of the biggest myths that we have is that there is some kind of internal self sitting in our head there is there is this king there is this ceo this is there is this operator and we are in charge of all of our own thoughts and what sam harris says like in this part of the book he says go ahead and stop pause this book for 60 seconds and do nothing but focus on your breath do not think for 60 seconds right and a lot of people especially novice meditators you're going to see the thoughts just start popping up popping up popping up and that's completely normal so in actuality we're not in control of our own thoughts and what meditation does it helps us just start sitting back and watching these thoughts so throughout this book sam harris he talks about his experience his first experience was actually when he did mdma and that's when he first had a spiritual experience and he's like whoa i really want to start checking out the inner workings of the mind and what he came to realize is that he didn't need psychedelics to do this one of my other favorite quotes in this book that i'm gonna do another more in depth video on is that he says something along the lines that um psychedelics are like a missile without a guidance system so when you do psychedelics you might have a spiritual experience and some kind of awakening and a little bit of enlightenment but there are people who have quote unquote bad trips and all psychedelics are doing they're tapping into parts of the brain that are already there that's all that these drugs are doing so when people talk to me because some of you know that i'm in recovery when people talk to me about how they want to do these certain things to find their spirituality like it's a very slippery slope for addicts and alcoholics right so i try to teach them that anything that a drug produces you can find through meditation any experience that somebody's had with psychedelics you will find identical experiences with people who have meditated okay but anyways i absolutely love this book and because it's all about spirituality with without religion for any of you addicts in recovery out there one of the main reasons one of the main reasons that people do not get involved with 12 step programs is because they have a hard time differentiating the difference between spirituality and religion right like i was telling my clients today after i finished this book i said if it was up to me this book would be required for everybody to read when they came into treatment i honestly believe that anybody who is trying to get sober or even if you're in early recovery and you're struggling with things i honestly think that you have to read this book like if an atheist can find spirituality and still be an atheist then it's something that you should definitely check into but even somebody out there like you who is not in recovery or you don't have an addiction you just struggle with anxiety or depression or other emotional issues or a traumatic past any of these things right spirituality is something that can help you out because like i said all it is is an inward investigation and sam harris is a very very very good job of talking about the pros and cons he talks about the different situations in which you should start meditating or if you have certain forms of mental illness like schizophrenia it may be best to talk to your psychiatrist first or psychologist first like he he does a very good job of talking about like the honest pros and cons he even points out some different gurus and people who have done the wrong things when it comes to getting gaining a spiritual following like he's just extremely honest and extremely transparent i love that in a book because you know the author isn't trying to push any type of agenda i feel by the time of in by the time i ended this book that sam harris legitimately all he wants to do is help people understand this and realize that this is something that is available to anybody and everybody the last quote from this book that i will share with you that hopefully sells you on picking this book up and checking out is this quote right here and he says confusion and suffering may be our birthright but wisdom and happiness are available and that is so true so i highly recommend that you check this book out again it's waking up by sam harris there is a link down in the description below as well as another link to my entire reading list which is over at the rewired soul.com so feel free to check it out but anyways if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you're new here i'm always making videos to help you out with your mental and emotional well-being i also do videos about addiction recovery so hit the little round subscribe button and if you got time click or tap on one of those thumbnails right there check out some of the other videos on this channel thanks for watching i'll see you next time