Douglas Harding had a strange experience when he was a young man. As he was hiking in the Himalayas, Harding had a moment he would later describe as of “no thought”, and where he perceived his body as having no head. In addition, he had a vision of his body as a house with a single window, but inside the house, there was nothing looking out at the world.
That nothingness is where Harding envisioned his consciousness resides.
Trippy, I thought. If that had happened to me, I might have been pretty freaked out.
Not necessarily so for Harding, who described the experience as incredibly peaceful and enlightening. When he came back from this experience, he applied his insight to various Eastern schools of philosophy, notably Zen.
The result is this book- a discussion of not only what happened to him, but an examination of consciousness itself. Where does consciousness reside? Where is the ‘me’ of our constant thoughts and emotions?
It’s somewhat of a winding path to get there, but Harding eventually points to the idea that consciousness is space in which reality is perceived.
When I first hopped into this book, I thought, how ridiculous. We all have heads attached to our necks. We can see them and feel them. Not only that, we can see and feel the heads of other people if we really wanted to.
Harding takes this idea of ‘seeing’ and ‘touch,’ and questions what it is that people actually perceive. Yes, he says, you can see your head in a mirror. But that is a reflection of your head and not the head itself.
Everybody says these constructs are the thing itself. However, as Harding points out, they’re not really, are they? If you look down your own face, you can usually ‘see’ your nose as a series of splotches and shapes. Is that your nose though, or just splotches?
And he goes on from there.
By the end of the book, I was nodding my head a little and felt like I could understand something of what he was saying. But now that I’m trying to write a portion of it down, it just sounds like nonsense.
Perhaps this is a book to be experienced rather than described. Rather, I might humbly suggest, like consciousness itself?
Recommended for spiritual seekers or anybody who enjoys pondering koans.
Thanks for reading!
- The Ballad of a Small Player: a Metaphysical Movie Review
- Otherwhere: A Field Guide to Nonphysical Reality for the Out-Of-Body Traveler by Kurt Leland
- Psychic Dreamwalking: Explorations at the Edge of Self by Michelle Belanger
- Archetypes on the Tree of Life: The Tarot as Pathwork by Madonna Compton
- The Goddess and the Shaman: The Art & Science of Magical Healing by J.A. Kent
The Help Desk Book Blog 