Amateur Russian translation of the book "Awakening. The path to spirituality without religion." Its author is Sam Harris, a famous American publicist, neuroscientist, popularizer of atheism. The book is written on the basis of Harris's PhD thesis in neurobiology and is dedicated to the phenomenon of the so-called “spiritual experience” or “spiritual enlightenment”. Until recently, the state of the absence of “I”, unconditional Only representatives of spiritual movements from Buddhism to New Age attempted to explain love and merging with the world. But what exactly is and “how does” enlightenment work? What neurophysiological processes underlie meditation? What does psychopharmacology have to do with it? What can such unusual states of consciousness tell us about its nature? Where is the sense of “I” located in the brain? Harris examines these questions using scientific research data and his own many years of experience in meditation practice.