I’m reading Waking up by Sam Harris and I’m not sure I understand the concept of self and illusion of self. Does that mean I’m not this thing inside my head that controls the body, but that I am in fact body and my brain and there’s nothing else?
Why is that important? How can meditation and ego death help with that?
Not a English native speaker but reading in English so I’m little confused.
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There’s two ideas; the first is that you can break down a lot of how people think into car parts, if you like, see the different functions, how they rely on outside things, and the other is that it’s possible to loose your sense of self, and distinction between “self and other”.
On the basis of the first, and buddhism, he argues that *if* it’s possible to feel two different ways about ourselves, if we can either have a sense of self and other or not, that we should choose second subjective position, because he thinks it corresponds better to reality.
He’s not the first person to argue that ego-death is a better or more accurate state of mind, and perception of reality, he is after all taking on a long buddhist tradition, he’s just using arguments from neurology that he believes corresponds more closely to the second position.
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